In recent years, various high-quality AirPods have been flooded on major online shopping platforms, and sales have been hot. Slogans such as "Genuine 1:1", "Official Top Match", "Truly Realize All Functions of the Original Version" make consumers confused.
In 2020, Apple's AirPods sold about 100 million units, and in the TWS headset industry, white-label TWS headset sales accounted for as much as 49%, far exceeding the sales of genuine AirPods. As the upstream master chip manufacturer of white-label TWS headphones, to help white-brand AirPods counterattack as king, there is a chip for high-imitation headphones here.
On January 13, Zhongke Blue News officially passed the IPO meeting of the Science and Technology Innovation Board, which is also the fourth successful company in 2022.
Zhongke Blue News is a company specializing in the research and development, design and sales of wireless audio SoC (system-level chip) chips, the main products include TWS (true wireless stereo) Bluetooth headset chips, non-TWS Bluetooth headset chips, Bluetooth speaker chips, etc., the products are used in TWS Bluetooth headsets, neck-mounted headphones, headsets, Bluetooth speakers, car Bluetooth audio, and other wireless audio terminals.
In fact, Zhongke Lanxun is a chip design company that has just completed five years of establishment. With the best-selling of small wireless Bluetooth headsets and smart speakers, the company completed the cumulative shipment of more than 1 billion chips in just three years, and submitted a listing prospectus to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in May 2021.
Since the advent of Apple's AirPods (wireless Bluetooth headsets), a variety of high-imitation products have appeared in the headphone market, and the price ranges from tens of yuan to hundreds of yuan. Compared with genuine brands, unbranded products are called white-label goods, and high imitation is the most significant feature of white-label products. According to statistics, in 2020, white-label TWS headphones accounted for 49% of the industry's sales, far exceeding the sales of genuine AirPods. From the perspective of an e-commerce platform, there are even stores with high-imitation headphone sales of more than 100,000+.
As the upstream master control chip manufacturer of white-label TWS headphones, Zhongke Blue News has helped many "pirated" white-brand AirPods by providing main control SOC chips for white-label TWS headphones.
In this regard, Zhongke Blue News also said in the prospectus that the end customers of the company's wireless audio SoC chips during the reporting period were mainly white-label manufacturers; the chip sales revenue applied to terminal white-label manufacturers accounted for more than 90% of the main business income in each period, and the chip sales revenue applied to terminal brand manufacturers accounted for a relatively low proportion. In 2020, the revenue of Zhongke Blue News was 927 million yuan.
In addition, the company's consolidated gross profit margin during the reporting period was 17.21%, 28.56%, 26.70% and 26.28%, respectively, which was lower than the average gross profit margin of 35.71%, 35.71%, 32.60% and 35.72% of comparable companies in the same industry. This also means that the company sells and sells goods at small profits through the way of "volume", not only soaring in performance, but also successfully embarking on the road of IPO.
Echoing the company's low gross profit margin, the R&D expenses of Zhongke Lanxun were 11.1317 million yuan, 29.9627 million yuan, 51.1887 million yuan and 38.6776 million yuan from 2018 to the first half of 2021, accounting for 13.19%, 4.64%, 5.22% and 6.47% of the revenue, respectively. Although the gross profit margin as a proportion of revenue meets the conditions for listing on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, the "double low" gross profit margin and research and development expenses of Zhongke Blue News can easily make people worry about whether the company's core technology is competitive in the market.
The actual controller of Zhongke Blue News is the Huang Zhiqiang family, and unlike many highly educated owners of science and technology listed companies, Huang Zhiqiang, who has a high school education, starts from a grass-roots technician and becomes a technical director and then serves as the director of the company. Until 2016, he served as the person in charge of Zhongke Blue News, and later became the general manager and actual controller of the company, and currently holds 35.16% of the equity of Zhongke Blue News.
Judging from the breakdown of the top five shareholders, in addition to Huang Zhiqiang and Zhuhai Blue News, a company called Chuangyuan Century has attracted investors' attention. Up to now, Chuangyuan Century is the fourth largest shareholder of Zhongke Lanxun, holding 13.5614 million shares of Zhongke Lanxun, accounting for 15.07% of the shareholding ratio. The partners of Chuangyuan Century are all huang Zhiqiang's family members.
The company plans to raise 1.596 billion yuan in the listing, because the company has not yet announced the issue price of the shares. According to the calculation of the raised funds, after the successful listing of Zhongke Lanxun, the actual controller's family wealth will exceed 600 million yuan.
(Author 丨Shijie Zhou Yihang Editor 丨Liao Ying)