Yutong Bus's revenue in 2023 will be 27.042 billion yuan, and the high-end product matrix will promote high performance growth

"Investor's Network" Ye Xin

On April 1, Yutong Bus (600066. SH) has published its 2023 annual report.

In the past year, Yutong Bus continued to optimize its product layout, continuously increased its innovation and technological efforts, further enhanced its competitive advantages in products and services, demonstrated strong business resilience, and gained a stable report card.

According to the 2023 annual report, in 2023, Yutong Bus will achieve a total of 36,518 bus sales, an increase of 20.93% year-on-year, an operating income of 27.042 billion yuan, an increase of 24.05% year-on-year, of which the operating income of overseas business will be 10.4 billion yuan, a record high, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies will be 1.817 billion yuan, an increase of 139.36% year-on-year.

It is worth mentioning that Yutong Bus also launched the profit distribution plan of "cash dividend of 1.5 yuan per share (tax included)" in 2023, and plans to distribute cash dividends of 3.321 billion yuan (tax included), which fully reflects that Yutong Bus as a listed company actively fulfills its responsibility to protect the rights and interests of investors and return investors.

In 2023, the company's net operating cash flow will be 4.717 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45%, and the hematopoietic capacity will be significantly improved.

As a well-deserved leading enterprise in China's bus market, Yutong Bus now continues to lead the industry again with a series of "red" dazzling data. In recent years, Yutong Bus has continued to develop and iterate new products, new technologies and new kinetic energy, continuously improving its global market competitiveness and its own profitability, taking advantage of the momentum and constantly gathering new impetus for high-quality development.

The scale of product sales has increased steadily, and the pace of "going overseas" has accelerated

In 2023, the development of the bus industry will show a growth trend. According to data from China Bus Statistical Information Network, in 2023, the bus industry will achieve sales of 87,900 buses of 7 meters and above, an increase of 4.42% over 2022.

In this case, the production and sales growth of Yutong bus is better than the industry. According to the annual report, the production and sales of Yutong Bus in 2023 will be 37,200 and 36,500 respectively, a year-on-year increase of 25.56% and 20.93% respectively.

Yutong Bus said that since the beginning of this year, the demand for domestic residents' travel, especially the demand for tourism, has increased, and the market demand for domestic tourist passenger transport has recovered, which has promoted the proportion of seat passenger car sales in the sales structure of the bus industry to increase significantly.

In fact, in the domestic market, Yutong Bus has always had a solid market advantage in the seat bus market. According to data from China Bus Statistical Information Network, in 2023, the overall market share of large and medium-sized buses of Yutong Bus will be 36.13%, an increase of 7.95 percentage points year-on-year.

Overseas business is the highlight of Yutong Bus in 2023. With the strong demand for overseas buses, the overall export of China's bus industry is on an upward trend. According to data from China Bus Statistics Information Network, in 2023, China will export 32,185 large and medium-sized buses (≥7 meters), a year-on-year increase of 48.63%.

Yutong Bus grasps the dividends of buses going to sea and goes from China to the world. In 2023, Yutong bus's export performance will be particularly bright, with annual sales exceeding the 10,000 mark for the first time, and a number of overseas large orders have been successfully delivered. According to the financial report, in 2023, Yutong Bus will achieve overseas operating income of more than 10.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 85.98%. This is a record high in the company's overseas business operating income.

As of the end of 2023, Yutong Bus has exported nearly 100,000 buses of various types, becoming a mainstream supplier of global buses. Yutong Bus's new energy products have been sold in batches and achieved good operation in more than 40 countries or regions around the world, actively developing green public transportation, and contributing to global carbon reduction.

In the overseas market, with the recovery growth of the overseas bus market demand and the growth of overseas new energy bus demand, Yutong Bus relies on the continuous improvement of its technical level and supply chain advantages to achieve high adaptability and high safety collaborative research and development of new energy vehicles around the key industrial chain of new energy buses, actively layout overseas markets, "go to sea" to run out of acceleration, and comprehensively enhance global competitiveness and brand power.

