Recently, the news that Germany wants to achieve the photovoltaic target 15 years ahead of schedule has not gone away, which has injected another impetus into the development of the photovoltaic industry chain in the mainland.
To achieve the long-term goal of carbon neutrality, the photovoltaic industry has great potential, and the industry is entering a hot construction period. In this context, the huge market dividend provides a broad space for every player, and this feast has also attracted many enterprises to cross-border into the photovoltaic industry.
Jinyang New Energy (01121.HK), the slipper king who was once known as the "slippers intelligent maker", is also full of desire for photovoltaics, and officially joined the photovoltaic club in 2020.
The arrival of Jinyang New Energy has staged a hot case to the capital market: it will rise when it is "volt".
Since the announcement in late January 2021 that it has mastered the development technology of high-efficiency heterojunction (HIT) batteries, Jinyang New Energy's stock price has violently risen, soaring from a closing price of HK$0.8 the day before the announcement to HK$17.6, an increase of up to 22 times!
For a time, Jinyang New Energy changed from a non-existent immortal stock to a big bull stock, bringing a vivid case of "ugly duckling transforming into a white swan" to the market.
In the announcement, Jinyang New Energy said that the company has gradually transformed from a traditional manufacturing enterprise to a material technology company, and began to expand its business to environmental protection and energy-related fields. So, what has Jinyang New Energy experienced in these years?
Slippers are replaced by "running shoes"
Jinyang New Energy was originally named "Baofeng Fashion", this name, I believe that people who wear slippers that cost more than 100 yuan are not strangers.
Yes, the player who pulled the slippers industry into the industrial upgrading is Baofeng Fashion. Graphene antibacterial slippers, stretch cloth sandals, yoga mat flip-flops, etc., when you hear these names, do you feel very grand and tall? These are all upgraded slippers made by Baofeng fashion.
As early as 1999, Baofeng Fashion has been established in Quanzhou, the capital of the shoe that never sleeps. At the beginning of its birth, Baofeng Fashion mainly provided OEM production services for foreign-funded shoe factories, and was a local foreign exchange earner in Quanzhou.
But after all, Baofeng Fashion earns hard-earned money and has no right to speak in the shoe market. To this end, in 2007, Baofeng Fashion made the first transformation decision in the history of development: to shift its focus to its own brand product business and launch the Baoren brand.
Relying on nearly 20 years of shoemaking experience and research and development capabilities, Baofeng Fashion quickly stood at the top of the domestic footwear industry, not only drafted the national standard of the slippers industry, but also won the title of the largest slipper supplier in the country, becoming the "slipper king" who dominated the domestic market.
Later, Baofeng Fashion began to enter the graphene product market, launched graphene EVA foam materials, sterilization chips and graphene air sterilizers, etc., graphene slippers were born at this time.
However, although Baofeng Fashion continues to try to expand the layout of its own slippers brand and graphene products, from the perspective of revenue structure, Baofeng Fashion has not been able to tear off the label of "slipper foundry", and the proportion of revenue of its OEM business (that is, foundry business) has remained above 95% for many years.
Standing at the lowest end of the footwear industry, Baofeng Fashion is naturally difficult to bite a bite of "fat meat", and it can even be said that it is very fragile.
Around 2014, the vigorous development of the domestic and foreign e-commerce industry continued to impact traditional shoe manufacturers, and the weaknesses of Baofeng fashion were constantly exposed: customers reduced orders and delayed orders; since 2018, under the friction of international trade, some of the company's customers have turned orders to Southeast Asia and India, which has given the company a heavy blow.
Coupled with the rising cost of raw materials and the increasingly fierce competition in the footwear industry, Baofeng fashion days are becoming more and more difficult, not only can not earn money, but also suffer heavy losses.
As can be seen in the above figure, since 2013, Baofeng Fashion's revenue and net profit have both plummeted, and from 2014 to 2020, it has generated six consecutive losses, with a cumulative blood loss of 1.5 billion!
