Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Wang Ting
Wingtech Technology and OFILM Image source: Visual China
On March 12, 2021, OFILM was notified by Apple to terminate the cooperation. One year later, Wingtech Technology has succeeded OFILM.
On the evening of March 10, Wingtech Technology issued an announcement that the recent smart home projects cooperated with specific overseas customers began mass production and achieved normal shipments, and the total amount of project cooperation is expected to be about 5 billion yuan. According to China Securities News, the "overseas specific customers" in the announcement refer to Apple.
Times Finance noted that on the same day, Wingtech Technology Jiaxing and Kunming factories opened large-scale spring recruitment, and more than 200 jobs were opened to fresh graduates. Employees of wingtech technology's personnel department told Times Finance that the company's current OEM brands include Apple.
Smart homes have always been a weak business segment for Apple. Xiang Ligang, a communications observer, told Times Finance that at present, it is unlikely that Apple will make smart homes bigger in China, but there are still market opportunities in other parts of the world.
On March 11, Wingtech Technology rose as high as 2.25% in morning trading, closing at 109.45 yuan / share, up 1.06%. At the close of trading on March 11, US time, Apple's stock price fell 2.39% in the face of a decline in the global stock market.
With the acquisition of Guangzhou Delta, Wingtech Technology is busy recruiting
Wingtech Technology started with the smartphone ODM business, Xiaomi, OPPO, Huawei, Lenovo, Samsung, etc. are its customers. The roots of Wingtech's ability to enter Apple's supply chain are Guangzhou Delta Imaging Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou Delta").
Times Finance learned that Guangzhou Delta is a supplier of Apple camera modules, which was acquired by OFILM in 2017, which entered the Apple supply chain. In 2019, 22.51% of OFILM's revenue came from Apple.
In March 2021, OFILM received a notice from Apple to terminate the cooperation, and half a month later, it signed an agreement with Wingtech Technology to sell 100% of the equity of Guangzhou Delta. At the same time, Wingtech Technology signed another agreement with OFILM and Jiangxi Jingrun Optics Co., Ltd. to acquire business assets related to the supply of cameras to specific overseas customers, with a total transaction price of 2.42 billion yuan.
According to the announcement of Wingtech Technology, as of the beginning of November last year, the operating assets purchased by the company from Jiangxi Jingrun have completed equipment commissioning, the trial production line has been put into use and achieved output, and the company has determined the mass production plan with specific overseas customers.
In the above-mentioned announcement on March 10, Wingtech Technology mentioned that the company's product integration business has carried out a number of business cooperation and signed cooperation agreements with specific overseas customers such as computers and smart homes, and smart home is the first cooperation project.
Correspondingly, Wingtech Technology has increased its recruitment efforts. Times Finance learned that in the second half of last year, Wingtech Technology's Jiaxing, Wuxi, Kunming and other factories opened official short video accounts, mainly releasing recruitment videos, and repeatedly declaring "a large number of recruitment".
School recruitment is also underway. In August last year, after becoming a subsidiary of Wingtech Technology, Guangzhou Delta opened the 2022 school recruitment, research and development, production, quality, function and many other types of positions at the same time to recruit new. In March this year, more than 200 positions of Wingtech Technology began spring recruitment.
Wingtech Technology Spring Recruitment Poster Source: Screenshot of Wingtech Technology's official public account
An assembly line worker in the Kunming factory of Wingtech Technology said that the workshop is OPPO and vivo OEM, and other workshops do have Apple products. The recruitment brochure also shows that in the fields of mobile phones, servers, laptops, tablets, IoT and other fields, the company has established cooperative relations with more than 90% of mainstream mobile phone brands.
It is worth mentioning that in 2019, Wingtech Technology completed the acquisition of global semiconductor giant Nexperia, whose customers also include Apple.
Apple does smart home? Expert: This is the megatrend
Before the transaction with OFILM, Wingtech Technology has not been involved in smart homes, and Apple's previous smart home business has developed slowly, even Apple mobile phone users may not have used its smart home system HomeKit.
According to the financial report, in 2020, of the total revenue of Wingtech Technology of 51.707 billion yuan, mobile phone and accessories revenue accounted for 80.58%, semiconductors accounted for 18.65%, and did not mention the income of smart home products.
Xiang Ligang accepted times finance and said that the previous fruit chain enterprises mainly do mobile phones and computers, and now Wingtech Technology is developing in the field of smart homes, which is very valuable, although 5 billion yuan is not a large order.
Wingtech Technology also mentioned in the announcement that due to factors such as the overall market environment and customer product demand, the actual supply quantity of the company to specific customers may have the risk of adjustment.
Liang Zhenpeng, a senior home appliance/IT/Internet industry analyst, said in an interview with Times Finance that the development of smart homes is a major trend of technology companies, and domestic Midea, Gree, and foreign Microsoft and Google are doing it, but the angle of entry is different. Because the smart home coverage is very wide, it can make the computer, mobile phone, home appliance, home furnishing industries blend with each other, and expand the industrial scope of technology companies.
Times Finance learned that in 2014, Apple released HomeKit, and a year later officially announced the first batch of intelligent hardware that supported the system. To date, Apple has not yet listed a separate household product sales figure in its earnings report, nor has it announced the number of HomeKit users.
The home business appeared in the financial report along with wearable devices and accessories, and as of the first quarter of fiscal 2022 on December 25, 2021, Apple's net sales of wearable devices, home furnishings and accessories were $14.701 billion, accounting for about 12% of the total net sales.
Apple's official website home column shows that the smart hardware that supports HomeKit is mainly concentrated in security, lighting and other systems, and compared with the smart home ecology of Huawei and Xiaomi, it lacks the hardware of smart home appliance systems, audio-visual entertainment systems, and water intelligent control systems.
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC) report, in the third quarter of 2021, the global smart home device market increased by 10.3% year-on-year, with device shipments exceeding 220 million units.