Focus analysis丨 Strong enemies around the "Goldwind Technology", ten years of "first" throne instability

Author 丨 Qiu Xiaofen

Edited by Su Jianxun

As a representative of clean energy, "wind power" has always been a field of attention in China.

A landmark event in last year's wind power industry was the announcement of the launch of the domestic wind turbine sales market by Siemens Gamesa , a company that at its peak, had monopolized 15% of the world's wind power market, and two other foreign brands firmly grasped half of the domestic wind turbines.

The withdrawal of this veteran company from the table is actually expected, and the domestic wind power industry has long entered the stage of domestic manufacturers competing for dominance, which is more obvious after the double carbon.

The wind power industry is one of the industries that have directly benefited from the goal of "carbon peaking and carbon neutrality", and in addition to the vitality of the industry, a fierce competition around the first throne of wind power has already begun.

In the ranking of domestic wind power manufacturers, Xinjiang Goldwind Technology has been sitting on the "first" throne for ten consecutive years, but now, more manufacturers have launched an attack.

The data shows that Goldwind's market share has declined to a certain extent in the past two years, from 30% in 2019 to 23% in 2020, and the expected market share in 2021 is only 21%.

From the financial report, you can see a hint. In the first half of 2021, Goldwind's revenue was 18 billion yuan, and the grand situation remained the same, although it was also the highest revenue data of domestic wind turbine manufacturers, it fell by 7.8% year-on-year - this is also the first decline in the past four years.

Goldwind's declining market share is being cannibalized by other rivals who have adopted more aggressive strategies.

2021 is the last year of offshore wind power subsidies, an already prosperous industry, hit the countdown to subsidy policies, and last year's wind power industry emerged a wave of rushing.

The data shows that the installed capacity of offshore wind power in 2021 is almost twice as large as before. In stark contrast to Goldwind, several listed companies of domestic wind power manufacturers have increased their revenue data to varying degrees.

Taking the first half of last year as an example, the revenue of Guangdong wind power company Mingyang Intelligent increased by 34% year-on-year, and the net profit doubled; Shanghai Electric's revenue increased by 18% year-on-year despite hitting the black swan event of "private network communication"; and there are many more: the revenue and net profit of electric wind power increased by 120% year-on-year, the net profit of Yuanda shares increased by 340%, and the revenue of Dongfang Electric increased by 28%.

Among the domestic wind turbine manufacturers, Envision Energy, ranked second, cannot glimpse financial data because it is not a listed company. However, public data shows that the new installed capacity of Envision Energy is only 2.2 million kilowatts less than that of Goldwind in 2020, and the market share gap is also narrowing.

Founded 20 years ago, Goldwind landed on both the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange in 2007, and the wind power companies that achieved "A+H" listing have firmly controlled 1/3 of the domestic wind power machine orders in the past decade. But under the sharp changes in the wind power market in the past two years, the company is surrounded by fierce rivals.

The pros and cons of the word "stability"

In 2021, Goldwind's operating income declined, and the performance of other wind power manufacturers exploded, mainly because Goldwind did not participate in last year's "price war", resulting in the loss of many projects.

Rejecting the price war, Goldwind's decision-making is not unreasonable. The last round of rush installation in the wind power industry occurred in the second half of 2018, due to the need to build wind turbines and land before the onshore wind power subsidies stopped in 2020, and onshore wind power also experienced a surge in bidding volumes.

History repeats, in order to get subsidies as soon as possible, at that time the wind power manufacturers set off a wave of no small price war, Goldwind Technology is no exception, but repeatedly set new low bidding prices, signed a large order exceeded the bearability of Goldwind Technology.

To digest orders at low prices, and coinciding with the price increase of rare earth and other fan raw materials, Goldwind's overall profit margin was suppressed at that time, which led to Goldwind's gross profit margin falling sharply to 13% from 2019 - which is almost the lowest data in the past five years.

Under the thankless effort, in 2021, Goldwind raised its gross profit margin target to 18%, in order to achieve this profit margin, Goldwind did not continue to participate in the price hand-to-hand combat of the second echelon in this round of offshore wind power last year.

