The stock price soared, with more than 30 limit increases during the year. On August 22, Hongbo shares (002229) bid at 45.29 yuan / share, a record high, up more than 581% during the year, and the stock price has increased 10 times since the low of 4.51 yuan in May last year. Hongbo became the first ten-fold bull stock in the AI sector.
Hongbo Shares, a popular company in the AI sector that has performed amazingly in the stock market, was previously a leading company in China's lottery printing industry. "I just remember that it was the concept of lottery speculation, but I didn't expect that it has now become an AI bull stock." Some senior fund industry professionals have sighed like this.
When it comes to Hongbo shares, there is another existence that cannot be avoided is NVIDIA. In order to seek new profit growth points, Hongbo Co., Ltd. especially aimed at the demand for computing power generated by the wave of AI, and launched NVIDIA's layout of computing power leasing. Riding on the concept of computing power and "deep binding" with AI giant NVIDIA, how much has it played a role in the performance improvement of Hongbo shares? How much does the new business contribute to its performance? What are the risks and opportunities behind the sharp rise in stock prices?
1. The net profit in the first half of the year continued to lose, and the lottery business was still supported by revenue
From the performance point of view, Hongbo shares still have not got rid of the dilemma of loss. In the first half of 2023, Hongbo achieved operating income of 292 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.77%; The net loss was 31.6789 million yuan, compared with a loss of 40.5166 million yuan in the same period last year.
Although the concept of AI computing power and NVIDIA has made Hongbo the first ten-fold bull stock in the AI sector, its performance is still mainly supported by the "old bank". From the financial report data, of the 292 million yuan of revenue, the revenue of the printing industry was 268 million yuan, accounting for 91.52%; Other businesses, including AI computing power business, achieved revenue of 24.8097 million yuan, an increase of only 8.8525 million yuan over the same period last year when it did not cut into the AI track. In terms of products, the company's ticket product revenue accounted for 74.54% of the company's total revenue in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 28.62%.
Hongbo started with printing business in the early years, which is essentially a printing company, mainly engaged in safety printing. Security printing products mainly include sports lottery lottery thermal paper (special paper for lottery printing) tickets, sports lottery instant lottery ordinary tax invoices and certificates. Hongbo has achieved a leading segment in the security printing business, but the market increment is not optimistic. Although the company's main business continues to expand, it is still difficult to change the fact that the ceiling is low, and the development is gradually showing fatigue.
Hongbo Co., Ltd. also clearly stated in its 2023 half-year report that under the impact of electronic and networked printing, ordinary publication printing is facing a market environment such as structural overcapacity, slowing growth and fierce price competition; And with the increase of environmental protection pressure, the price of paper, ink and other raw materials and labor costs have risen, market competition has intensified, and the gross profit margin of enterprises has gradually declined.
In terms of lottery business, Hongbo Co., Ltd. said that at present, the state's Internet purchasing and sales policy for lottery tickets is still unclear, and telephone lottery sales are also in the stage of suspension and approval; The company's original fundraising and investment projects "Electronic Lottery R&D Center Project" and "Lottery Internet of Things Intelligent Management and Application Project" have been stagnant for a long time and have been terminated.
2. The overall operating income showed a downward trend, and there were many cross-border results before
In recent years, the operating income of Hongbo shares has shown a downward trend as a whole. From 2016 to 2022, the company's operating income will be 846 million yuan, 695 million yuan, 706 million yuan, 627 million yuan, 474 million yuan, 574 million yuan and 546 million yuan, respectively; The net profit was 12.6801 million yuan, 10.7602 million yuan, 5.1431 million yuan, 35.3093 million yuan, 25.4583 million yuan, 9.139 million yuan and -75.0695 million yuan respectively.
From the financial data, the operating income of Hongbo shares shows a clear downward trend, and the net profit performance is also unstable, especially in 2022, it directly fell into a loss, down 921.42% year-on-year. In 2022, the company suddenly fell into a loss, mainly due to the impact of the dual factors of the market environment and market competition in 2022, the company's overall gross profit margin decreased, and expenses increased due to financing, relocation and other matters.
