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At the Silicon Valley conference that just ended not long ago, Nvidia boss Jensen Huang expressed his judgment on the future world, with the continuous reduction of manufacturing costs (the current cost is often hundreds of thousands of yuan), humanoid robots are about to become the next mainstream in the field of science and technology.
As soon as this remark came out, it was a shot in the arm for the entire robot industry, and it also directly stimulated investors' enthusiasm for investing in the robot sector. The last time humanoid robots received such high attention was two years ago, when Musk said on Artificial Intelligence Day that the demand for humanoid robots is expected to reach 10 billion to 20 billion units in the future, and the demand will far exceed that of cars.
The robot sector gained
According to the author's preliminary statistics, the financing amount of domestic humanoid robots exceeded 2 billion yuan last year. And according to Goldman Sachs' forecast, the market size of the global robot market is expected to exceed $38 billion in 2035, with shipments reaching 1.4 million units. The high growth of this track in the future has made many players flock to this track.
In the past few days, players Fengli Intelligence (301368), Wuzhou New Year (603667), Golden Equator Technology (301279), etc., have all warmed the hearts of investors with a wave of surges.
In the big family of humanoid robots, there is such a subdivision that is considered to be the first to break through, and that is the actuator. Today, the author will take me into the actuator track to see if there is gold here.
1. Pull a hair and move the whole body
In recent years, humanoid robots have become popular, and the breakthrough development of AI technology and the entry of technology leaders such as Tesla are one of the very important reasons. It is expected that the mass delivery and mass production of humanoid robots will also be concentrated in the next 3-5 years.
For further analysis, the actuator converts the electrical signal in the robot into physical action or motion, which determines the load and accuracy of the robot, and its importance in the robot is self-evident, which can be compared to the "power battery in the new energy vehicle".
Actuator principle
If you disassemble the most popular Tesla Optimus robot on the current market, you will find that it has about 14 linear actuators and 14 rotary actuators, which is still relatively valuable. According to the analysis of professional institutions, by 2035, the global market space of humanoid robot linear actuators will exceed 180 billion yuan.
For actuators, if you go further, they can be divided into 、、、 and other parts. If you want to ask the author which track he is most optimistic about, the reducer, as a link with a large amount of value, has attracted the attention of many players.
Second, independent breakthrough, core logic
If we disassemble the industrial chain of the reducer, you will find that the upstream is mainly gears, bearings, boxes and other basic parts, and the cost of the reducer also accounts for about 35% of the total cost of the robot. Generally speaking, the dosage of a single reducer for a humanoid robot is not less than 10. In the specific harmonic reducer, all players present a situation of "one family".
Reducer industry chain
Harmony alone, occupies more than 60% of the market share in the mainland, the first to open the prelude to localization in recent years is the green harmonic (688017), currently ranked second, but also ate 1/4 of the "cake", the overall industry competition pattern is relatively stable.
Harmonic reducer market share
If there are already players who have taken the lead in breaking through in the harmonic reducer, in the precision planetary reducer, the mainstream products on the market are still mainly products from Japan and Germany, and Japan's Xinbao and Newstdart are the main suppliers of the mainland precision planetary reducer market. The products of domestic players are still mainly low-end. Therefore, in the future, independent breakthroughs will definitely remain the core logical thread.
Third, the blue ocean market is also fighting a price war?
Although it has become an industry leader, Green Harmonic's performance in 2023 is not so satisfactory.
Last year, the company's operating income and net profit attributable to the parent company fell by 20% and 45.8% respectively, one of the reasons is also the pressure on demand in industries such as industrial robots. If you go back further, after experiencing high growth in 2020-2021, the company's net profit in 2022 has already declined, and it will continue to deteriorate in 2023.
Green harmonic net profit situation
Moreover, although it is said that the humanoid robot market is still a blue ocean market at present. But there is already a trend towards price wars.
For example, the price reduction of the products supplied by green harmonics to collaborative robot customers after this year has reached about 20%, and according to the author's understanding, the possibility of continuing to reduce prices in the future is not ruled out, which is a typical behavior of exchanging prices for the market. After all, after the completion of the company's new harmonic reducer production line (1 million production capacity), how to digest the production capacity has become the top priority.
But if we look at other industries, we will know that long-term price wars are definitely not conducive to the healthy development of the industry. Kill 1,000 enemies and lose 800 yourself. But we also have to look at everything dialectically, if the price war is due to overcapacity in the short term, it can indeed reduce the cost of parts and promote the commercialization of the entire robot.
According to the data of professional institutions, the average price of reducers in mainland China in 2022 will be about 9,600 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8%, showing a continuous downward trend in the past four years.
The control of the price reduction process also needs to be grasped by players from all walks of life in the business war.
Note: This article does not constitute any investment advice. The stock market is risky, and you need to be cautious when entering the market. There is no harm in buying and selling.