The AI track is in full swing, and the performance of related companies has attracted much attention.
On July 10, iFLYTEK (002230.SZ), an AI leader, released a performance forecast for the first half of the year, and is expected to achieve a net profit attributable to the parent of 55 million yuan to 80 million yuan, down 71%-80% year-on-year; The net loss after deduction is expected to be 270 million yuan to 330 million yuan.
Although this is a declining earnings forecast, iFLYTEK's financial situation has improved compared with the loss in the first quarter.
On July 11, the market also gave positive feedback on this forecast, and iFLYTEK's share price opened higher, up nearly 5% as of the close.
AI concept stock Wondershare Technology (300624.SZ) also launched a half-year report forecast on the same day, and is expected to achieve a net profit of 35 million yuan to 52 million yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 199.23% to 344.57%. On the 11th, Wondershare Technology's stock price closed up 1.62%.
From the explanations of the changes in performance of the two companies, they both mentioned the role of AI products.
Wondershare Technology said that the company fully embraces AIGC, actively explores and develops new technologies, and accelerates the optimization and addition of product AI functions and the landing and development of AIGC new products; iFLYTEK said that under the premise of fully increasing the investment in the research and development of the "iFLYTEK Spark Cognitive Big Model", the company still achieved positive growth in revenue, gross profit and cash flow in the second quarter, and achieved positive net profit attributable to the parent company, non-net profit and cash flow.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter noted that although there are doubts about the commercialization of AIGC in the market, it still pays full attention to this track.
At 8 p.m. on July 10, iFLYTEK held an online investor research meeting on the half-year performance forecast, attracting about 900 participants, who paid special attention to the progress of the Spark model and the company's growth goals.
Performance was better than expected
As a domestic enterprise focusing on voice technology research and development, iFLYTEK is a star enterprise in this round of AI boom. However, in the first quarter of this year, the company's performance was not satisfactory.
In the first quarter of 2023, the company achieved operating income of 2.888 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 17.64%; The net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company was 57.9 million yuan, compared with 110 million yuan in the same period of the previous year, and the loss of non-net profit was 338.1 million yuan, compared with 145.9 million yuan in the same period last year.
iFLYTEK's first-quarter performance stalled, which once triggered heated discussions in the market. However, at that time, the company said that it expected positive growth in the second quarter.
Compared with the first quarter, iFLYTEK's performance in the second quarter improved significantly. According to the forecast of the half-year report released so far, the company's net profit in the second quarter was about 110 million yuan to 140 million yuan, a great improvement from the previous quarter.
As for the reasons for the change in performance, iFLYTEK explained that in the first quarter, after being included in the entity list, the company increased the comprehensive autonomy and control of the core technology research and product development platform, and made corresponding adjustments from the supply chain to the signing of relevant contracts, so it caused phased difficulties in product supply and market sales.
However, now the company "has stepped out of the phased impact and re-entered the benign development track," iFLYTEK said. The company also came to a wave of "hard broad" for the previously released "iFLYTEK Spark Cognitive Big Model" in the preview: it said that it had formulated a clear plan to benchmark ChatGPT.
The forecast released by Wondershare Technology on the same day shows that the net profit in the first half of the year was 35 million yuan - 52 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 199.23% - 344.57%; The non-net profit was 27 million yuan to 40 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1302.82% to 1978.25%. The company also talked about the catalytic role of AI.
Wondershare Technology said that the company's operating income in the first half of the year maintained rapid growth, a year-on-year increase of more than 30%, while net profit and non-net profit increased significantly, mainly due to the company's acceleration of product AI function optimization, new additions and the landing and development of AIGC new products during the reporting period.
However, for the profit contribution of specific products, Wondershare Technology said that it cannot be disclosed for the time being based on the information disclosure rules.
Public information shows that Wondershare Technology is mainly engaged in digital creative software and focuses on AI application tracks. Last year, the company released the AI painting product Wondershare Aihua, which can realize the automatic generation of painting works by AI. Recently released "Wondershare Broadcast Explosion", providing AI digital human customization services, entering keywords to generate real person marketing videos.
Commercialization becomes the focus
It is worth noting that on the night of the release of the performance forecast, iFLYTEK quickly organized a wave of online research meetings. According to the research record, 900 people poured into the conference, showing the market's interest in the company.
The records show that the survey focused on the commercial time of the iFLYTEK Spark model, the promotion effect on the company's business, and the competitive advantage, especially the issue of commercialization was mentioned many times.
In answering the commercial question, the senior executives of iFLYTEK did not give a clear timetable, but only said that they believed that as long as they adhere to the requirements of the regulatory authorities, actively and steadily promote the technical research of large models, and effectively prevent the risks of generative artificial intelligence, iFLYTEK Xinghuo cognitive large models can be fully opened for commercial use, and they are confident that they will become the first batch of manufacturers.
When talking about the role of promoting the company's business, the company said that the Spark cognitive large model has led to the increase in sales of the company's existing consumer hardware products such as learning and office. After the release of the iFLYTEK Xinghuo cognitive large model, from May to June 2023, the GMV of the company's C-end hardware reached a record high, doubling year-on-year. Taking learning machines as an example, from May to June, the GMV of learning machines after the blessing of large models increased by 136% and 217% year-on-year, respectively.
For future expectations, iFLYTEK also has high hopes for the large model, and said that it will be "all in" in the second half of the year.
Liu Qingfeng, chairman of the company, said at the 2022 annual report performance briefing of iFLYTEK that the artificial intelligence industry opportunities brought by large models are "saturated with investment in key directions and will not be soft".
According to the latest news, in addition to the research institute concentrated its superior forces on large models, all business teams of consumers, education, medical care, smart city, smart cars, operators, and financial technology are currently improving the competitiveness of existing products based on the Spark model, and more than half of the R&D investment is strongly related to the Spark model, and will continue to increase R&D investment in the second half of the year.
At present, the domestic AI market has entered the "100-model war", and how to commercialize has always been the focus of the industry.
At the previous 2023 World Artificial Intelligence Conference, there were a number of topics that may be encountered in the commercialization of large models.
Wu Taibing, chairman of Wondershare Technology, also said in a recent public speech that AI may be able to make people's lives more convenient. But no big model can solve all problems, not even Wondershare's AIGC. In his view, large models may bring questions such as the larger digital divide, the integration of multiple models, data security and privacy, how to achieve personalization and customization, and the social and ethical responsibilities that may be involved.
An industry chain company that provides computing power services told reporters, "At present, the core problem facing the development of large models is whether the first is enough data, the second is whether there is enough computing power, the third is the algorithm, and the fourth is whether the online closed-loop can be realized, and the online closed-loop feedback is very helpful for the optimization of the entire large model." In the future, the development trend of large models will be the coexistence of general and vertical to solve industry problems together. ”
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