Recently, Wuxi Baotong Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as "Baotong Technology", stock code: 300031) has made another move in the meta-universe.
On January 12, the official public account of Baotong Technology released the news that Hainan Yuan Universe Technology Co., Ltd., a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company, completed another capital increase in Beijing Hashiqi Technology Co., Ltd. on January 11. After the capital increase, Baotong Technology Company and its related entities hold a total of 43.61% of the shares of Hashiqi, becoming the largest shareholder of Hashiqi. But after the news was released, on January 12 and 13, the company's stock price fell for two consecutive days, falling by more than 1%, and investors did not seem to buy it.
As a number of listed companies have been questioned by exchanges for deliberately creating hot spots and gimmicks, the capital market has gradually returned to rationality for matters related to the metacosm. At this time, the frequent action of Baotong Technology is also rubbing hot spots?
Mobile games, intelligent delivery and meta-universe
For the meta-universe, the annual hot word in 2021, Baotong Technology has been following up quickly.
Hainan Yuan Universe Technology Co., Ltd., which is involved in this capital increase, was established by Baotong Technology in June 2021, and was increased by 50 million yuan in September of that year, and the establishment time was not yet one year old. According to Baotong Technology, the subsidiary mainly carries out investment layout in emerging industries, focusing on the layout of AR/VR/MR, robots, sensors, new energy mining cards, high-end equipment and other fields. At present, there is no official website, telephone, mailbox and other information of Hainan Yuan Universe on the enterprise inspection and the sky eye inspection. In addition to Hashiqi, Hainan Yuan Universe has also invested in two companies, Pingtan Huitong Venture Capital Partnership (Limited Partnership), the former was established in April 2021, and the latter was established in October 2021, neither of which was established for one year.
Hashiqi is also an AR/VR content development and solution provider, and its games such as "Lop Nur Zombie" and "Fantasy Skiing" have won the first place in the paid list. According to the financial report data, as early as 2016, Baotong Technology, as a strategic investor, invested 7 million yuan in Hashichi with its own funds, with a shareholding ratio of about 12.73%. At that time, Baotong Technology believed that the capital increase of Hashiqi could promote the company's strategic layout in the VR field, which was an extension of the existing game publishing and operation business, and helped to form cooperation and positive interaction with the existing business.
It is understood that the predecessor of Baotong Technology is engaged in the production and manufacture of conveyor belts. The company began to seek transformation in 2015, through the acquisition of a game company - Guangzhou Yifan Network Technology Co., Ltd., 70% of its equity, officially cut into the mobile Internet game industry overseas distribution and operation business. According to the financial report data, in 2015, conveyor belt manufacturing accounted for 100% of revenue, and in 2016, mobile game agency operations replaced it as the main source of revenue, accounting for 68.58% of revenue. At the same time, in 2016, the company's overall operating income increased by 211.74% year-on-year, and the transformation effect was obvious. After the company and Yifan Network consolidated the statements, in 2016, the company achieved a net profit attributable to the mother of about 140 million yuan, an increase of 106.05% year-on-year. Since then, the company's net profit has always remained above 200 million yuan, and in the first three quarters of 2021, it has achieved a net profit of about 333 million yuan.
(Baotong Technology net profit changes, image source: Qichacha)
Since the transformation, the company proposed to develop the dual main business pattern of "mobile Internet + industrial Internet". A brokerage analyst told reporters: "Baotong Technology's mobile Internet business actually refers to the mobile game business, which is just a name. In addition to serving mines and steel industries, the industrial Internet business is the intelligent transportation of industrial materials. The reporter checked the company's 2021 semi-annual report and found that the company's operating income mainly comes from mobile game operation products, intelligent transportation digital products and intelligent transportation system services, which account for 60.70%, 32.62% and 6.68% of the current operating income respectively.
The mobile game business is still the company's main source of income, and it is not difficult to understand this time. During the interview, the reporter also found that Baotong Technology has higher expectations for Hashiqi. A relevant person from Baotong Technology told reporters: "Hashiqi has not only been deeply engaged in the game field for many years, but also completed a number of commercial scenario applications in the industrial field, such as intelligent transportation of mines, unmanned mining cards, underground safety training and other digital scene construction of smart mines, smart ports, and smart factories." At the same time, the company is also actively reserving the key 'cloud technology' in cloud games, and has cooperated with The Game Development Team to develop a number of game DEMOs to achieve adaptation to AR/VR/XR terminals. We will also effectively enlarge and operate game resources and industrial Internet resources in Hasik. ”
On the company's official public account, Baotong Technology stated: "After becoming the chairman of the Wuxi Meta-Universe Innovation Alliance, this capital increase is the first layout of Baotong Technology in the meta-universe business field in 2022. The analyst mentioned above told reporters: "If the company's dual main business pattern is in line with the metacosm, it is somewhat abstract, but it is indeed related from the perspective of the technology used." ”
Rubbing hot spots or long-term layouts?
