Author: Yuntan, Editor: Xiaoshi Mei
"The significance of the birth of ChatGPT is no less than that of the Internet" - Bill Gates.
On November 30, 2022, OpenAI released its generative AI model, which is like a lightning bolt, setting off a vigorous AI new technology revolution around the world.
On the other side of the ocean, facing the surging wave of AI, iFLYTEK launched the Spark model in the face of extreme pressure, and quickly iteratively upgraded, which not only fully approached the latest level of GPT-4 Turbo, but also commercialized it in full swing.
With the outbreak in the fourth quarter of last year, iFLYTEK's performance has been dormant for a short time, and the quality of operation has visibly improved to the naked eye, and it has exceeded market expectations to enter the harvest period so quickly.
Facing the sea of stars of AI, iFLYTEK has entered the track of benign interaction between new technology upgrading and industrialization, laying a solid foundation for longer-term development.
【V-Reversal】
2023 is a milestone year for iFLYTEK in its 24-year history.
In order to open the door to general AI, iFLYTEK launched the iFLYTEK Spark model, which was iterated four times during the year. In May of that year, the V1.0 version of the Spark large model was released, and the V1.5 version came out a month later, and the V2.0 version was launched on August 15; the V3.0 version released on October 24, the seven major capabilities continued to improve, comprehensively comparable to ChatGPT, and achieved Chinese transcendence, English equivalent ability.
The rapid iterative upgrade has made iFLYTEK Xinghuo more intelligent, quickly ranked among the first echelon of AI large models, and greatly improved the user experience.
However, due to the huge computing resources required by large models and the soaring price of chips, even OpenAI has to suffer huge losses.
Under the extreme pressure of the United States and other internal and external pressures, iFLYTEK can still maintain its strategic focus, on the one hand, firmly invest in the Spark model, domestic substitution and other aspects.
In the past year, the company invested 3.84 billion yuan in R&D investment, a year-on-year increase of 14.36%, accounting for 19.53% of revenue, an increase of 1.7 percentage points over 2022.
On the other hand, iFLYTEK has rapidly carried out industrialization and brought real benefits, and the dream of AI is by no means an unattainable business fantasy.
In 2023, iFLYTEK's business structure will be further improved. In particular, the GMV of the C-end hardware supported by iFLYTEK Xinghuo increased by more than 84%, and the revenue growth rate of the open platform exceeded 40%, and the open platform and consumer business contributed revenue of 6.19 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.4%, becoming the company's largest business, accounting for 31.47% of the total revenue, accounting for more than 30% for the first time.
It marks that the effectiveness of iFLYTEK's transformation from voice intelligence to cognitive intelligence to general AI has been revealed, and the AI background is stronger.
The expansion of ToC business and the narrowing of ToG business are of great significance to the improvement of the financial quality of listed companies. Generally speaking, the G-end business often faces many uncertainties such as long account cycles, policy changes, and project delays. The C-end business is basically "one hand to pay and one hand to deliver", so the health and sustainability of business performance have been greatly improved.
"For large projects of teaching students according to their aptitude, we will strictly screen the risk of payment collection and upfront investment, take the initiative to give up projects that can be done or not done but have risks, and free up energy to focus on the sustainable operation of the C-end business, such as learning machines, personalized learning manuals, easy to listen and say, etc. The long-term sustainable operating income of these businesses can ensure that the business fundamentals, profits and cash flow remain stable. Liu Qingfeng, chairman of iFLYTEK, said at the performance briefing.
By the end of 2023, the company's net operating cash flow was 350 million yuan, of which more than 1.5 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of last year alone. The net profit in a single quarter was 558 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of nearly 3 times.
Thanks to the excellent performance in the fourth quarter, iFLYTEK will achieve revenue of 19.65 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 4.41%, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 660 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17.12%, gradually getting out of the impact of emergencies.
By the first quarter of this year, iFLYTEK continued its high growth trend, achieving revenue of 3.65 billion yuan in a single quarter, a year-on-year increase of 26.27%, a further expansion of the growth rate compared with Q4 2023, and a year-on-year increase of 17.04% in net cash flow from operating activities.
In the first quarter, consumer BG revenue increased by 63% and gross profit increased by 48%, automobile business increased by 71% and gross profit increased by 46%, medical business increased by 110% and gross profit increased by 127%, and C-end hardware learning machine in education business increased by 99% and gross profit increased by 104%. The government business and education G-end business fell by 20%, and the company took the initiative to adjust the sectors with a long payment collection cycle to lay the foundation for future development.
It can be seen that even in the face of various unfavorable external environments, iFLYTEK has won the battle of performance turnaround based on continuous high-intensity R&D investment and good business transformation.
【Spark in the Plain】
"AIGC is no less important than PCs and the Internet. ”
In the future, general AI will be like water and electricity, empowering thousands of industries, and flying into the homes of ordinary people with the momentum of sparks.
iFLYTEK is the leader in this change, and since its inception, it has always adhered to the technical belief of "standing up to the sky", not only looking up at the starry sky, but also leaning over to see the road.
"Dingtian" means that the core technology has always maintained the international leading position, and "site" is to enable technological achievements to achieve large-scale industrial application. iFLYTEK, which came out of USTC, has inherited the science and engineering gene of "seeking truth and pragmatism", and is not a "daydreamer" who can only tell stories.
At the beginning of generative AI, iFLYTEK has decided on the direction of "1+N": "1" refers to the general cognitive intelligence model, which is benchmarked against ChatGPT's seven core capabilities of dismantling text generation, language understanding, knowledge question and answer, logical reasoning, mathematical ability, code ability, and multi-mode interaction;
At present, these strategic deployments have seen the real chapter.