Increase R&D and innovation, and lay out a high-end product matrix

In recent years, Yutong Bus has given full play to the core advantages of new energy and intelligent networking by practicing the four strategies of "electrification, intelligent networking, high-end and internationalization", continuously increasing innovation and technology, continuously optimizing product layout, and giving the industry forward momentum.

In terms of technology research and development, Yutong Bus still maintains a state of high investment and high output, and in 2023, Yutong Bus will invest 1.568 billion yuan in R&D, accounting for 5.80% of revenue, which is at a high level in the same industry.

Benefiting from the continuous and rapid growth of R&D investment, Yutong Bus has continuously strengthened its innovation momentum, and has made a series of achievements in key technology research of new energy buses: it has developed the industry's first electric exclusive platform with integrated software and hardware, and has made major breakthroughs in the new generation of high-efficiency and lightweight integrated electric drive axle, multi-source ultra-low temperature heat pump, all-in-one power domain controller and other technologies, promoting the high-quality development of the industry.

It is particularly worth mentioning that in March 2024, Yutong held a new product launch conference. At the press conference, Yutong developed a pure electric exclusive platform for commercial vehicles last year - Ruikon E platform continued to evolve, ushering in three breakthroughs and two major upgrades, in terms of battery, Yutong and CATL took the lead in the industry to launch a 10-year 1 million km, 15 years 1.5 million km warranty long life battery, which is nearly double the life of existing conventional products. At the same time, it has carried out all-round upgrades in electric drive, charging technology, multi-source ultra-low temperature heat pump, intelligent network technology, etc., to achieve multi-dimensional breakthroughs such as "efficiency, value, cost, experience, and performance", adding new momentum to the long-term electrification development blueprint.

At present, Yutong Bus has formed a virtuous circle of transformation of industrial achievements to feed technological innovation, consolidate the position of the first brand, and drive the improvement of the overall technical level of the industry. As of the end of 2023, Yutong Bus has participated in the completion of 269 national, industry, local and group standards, of which 252 have been released.

Yutong Bus continues to optimize its product layout, and its competitive advantages in products and services are further highlighted. In 2023, Yutong Bus will complete the design and development of 6-meter and 8.5-meter high-end interior products in the bus market, launch 7-meter-wide low-entrance products, and upgrade 8-meter pure electric buses;

In response to the overseas and high-end market demand, Yutong Bus has realized the comprehensive layout of high-end series products, the development and listing of new products such as overseas high-end U series double-decker buses, T series high-end tourism, E7S microcirculation, etc., and launched high-end commercial vehicles such as premium version and Hongyun version, which further enriched the lineup of high-end products and continuously consolidated the advantages of product matrix.

Among them, Yutong U12 has become the only Chinese new energy bus to enter the Arctic Circle, and at the 2023 World Bus Expo in Belgium, Yutong T15E high-end luxury pure electric road bus won the BusWorld Design Award and Environmental Protection Award.

At the same time, Yutong Bus has gone from China to the world, and its service outlets have also covered the world, which is favored by end customers. In terms of after-sales service, Yutong Bus continues to promote the direct service model, and promotes the direct service model on the basis of more than 10 regional service experience centers, more than 1,600 special service outlets, and more than 170 parts dealer service networks.

By the end of 2023, Yutong Bus has more than 320 authorized service stations or service companies and more than 410 authorized service outlets in overseas markets, covering all overseas target markets.

With strong global market competitiveness, Yutong Bus has not been stingy with dividends while its performance has grown substantially, and has shared the fruits of development with shareholders. In addition, the proposed dividend amount exceeds 3.3 billion yuan, and the cumulative cash dividend of Yutong Bus is 22.7 billion yuan since its listing.

In the secondary market, from the beginning of this year to the close of April 3, Yutong Bus's share price rose by 63.02%, with a price-to-earnings ratio (TTM) of 26.32 times and a total market value of 47.821 billion yuan. (Produced by Thinking Finance)■