Humanoid robots, the first year of industrialization!
On August 7, Figure, a humanoid robot startup, released a new generation of robots, Figure02.
Figure01 has just completed the "trial job" in the BMW factory, and a new generation of Figure02 equipped with higher intelligence is here again, Figure02 from concept design to landing, it took only 18 months, and the industrialization speed of humanoid robots continues to accelerate.
The reason why Figure is progressing so quickly is closely related to the company behind it, after all, this company has only just been established in 2022.
Figure's investors include Microsoft, OpenAI, NVIDIA, Intel, etc., all of which are core players in AI, and the lineup is very bright.
Domestic companies have also shown no weakness and continue to launch a new generation of products.
Like Unitree, which is the world's leading sales of quadruped robots, Unitree Technology has recently launched a new generation of humanoid UnitreeG1.
At the same time, companies such as Fourier Intelligence launching GR-1, UBTECH launching WalkerS, Zhiyuan Robotics and IC Expedition A2 and Jedi C5 are also continuously launching new humanoid robot products.
We can see that basically all humanoid robot manufacturers' new generation products are expected to be commercialized in 2024. Musk, Tesla's Optimus Prime will also be mass-produced by 2026 at the latest.
Why did the robot start to be industrialized at this time?
In terms of software--- AI is equipped with brains.
In fact, since the beginning of the last century, countries have begun to deploy robots.
However, at that time, the research was on industrial robots, and to put it bluntly, it was actually a "robotic arm". It is simply a repetitive mechanical movement, but it also greatly improves the production efficiency of the enterprise.
The ultimate goal is to focus on humanoid robots. Not only does it look like a human, but more importantly, it has the ability to think.
At this time, AI was born out of nowhere, equipping robots with "brains".
Since 2023, AI has made rapid progress, and various large model functions such as iFLYTEK, Wondershare Technology, and Kunlun Wanwei have been continuously improved. Breakthroughs are made in various technologies such as word processing, repetitive learning, and image processing.
It is estimated that by 2025, the size of China's AI intelligent robot market will exceed 100 billion yuan. AI greatly satisfies the needs of humanoid robots and promotes their accelerated implementation.
In terms of hardware--- breakthroughs have been achieved in precision components.
Although with the popularization of AI, the problem of robot "brain" has been initially solved, but the real implementation still depends on the manufacturing end. The lack of "precision" of parts has always been the key to the difficulty of robots.
Among them, the most critical is the lead screw product.
A lead screw is a mechanical component that converts the rotational motion of the motor end into linear motion. According to the structure, it is mainly divided into sliding screws, ball screws and planetary roller screws.
The transmission efficiency of ball screw and planetary roller screw can reach more than 90%, which is the mainstream application mode at present.
To put it simply, whether the humanoid robot can safely pinch an egg, and whether it can pinch a grain of rice in the future, depends on the lead screw.
The Tesla robot torso has a total of 28 joints, 14 each for rotation and 14 for straight. Most of them use ball screws as linear drives. At present, ball screws have gradually achieved mass production.
In the high-end ball screw market in mainland China, Rollvis, GSA, Rexroth and other companies occupy a monopoly share of 90%, especially in the highest-end planetary roller screw market.
Domestic enterprises are also accelerating the layout of the lead screw field, which is expected to achieve domestic substitution. However, Nanjing Technology, Jining Bote, and Youshite, which have a relatively high market share, are not listed.
Domestic listed companies that can achieve domestic substitution are also accelerating the layout of ball screws, such as Hengli Hydraulics and Best.
Hengli Hydraulics has analyzed in our article, so what is Best?
In 2022, Best will set up a wholly-owned subsidiary, Yuhua Precision Machinery, to comprehensively lay out ball screws. In 2023, with a total investment of 1.2 billion yuan, a plant of 45,000 square meters, and the introduction of 279 sets of production and testing equipment, Best is currently the only A-share enterprise with large-scale reserves of lead screw equipment.
Looking at the production capacity layout of Best, the future volume of ball screws is expected to create hundreds of millions of revenue for the company, and gradually grow into a new performance growth point for the company.
In addition, Best's performance in recent years is also very bright.
From 2018 to 2023, Best's revenue will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 10.32%, and net profit will grow at a compound annual growth rate of 8.82%, which is a very steady growth.
On August 7, Best released its 2024 interim report, with revenue of 679 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.06%; The net profit was 144 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.86%.
In the second quarter of 2024, Best achieved a net profit of 134 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 34.83%, the best in the same period in history in a single quarter.
In fact, Best's main business is precision auto parts such as turbochargers, wire-controlled valve bodies, chassis safety parts, etc., accounting for nearly 90% of business revenue.
For a long time to come, the auto parts business will continue to be the main source of the company's performance.
Focusing on precision parts and components, Best has established long-term and stable cooperative relations with Garrett, Cummins, Pierburg and other industrial giants, and its downstream customers include Huawei, Tesla, BYD and other automotive leaders.
In addition, Best has also continued to increase the field of new energy vehicles, and the expansion of production capacity will bring performance flexibility to the company.
That is to say, Best's future development is based on steam parts and ball screws as new increments.
The aforementioned humanoid robot is the most noteworthy incremental space for ball screws.
With the industrialization of humanoid robots, it will bring geometric incremental space to Best. It is estimated that by 2030, the market size brought by robots to ball screws will reach 24.95 billion yuan.
In addition, the ball screw, as the core component, is also a high consumable, and the service life lasts for 3 to 5 years, which basically needs to be replaced once a year, which greatly increases the increment of replacement.
Ball screws are not only used in humanoid robots and production lines, but also in CNC machine tools, that is, industrial machine tools.
The high accuracy of the Best roller screw pair has been verified on some machine tools.
In 2024, the highest precision of the ball screw pair produced by Best can reach C0 level, and the highest precision of the linear guide pair can reach UP level, which is at the leading level in the industry and has been highly recognized by the market.
With the continuous expansion of the downstream market, the global ball screw market is expected to exceed 18 billion US dollars by 2027, and the compound growth rate from 2023 to 2027 will reach 181.57%.
Best has advanced the layout and achieved high-end technology breakthroughs, is increasing the release of production capacity, and will fully enjoy the market dividend in the future.
In addition, on August 7, it was reported that Best will also carry out its first mid-year dividend
It is important to know that Best, as an enterprise with a profit of only single digits, has just improved in the high boom track, and actively returns shareholders and dividends, which reflects the company's confidence in future development.
In general, Best has a profound layout in the field of humanoid robots with high development space, and the technology continues to break through, and domestic substitution is worth looking forward to. In addition, the company's performance has grown steadily, the main business has broad prospects, and the development certainty is very strong.
The above analysis does not constitute specific trading advice, the stock market is risky, and investment should be cautious.
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Source: Flying Whale Investment Research