In the hot new energy vehicle track, iFLYTEK Xinghuo and Chery Xingtu's flagship model Xingyuan ET jointly built the Lion AI large model and the Lion Melody immersive mobile concert hall.
At the end of 2023, the automotive intelligent network business contributed nearly 700 million yuan in revenue, a year-on-year increase of 52%. At the investor conference, the company said that the automobile business grew by more than 70% in the first quarter of this year, and with the vigorous development of the smart car industry, this sector will also become a new growth pole for the company.
Open platform and consumer business are a highlight in 2023, and in terms of C-side, products such as iFLYTEK smart office notebook, iFLYTEK hearing, and iFLYTEK smart voice recorder have brought smart office into a new stage and greatly improved office efficiency. 618 full-cycle sales increased by 125% year-on-year, and Double 11 increased by 126% year-on-year.
In terms of the B-side, iFLYTEK Xinghuo empowers all walks of life and the energy industry, Xinghuo and the National Energy Group have jointly built a large-scale model application evaluation system for the integration and linkage of central enterprise groups, which has run more than 57,000 orders so far, with an evaluation accuracy rate of 97%;
iFLYTEK Xinghuo makes AI no longer a mirage, no longer high, high and low, but "visible, touchable, and useful". In the future, it will enter thousands of industries with the momentum of sparking the prairie and benefiting people's livelihood.
【Exclusive Endowment】
In the history of human science and technology development, black technology has been frequent, but it can really be industrialized on a large scale to benefit mankind. Otherwise, you can only be trapped in laboratories and scientific research units, and become a memory of the times.
25 years ago, iFLYTEK walked out of the ivory tower with intelligent voice technology, from intelligent voice to cognitive intelligence to general AI.
The ability to commercialize is the core weapon of iFLYTEK to lead the industry.
On the one hand, iFLYTEK has accumulated strong technical strength, coupled with continuous R&D investment, and its R&D strength is in the leading position in the world.
In the first quarter of this year, an additional 300 million yuan was invested in the research and development of large models, independent and controllable core technologies and controllable industrial chains, and the research and development expenses were 842 million yuan, an increase of 126 million yuan year-on-year.
On January 30, the Spark model V3.5 was released, and the seven core capabilities were further improved; on April 26, iFLYTEK will launch the V3.5 update version, the first large model that supports long text, long graphics and text, and long voice will be officially launched; in June this year, the iFLYTEK Spark model V4.0 will be officially released, fully benchmarking the latest capabilities of GPT-4 Turbo.
Qimai data shows that as of April this year, the cumulative Android downloads of the Xunfei Xinghuo App ranked second, and the reviews and scores on the Apple App Store were also leading among domestic peers, and the scale of Xinghuo App users was in the first camp.
On the other hand, it has long-term accumulation and exclusive insight into the AI industry, and can go deeper into vertical fields.
The education and medical fields are the base of iFLYTEK. In the field of education, iFLYTEK Xinghuo Smart Blackboard has multiple AI skills such as multi-modal understanding and recommendation, all-natural interaction, virtual human assisted learning, and intelligent lesson recording and sharing.
The teacher's chalk board can be synchronized to the large screen in the middle in real time, and the three-dimensional geometric space conversion and physical and chemical biological experiments can be displayed in an all-round way, so that the abstract knowledge is concrete and easy to understand; teachers and students can talk to virtual people, and the sound, text, screen picture, board book, etc. in the teaching process can be collected with accompaniment, and a structured classroom record can be formed, which completely restores the whole process of teaching.
In the field of smart medical care, the "iFLYTEK Xiaoyi" APP and small programs can help residents with emergency consultations, support standardized drug use, greatly reduce the risks caused by potential irrational drug use and unreasonable assistance, and become a "family doctor" in daily life.
The company's Xinghuo medical model surpasses GPT-4 and belongs to the world's leading experts, and the intelligent medical assistant is the world's first and only intelligent solution that has passed the national medical practitioner qualification examination (comprehensive written examination).
From the breakthrough of core technology to the large-scale application of scenarios and systematic innovation capabilities, it is very important for the profit-oriented A-share market, and iFLYTEK has long been engraved in its bones.
Third, insisting on self-reliance and self-improvement in science and technology, Huawei has established China's first domestic Wanka computing platform - "Feixing No. 1", and iFLYTEK Xinghuo V3.5 is currently the only large model that has completed training on the national computing power platform.
"There is no general model base, only an industry model, and because of the release of a new generation of general base model, the existing advantages will be cleared. As Liu Qingfeng emphasized, iFLYTEK knows that only on the basis of autonomy and controllability can it firmly grasp the initiative in the long-distance race of artificial intelligence and not be stuck by others.
In the face of being included in the "Entity List" twice by the U.S. government, iFLYTEK withstood the pressure and forged independent and controllable R&D capabilities in the extreme environment, which is its core competitiveness and comparative advantage.
At present, the international trade environment is more complex and changeable, the United States has further blocked high-end AI chips, and the uncertainty has been further enhanced.
As Liu Qingfeng said: "The situation of general artificial intelligence in China today is the same as when iFLYTEK was founded 25 years ago, and it is very similar to the situation at the beginning of the development of China's Chinese audio industry." ”
The vast ocean of AI is immense, and iFLYTEK has huge imagination and development potential.
A new round of hard technology has just begun, and iFLYTEK has taken the lead.
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The content of this article related to listed companies is the author's personal analysis and judgment based on the information publicly disclosed by listed companies in accordance with their legal obligations (including but not limited to temporary announcements, periodic reports and official interactive platforms, etc.), and the information or opinions in this article do not constitute any investment or other business advice, and Market Value Watch does not assume any responsibility for any actions arising from the adoption of this article.
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