Such a report card, the capital market naturally can not raise interest, resulting in Baofeng Fashion stock price for a long time at a low level of shock, reduced to no one cares about the immortal stock. For the company's management, poor performance is not only impossible to account to investors, the company can not withstand such a toss.
Obviously, Baofeng Fashion can no longer wear "slippers" to chase dreams, it is time to change shoes.
From layman to PV connoisseur
The OEM business has not been able to revive its former glory for many years, and the private label and graphene product businesses have not been able to provoke the company's growth. More than 20 years of hard work is almost a failure, and it is indeed a bit hard to think about.
Choose to lie flat before you are in a difficult situation?
No matter how good you put on graphene slippers, you can't run out of rotten cloth shoes. Baofeng Fashion did not choose to lie flat, but "changed shoes" and opened the second transformation period. This transformation is the most powerful change in the history of Baofeng Fashion. Because it does not seek change, it can only be gradually submerged in the rolling tide of the times.
This time, Baofeng Fashion changed into "running shoes" and ran into the trillion-level blue ocean market of photovoltaics.
In fact, before the explosive news was disclosed to the market at the end of January 2021, Baofeng Fashion was already preparing for this transformation.
As early as 2016, Baofeng Fashion has begun to use its technical reserves in the field of graphene to carry out the application of the photovoltaic industry. But until now, the company's experimentation in this area has not made progress. It is reported that in 2017 and 2018, the market continued to discuss the new trend of "graphene is expected to help open up the new photovoltaic application market", but then the thunder and rain were small. Due to various factors such as cost, graphene failed to replace silicon materials as the "driving force" of the photovoltaic industry chain, so Baofeng Fashion's attempt to split the photovoltaic market with graphene technology ended without success.
However, Baofeng Fashion was not discouraged, but entered the field of single-cast silicon wafers, heterojunction cells and components through self-research, cooperative research and development and mergers and acquisitions.
Finally, the kung fu paid off, in September 2020, after just two years of hard work, Baofeng Fashion successfully manufactured single-cast silicon wafers with ingot casting technology. With the silicon wafer manufacturing technology, it also paved the foundation for Baofeng Fashion to open the door to photovoltaic cells and modules.
Since then, Baofeng Fashion has made a big splash, using the single cast silicon wafer to produce single cast HJT solar cells in 2021 and achieving an energy conversion efficiency of more than 24.0%. It is reported that the total cost of using such HIT cells is much lower than that of conventional HIT batteries produced by the current market using the lifting method monocrystalline silicon wafer, indicating that the company's HIT batteries will have a cost advantage in the market, which is conducive to improving the premium ability of the company's products.
In addition, in August 2021, Baofeng Fashion successfully developed a single crystal casting ingot flexible heterojunction solar module using the soft characteristics of monocrystalline ingot wafers. The component can be bent, lightweight and low installation cost, can be applied to the home awning and garden power supply system, business gas stations and parking lots, etc., the future may have a good future.
So far, it took only 4 years to master the technical capabilities of silicon wafers, photovoltaic cells and modules, and Baofeng Fashion successfully transformed from a "layman" into an expert in the photovoltaic market. For enterprises that have nothing to do with the photovoltaic market before, Baofeng Fashion is running quite fast on the road of transformation.
Why did Baofeng Fashion enter the photovoltaic club so quickly?
Caihua believes that there are two main points:
(1) The company has actually been precipitated in the field of material science and technology for many years. Especially in the field of graphene, the company's graphene slippers business can be described as "Sai Weng lost the horse, and it is not a blessing to know". It is in the field of graphene very early began to carry out exploration, including new energy technology, so that the company has a certain technical reserves and insights in the field of photovoltaics.