This choice of Goldwind Technology has allowed the second echelon and third echelons including Yunda Shares, CRRC and Sany Heavy Energy to win many large-scale bidding projects. Last year's most ferocious price war player was Sany Heavy Energy, and it was announced not long ago that it would take three years to become the boss of the wind power machine.

If you want to summarize the style of Goldwind, a veteran wind power company, "stable" is the most suitable word. And this has become a philosophy of survival - as early as ten years ago, Goldwind technology is relying on steady and steady, grasping product quality, and truly sitting on the championship throne.

Nowadays, in the face of fierce opponents, the "steady word trick" seems to have advantages and disadvantages.

The opponent is fierce

The opponents are fierce, and each family's killer skills have their own characteristics.

Mingyang Intelligence is one of the earliest manufacturers in China to lay out semi-direct drive route fans, and the sword refers to large megawatt fans - and Goldwind Technology has always insisted on the direct drive route.

Semi-direct drive route in fact combined with the "traditional direct drive" and "doubly fed" two technical routes of the advantages, especially at the moment, large wind turbines, large megawatts is already an undoubted trend in the wind power industry, semi-direct drive route compared to the direct drive route, can reduce the weight and size of the fan generator to a greater extent, the fan to make larger, power stronger; and compared to the doubly fed route, in the offshore wind power scenario, semi-direct drive does not need too high maintenance costs.

In the case of seizing the technical route, Mingyang Intelligent has developed rapidly on large megawatt fans, and 8MW, 10MW, 11MW large fans have been released successively.

Envision Energy, the second-ranked wind turbine manufacturer in China, intends to surpass other aspects beyond the wind turbine. In addition to wind power, Envision Energy has continued to lay out digital operation technology, energy storage technology, and power battery technology, and has opened up more revenue models in addition to sales of wind turbines by laying out a complete technical chain reserve.

This kind of thinking is also enough to inspire industry players. At the same time, Mingyang Intelligent also recently laid out the energy storage business in an intensive manner, spending 190 million yuan to acquire the head enterprise of energy storage batteries and expand the business chain.

In addition to the two strong competitors of Yuanjing and Mingyang, for other second-tier players, as onshore wind power gradually becomes saturated, the offshore wind market has become a new battlefield for overtaking in curves. In this field, Shanghai Electric and Envision Energy have surpassed the market share of Goldwind.

Goldwind can't sit still.

In terms of products, Goldwind is still continuing to adjust the order structure, for example, since last year, the proportion of small fans with 2.5S (power) and below has continued to decline, and the proportion of large fans has increased to about 40% - and this proportion was previously only 1/10 of Goldwind's shipments.

In addition, starting from 2021, Goldwind is also catching up on the semi-direct drive technology route, and the direct drive technology route that has been adhered to for 20 years has been loosened since last year; and in terms of offshore wind power, Goldwind is also speeding up its pace, cooperating with industry partners to build factories to break through offshore wind turbine research and development and cultivate industrial clusters.

In the past two decades, the position of the first wind power plant in China has been changing. At the earliest, the three foreign giants of GE, Siemens and Vestas ate half of the country in China; to Huarui Wind Power, which has always been known for its "boldness", in 2008, it relied on the strategy of speed and low price to seize the market and surpassed Goldwind to sit on the throne of the first place; and then to Goldwind Technology with the mentality of "re-entrepreneurship", steadily growing from a registered capital of 3 million yuan to a giant with a market value of 40 billion yuan, and sitting firmly in the domestic wind power for ten years.

In the future, the first echelon and the second echelon of wind power are still eyeing the tiger. The shift to semi-direct drive routes, rush to install offshore wind power, and reserve technology chains are basically the consensus of several major domestic wind power manufacturers. After the decline of both offshore wind power and onshore wind power subsidies, in the era of wind power parity, Goldwind's original quality advantages and brand advantages have been gradually leveled, and it is difficult to become a tough point of difference.

Goldwind is time to think about the next moat.

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