Because of the difficult business performance, Hongbo Co., Ltd. continues to try to cross borders in order to find new growth points. After 2017, Hongbo Co., Ltd. has continued to make cross-border attempts, successively cross-border mobile games, 5G, blockchain, sweeping robots (300024) and other different businesses. However, these cross-border attempts of Hongbo have not been successful. In addition to the landing of the blockchain lottery business, the rest of the cross-border projects are not smooth.
According to public information, in 2022, Hongbo Co., Ltd. has planned to acquire 51% of the equity of Guangzhou Keyu, and plans to add R&D, production and sales of household intelligent cleaning service robots after the completion of the transaction. A few months later, Hongbo disclosed the termination of the restructuring announcement, saying that due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the progress of the transaction was not as expected, and the company decided to terminate the major asset restructuring.
3. NVIDIA's "value" has skyrocketed, and AI cross-border imagination space is large
This time, Hongbo shares cross-border AI computing power, hitched a ride with the global graphics card giant NVIDIA. On August 10, 2022, Hongbo announced that it has jointly established the Beijing AI Innovation Empowerment Center in Beijing with Zhongguancun (000931) Zhongheng Cultural Science and Technology Innovation Service Alliance, NVIDIA and InBev Digital.
At that time, the agreement clearly stated that InBev Digital, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hongbo Co., Ltd., would serve as the Beijing · The only designated operator of the AI Innovation Empowerment Center, the company cooperates with NVIDIA in ten major fields, including intelligent computing center, general technology innovation empowerment public service platform, and AI innovation incubation accelerator. It is this cooperation that allows Hongbo shares to catch up with NVIDIA and become the concept of NVIDIA.
At the beginning of 2023, ChatGPT detonated the A-share market, AI concept companies were enthusiastically sought after by the market, and major companies have joined the development trend of large models, and the computing power required for large models is in short supply. NVIDIA has benefited from this, showing high profits with AI, and its market value has also "soared". The "value" of Hongbo shares, which was previously on the thigh of NVIDIA, has also risen.
As a hot stock in the AI sector, the most concerned thing in the market is the construction and profitability of the AI intelligent computing center of InBev Digital, a subsidiary of Hongbo Co., Ltd. At present, Hongbo has done its best to "bet" on InBev Digital's business in artificial intelligence.
Hongbo Co., Ltd. said in its semi-annual report that the Beijing AI Innovation Empowerment Center project has been put into actual operation, and related products and services are in the testing and promotion stage. InBev Digital is still in its infancy, and its main business includes: providing computing power rental for the market, trading related integrated products for customers in the field of artificial intelligence, etc. The company continues to invest in the expansion of the intelligent computing center according to market feedback, and the current arrival of expansion equipment is stable. InBev Mathematics has generated operating income and profit, and the project orders in hand involve computing power rental, one-stop procurement, industrial laboratories and other aspects.
Hongbo also said that at this stage, the company has its own NVIDIA server products that can be used for multimodal large model development and meet the needs of multiple AI R&D scenarios; Providing corresponding services based on the advantages of cooperation with NVIDIA is an important business threshold for InBev Digital.
This is despite the fact that InBev has started generating operating income and profit. However, in the face of future operations in artificial intelligence business, Hongbo will face new challenges in terms of personnel, experience, operations, products and other aspects. In addition, the "computing power leasing, cloud resource procurement one-stop service, artificial intelligence education and training and industrial laboratory" business cooperated by Hongbo Co., Ltd. and NVIDIA has not shown significant differentiation from other companies, in other words, Hongbo Co., Ltd. has not built company barriers in this regard, and can be replaced.
Cross-border AI is the sixth transformation of Hongbo, and the first five have all failed. The transformation of Hongbo shares in the direction of AI computing power has created a tenfold bull stock in the capital market. However, thanks to the huge wind behind it, the imagination of AI themes is very large. For Hongbo shares, there may be a big gap between market expectations and reality, and the road to AI crossover needs to go.
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