A number of robot companies withdrew their IPOs in the primary and secondary markets

21st Century Business Herald Zhao Yunfan reported from Shanghai

In the context of stricter IPO review, a large number of robot companies that choose to land on A-shares are facing a choice.

According to the reporter's statistics, at the beginning of April, two robotics and industrial automation-related companies, Jeris and Weiben Intelligence, announced the withdrawal of their IPO applications on the A-share GEM.

Since the beginning of this year, companies such as Kefeng Intelligent and Sheng'an Transmission, consumer robot Wangyuan Technology and other companies have withdrawn their IPO applications, and the difficulty of robot companies to break through the IPO can be seen.

Industry leaders such as Jieka Co., Ltd. and Haikang Machinery have become one of the few waiting companies in the IPO queue.

However, the East does not shine brightly in the West. With the development of artificial intelligence and embodied intelligence, robots, especially humanoid robots, have become the primary market investment and financing of the "sweet spot".

The entire robot industry presents a situation of uneven hot and cold in the first and second grades.

Quit when the going gets tough

According to public information, Jerrys and Weiben Intelligent are both special equipment manufacturing companies, from the perspective of subdivided industries, both are industrial automation equipment integrators, the former mainly focuses on photovoltaic new energy, consumer electronics, and the latter focuses on the field of automobile manufacturing.

From the point of view, both companies chose to withdraw their IPO registrations in early April. According to the practice of IPO companies, starting from April, a large number of applicant companies will suspend their applications and work with intermediaries to update the company's financial report last year to continue to promote the IPO process. This includes Hikvision Machinery and Jieka Shares, which are still preparing for the IPO, both of which are currently in a state of suspension of review.

Judging from the financial reports of the companies previously disclosed or updated by the two companies in the first half of 2023, the reasons why the two companies chose to withdraw their IPO applications at this point are self-evident.

According to public information, both JRS and Weiben Intelligent plan to land on the GEM of the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, and both apply for IPO according to the first set of standards of the GEM. According to the previous rules, the first set of criteria for applying for listing on the GEM requires that the net profit of the applicant in the past two years be positive, and the total amount reaches 50 million yuan.

Judging from the financial reports, although the two companies met the first set of standards of the GEM in the past two reporting periods when they declared, after the financial report update in the first half of 2023, it highlighted the difficulties they faced in their operations last year.

Among them, Weiben Intelligent will achieve a net profit of 61.5217 million yuan and -23.6415 million yuan in 2022 and the first half of 2023 respectively, and in the same period, Jeris will achieve a net profit of 83.0396 million yuan and 2.3506 million yuan respectively, and the performance of both companies in the first half of the year has declined significantly.

With the release of the new "National Nine Articles", the threshold for listing on the GEM has been further raised, and the difficulty for the two companies to succeed under the new standards has increased.

On April 12, the State Council, the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and the Shanghai and Shenzhen Stock Exchanges successively issued a number of opinions and measures to improve the quality of listed companies and strictly control the listing gates.

Among them, the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's draft of the new listing rules for the GEM clarifies that the net profit target of the GEM in the past two years will be increased from 50 million yuan to 100 million yuan, and the new requirement that the net profit in the latest year is not less than 60 million yuan.

Judging from the performance of the past two reporting periods, the total net profit of Weiben Intelligent in 2022 and the first half of 2023 will be 37.8902 million yuan, of which -23.6415 million yuan in the first half of 2023, and the total net profit of Jeris in one and a half years will be 85.3902 million yuan, of which only 2.3506 million yuan in the first half of 2023.

Although the two companies clarified that their business is strong and seasonal, and about half of the revenue will be recognized in the fourth quarter, they are still far from the requirement of "100 million in total, 60 million in the latest year".

Competition intensifies

Combined with the industry background, both companies will face severe industry competition in 2023.

Among them, the gross profit margin of JRS in 2022 and the first half of 2023 will be 39.97% and 34.18% respectively, with a decline of about 5.8 percentage points in just half a year.

Although Weiben Intelligent achieved a net increase in gross profit margin in the first half of 2023, the company's revenue in the first half of the year was only 65.8892 million yuan, accounting for only one-tenth of the annual revenue in 2022.

From Weiben Intelligence's reply to the declaration inquiry, the reporter found that the company's gross profit margin of industrial robots in the first half of 2023 was only 3.07%, a decrease of 9.89 percentage points from 12.96% in the whole year of 2022. Among them, the gross profit margin of industrial robots sold to a company is as low as -2.79%.

Coincidentally, Kefeng Intelligence, a reducer company that withdrew its IPO application in February, has a comprehensive gross profit margin of 46.94%, 47.30%, and 40.62% from 2020 to 2022, respectively, showing a relatively obvious downward trend.

In fact, the price competition in the robot industry is no longer news, and it has the characteristics of passing to the entire upstream and downstream of robots.

Previously, the 21st Century Business Herald reporter reported that at the beginning of the year, the harmonic reducer leading enterprise green harmonic (688017. SZ) has further lowered the quotation of cobot customers, with a reduction of about 20%, in an attempt to compete for market share through "price for volume".

At the same time, in response to reporters' questions about price competition, Hikvision Machinery said that the company's machine vision products and mobile robots have been adjusted to varying degrees in the past few years, which is to better respond to market competition and improve competitiveness.

Fire in the "primary market"?

Compared with the cooling of the IPO market, the primary market's enthusiasm and pursuit of robots is increasing day by day.

According to the open source securities research report, from the perspective of investment and financing in the primary market, the overall investment and financing density of the robot industry has increased steadily since 2023, of which the number of 100 million yuan financing cases in the third quarter of 2023 alone has increased to 20, which is almost the same as the first half of 2023.

According to the company's data, as of April 15, since the beginning of this year, there have been 92 primary market financing events in the field of robotics in China, involving commercial, industrial, service, medical and other fields.

Among them, there are more than 10 investment cases of more than 100 million yuan in the field of robotics, and 3 companies with investment of more than 500 million yuan, namely two humanoid robot companies Unitree Technology and Zhiyuan Robot, and an industrial robot company Luoshi Robot.

In contrast, in terms of IPO, according to incomplete statistics, there are only two domestic robot companies that have successfully landed in the secondary market since the beginning of this year, Suteng Juchuang (machine vision) and UBTECH (humanoid robot), and they are all Hong Kong stocks.

Behind the stark contrast, more and more companies may seek to carry out more investment and financing activities in the primary market.

"Equipment, industrial automation, and robots are all hot tracks now. If you're looking for financing rather than exiting, the primary market may be a better place to go. A robot consulting company related person told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter: "I originally thought that the market heat had passed, but now it is still very hot." ”

On the other hand, excluding the heat of the primary market, the situation of inefficient competition in the industry has not changed.

Industry insiders reflect that the current price competition in the robot market is still the main theme, so in addition to the price, the robot does not have much advantage in going to sea. It is expected that the competition in the future will be carried out in terms of reliability, precision and intelligence, and some companies will stand out from the industry.

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