(2) The company has long had strongmen with new energy technology and experience to join. For example, Xu Zhi, executive director and chief technology officer of the company, is an expert in the field of semiconductor equipment and process and solar energy technology, and received a doctorate degree in materials science and engineering from Stanford University. Xu Zhi began to serve as the company's technical consultant in 2015 and led the R&D team to conduct material technology research and development since 2017.
In order to cooperate with the transformation, Baofeng Fashion officially changed its name to "Jinyang New Energy" (hereinafter referred to as "Jinyang New Energy") in August last year, which shows that the company's determination to transform into new energy has been determined.
The harvest period is approaching, and orders for photovoltaic products bring dawn
At present, there are many players in the upstream and midstream markets of the photovoltaic industry chain, and leading enterprises such as LONGi, Tongwei and Jinko are quickly embarking on an integrated layout.
This huge blue ocean market with policy support is enough to accommodate traditional leading enterprises and powerful new players. Moreover, the photovoltaic industry itself is relatively scattered, there is no absolute leader, and it will be a situation in which the princes are divided and the crowds are chasing deer in the long run.
New players may not have an advantage in yield and manufacturing costs in the short term, but they have updated technology and flexibility, and there is a chance to overtake in curves.
Jinyang New Energy, which has taken root at the technical level, the next goal is how to engage in production and attract customers.
In these two aspects, Jinyang New Energy's progress is also very rapid, and people can't help but exclaim: after putting on the "running shoes", it is really more and more smooth!
Capacity side: In the first half of 2021, the company started production at its first single-cast silicon wafer production facility in Xuzhou, Jinyang, and obtained an income of 500,000 yuan. The income is not high, only enough for the down payment of commercial housing in domestic second-tier cities, but it shows that the company's secondary transformation has begun to enter the harvest period;
In addition, in January 2021, the company acquired a second-hand ingot furnace from GCL-Poly, which plans to complete the transformation in the second half of 2021 and enter the commercial mass production stage, with an estimated annualized production capacity of 7GW of single-cast silicon wafers;
In October 2021, the company signed an investment agreement with the Xuzhou Economic and Technological Development Zone Management Committee to invest in a 20GW large-size silicon wafer project and obtained a subsidy of 400 million yuan from the local government;
In terms of batteries, in March 2021, the company cooperated with Junshi Energy to use one of the latter's factories in Putian City and a 500MW high-efficiency heterojunction solar cell production line.
Order side: Although the production capacity is still in the early stage of construction, Jinyang New Energy has already harvested many orders in advance.
In June 2021, the company signed an agreement with Runyang New Energy to supply 200 million single-cast silicon wafers to the latter by June 8 this year;
In the same month, the company signed an agreement with Taiyi Photovoltaic and Panda Photovoltaic to supply no less than 100 million single-cast silicon wafers to the latter two. According to the company's announcement, the price of the ordered products is about 30% lower than the market price;
In the first half of 2021, the company completed the order for photovoltaic modules for single-cast HJT solar cells to build a comprehensive demonstration charging station for new energy vehicles in the State Grid.
In summary, it can be seen that Jinyang New Energy's wafer and battery production capacity is in a period of rapid expansion, some silicon wafers have achieved mass production and begun to supply, and the wafer production capacity by the end of 2021 is expected to reach 7GW. If the Xuzhou 20GW large-size silicon wafer project is completed and put into production, the company will successfully rank among the forefront of domestic monocrystalline silicon wafer production capacity and become another leading silicon wafer enterprise in China.
In terms of orders, benefiting from the high cost performance of products, Jinyang New Energy has successively received orders, and orders are expected to continue to increase in the future with the improvement of production capacity.
Summary: From the "slipper king" to the "new photovoltaic force", Jinyang New Energy has successfully achieved metamorphosis, begun to emerge in the photovoltaic market, and also ushered in the second spring of the company's development.
In the future, fierce market competition and strong market demand coexist, whether Jinyang New Energy can rely on the technical advantages and cost advantages of its photovoltaic products to split the new growth curve, there may be a lot of imagination.
Author: Distant