Producer: Sina Finance Listed Company Research Institute
Author: Kun T
As of April 30, 2024, the annual reports of A-share household appliances listed companies have been fully disclosed. Among them, the white goods industry, which is divided by Shenwan's secondary industry, will have a total operating income of 978.139 billion yuan in 2023, and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 83.977 billion yuan.
On the whole, the market of the white goods industry is relatively mature, and the performance of listed companies generally tends to be stable, even Xueqi Electric, which was just listed on January 11, 2024, will have a revenue of 2.359 billion yuan in 2023, but it should be noted that the performance differentiation of 9 listed companies is still relatively serious, among which the revenue of the three giants of white electricity, Midea, Haier, and Gree, continued to grow, contributing 85.62% of the operating income and 94.47% of the net profit. The gross profit margin and net profit margin of sales are also generally better than those of other listed companies, and the market share is obviously concentrated in the head enterprises. Individual companies such as AUCMA and Whirlpool have experienced a certain decline in performance.
AUCMA's revenue and net profit both declined and continued to "bleed" Whirlpool's revenue shrank for 8 consecutive years
The 9 listed companies in the white goods industry will achieve a total operating income of 978.139 billion yuan and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 83.977 billion yuan in 2023. Specifically, the revenue of the three giants of white goods, Midea, Haier, and Gree, continued to grow, and the scale of performance far exceeded that of other companies, with the revenue of the three companies accounting for 85.62% and the net profit accounting for 94.47%. From this point of view, the performance of the white goods industry is mainly contributed by Midea, Haier and Gree.
Among the three giants of white electricity, Midea Group has the highest revenue scale, with a total operating income of 372.037 billion yuan and a net profit attributable to the parent company of 33.720 billion yuan, ranking first among the three white power giants in terms of performance scale. Haier Smart Home and Gree Electric Appliances are relatively inferior, with operating income of 261.428 billion yuan and 203.979 billion yuan respectively, and net profit attributable to the parent company of 16.597 billion yuan and 29.017 billion yuan respectively. It should be noted that despite the continuous growth of the revenue scale of the three giants of white electricity, the year-on-year growth rate of Gree Electric's net profit attributable to the parent company reached 18.41%, exceeding the 14.10% of Midea Group, ranking first among the three giants of white electricity.
From the perspective of performance growth, TCL Smart Home, which has the fastest revenue growth rate in 2023, will achieve a total operating income of 15.180 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.15%, and Xueqi Electric, a newly listed company on January 11, 2024, will rank second in terms of revenue growth rate, achieving a total operating income of 2.359 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.39%; Changhong Meiling, which has the fastest growth rate of net profit attributable to the parent company, achieved a net profit of 741 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 203.04%.
Among the 9 companies, 7 companies will hand over the report card of both revenue and net profit in 2023, namely Midea Group, Haier Smart Home, Gree Electric Appliances, Hisense Home Appliances, Changhong Meiling, TCL Smart Home, and Xueqi Electric. But at the same time, there are also 2 companies with varying degrees of performance decline. Among them, Whirlpool's revenue has shrunk significantly, with revenue of 4.004 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year decrease of 6.10%, and Whirlpool will continue to decline by 11.3% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2024, which is the company's eighth consecutive year of revenue shrinkage since 2017; AUCMA is operating income, net profit attributable to the parent company both declined, operating income of 9.304 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.75%, net profit attributable to the parent of 56 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 61.65%, is the only company in the white goods industry revenue and net profit both declined, but also the white goods industry is the only company in the white goods industry with negative net cash flow from operating activities.
The overall profitability tends to be stable, AUCMA is only 0.71%, ranking at the bottom
From the perspective of the overall industry, due to the maturity of the market, most of the listed companies have gone through a long period of development, and the profitability of listed companies in the white goods industry has also stabilized.
From the specific point of view of profitability indicators, the profitability of the three giants of white electricity is generally better than that of other listed companies. In terms of gross profit margin of sales, Haier Smart Home ranked first with 31.51%, followed by Gree Electric with 30.57%, and Midea Group ranked third with 26.49%.
It should be noted that in addition to the three giants of white electricity, the profitability indicators of TCL Smart Home are also relatively optimistic. In 2023, its gross sales margin will be 23.68%, ranking first among other companies except the Big Three of White Electricity, while its net sales profit margin will be 10.13%, second only to Gree Electric Appliances among all companies.
The sales gross profit margin is less than 15% of the company's AUCMA, Changhong Meiling, Xueqi Electric, and the lower sales gross profit margin often means that the company's own profitability is insufficient, and the superposition of various expenses often leads to a lower net profit margin. Among them, AUCMA's sales net profit margin is the lowest, only 0.71%, combined with AUCMA's revenue and net profit in recent years, it is not surprising that the net profit margin performance ranks at the bottom of all companies.
Haier and Hisense focus on marketing and light on R&D? Xueqi Electric is the only company whose R&D expenses exceed sales expenses
The investment of home appliance companies in sales expenses and R&D expenses can largely reflect the company's focus on marketing and technology investment, and at the same time, it can also have a direct impact on the scale of its net profit.
On the whole, the sales expenses of listed companies are generally much higher than the R&D expenses, often several times the R&D expenses. However, it should be noted that the sales expenses of Xueqi Electric, which adopts the ODM production model and are brand suppliers such as Midea, are 0.3 times the R&D expenses, and it is the only company whose R&D expenses exceed the sales expenses. In addition, TCL Smart Home's sales expenses are basically the same as R&D expenses, and sales expenses are 1.14 times that of R&D expenses.
In terms of R&D expenses, the R&D expenses of the three giants of white electricity, China and the United States, Haier, and Gree were 14.583 billion yuan, 10.221 billion yuan, and 6.762 billion yuan respectively, which was consistent with its revenue scale. However, the R&D expense rate of Haier and Midea is 3.9%, while the R&D expense rate of Gree is 3.3%, which is significantly behind the first two.
Although the scale of R&D expenses invested by each company is different, the R&D expense ratio is basically similar, between 2% and 5%, of which the highest is Whirlpool, which is 4.22%, and its R&D expenses have the highest year-on-year growth, at 28.70%, and the lowest is Changhong Meiling 2.46%, and its R&D expenses have the lowest year-on-year growth, 6.52%.
Gree and Haier have a long inventory turnover day, and the net business cycle of the three companies is negative
The inventory levels of the three giants of white electricity are similar, with Gree, Haier, and Midea having inventories of 32.579 billion yuan, 39.524 billion yuan, and 47.339 billion yuan respectively, but at the same time, their inventory turnover days are also the longest among all listed companies, requiring 92.50 days, 82.07 days, and 67.09 days respectively.
From the perspective of the net business cycle (inventory turnover days + accounts receivable turnover days - accounts payable turnover days), the performance of each company is more differentiated. Among them, AUCMA took the longest time with 59.84 days, followed by Whirlpool with 48.76 days. Among the 9 listed companies, 3 have a negative net business cycle, namely Changhong Meiling -4.49 days, TCL Zhijia -8.35 days, and Xueqi Electric -18.35 days, which to a certain extent indicates that the company's operating ability is strong.