With the continuous popularity of the concept of meta-universe, a number of listed companies have received inquiry letters from the two major exchanges in Shanghai and Shenzhen for suspected hot spots. In 2020, Baotong Technology received a letter of concern from the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, asking the company to explain whether there was a situation of hot speculation on stock prices.
According to the announcement, in July 2020, Hashiqi published an article titled "Hashiqi holds hands with Huawei, Douyin deeply lays out the AR/VR industry" on the third-party media platform, and then baotong technology's external publicity personnel reprinted the third-party media report and published it on the company's WeChat public account. The title of the article released by the company on the corporate public account is "Its Hashiqi joins hands with Huawei, Douyin to deeply lay out the AR/VR industry", and the content of the article also mentions that "Recently, Hashiqi has reached an exclusive agency cooperation with ByteDance (Douyin) to customize AR games for Douyin exclusively, and a number of games are under negotiation." Players are about to see the AR game developed by Hashiqi on the Douyin platform. ”
And on July 28, 2020, investors inquired about the progress of the company's product Fantasy Ski 3 game on the interactive platform, and the company said in its reply that "Hashiqi continues to deeply lay out the AR/VR industry with Huawei, Douyin and other platforms". On July 28 and 29, the company's stock price rose by 10% and 9.99% respectively, and two stop-and-go boards were harvested.
But soon, Douyin officials said that Hashiqi violated the confidentiality agreement and exaggerated the disclosure of the so-called "exclusive cooperation with ByteDance in a number of AR games". ByteDance and Douyin decided to cancel all the cooperation they had already reached with Hashiqi. On July 30, Baotong Technology's stock price fell to a halt at the opening of the market, falling by 10.01%, staging the double day of ice and fire overnight.
The Shenzhen Stock Exchange issued a letter of concern, asking the company to explain whether it planned and participated in The Company's publication on third-party media platforms, and whether it catered to market hotspots and used media reports to speculate on stock prices.
Baotong Technology has denied questions about catering to market hotspots and using media reports to hype stock prices. However, the company also admitted that when it made the report, it did not know the specific terms of the agreement between Hashiqi and the partners, and the report was inaccurate and rigorous. For the staff's statement on the interactive platform, the company said that the staff lacked sensitivity to relevant information and failed to prompt the risk in time. Affected by this, many of the company's executives were criticized for education.
Recently, the company has reported that it may cooperate with Huawei, and this time the company is much more cautious. According to market news, at the inaugural meeting of the Wuxi Meta-Universe Innovation Alliance held on January 11, 2022, Baotong Technology and Huawei signed a memorandum of cooperation to cooperate in the construction of smart mines and the application of industrial Internet scenarios of naked-eye 3D technology. However, Baotong Technology changed its previous style and did not mention this matter on the official public account. Investors explicitly asked the company on the interactive platform: "Is the news that the company and Huawei are cooperating in AR/VR true?" Will there be more cooperation with Huawei in virtual reality in the future? After making a positive reply, Baotong Technology deleted the original reply content and revised it again: "Dear investors, hello, thank you for your attention and support to Baotong Technology!" ”
(Source: Oriental Fortune Network)
The reporter asked about the company's cooperation with Huawei through email, but did not get more reply from the company. Huawei has also not publicly responded to the matter.
The economic observation network reporter sent a letter to Baotong Technology, asking whether the company's layout of the meta-universe is suspected of rubbing hot spots? The company did not comment on this, but replied: "Recently, everyone may have paid more attention to the metaverse, we think this track is full of imagination space, and we have also made a very early layout in the field of virtual reality." As an enterprise, we pay more attention to the digital business scenario and ecology, and the application and coordinated development of related technologies in the industrial Internet and mobile Internet services. The company has successively invested in Hashiqi, a corner of a thousand elephants and the establishment of Hainan Yuan Universe Company. For forward-looking technologies and tracks such as virtual reality, the company has always been firmly confident in long-term layout. ”