Source: Media Outreach
Highlights of the Annual Results for the Year Ended December 31, 2023:
- The growing market demand for AI chips has led to a continuous rise in AI chip orders for Comtech, resulting in a total revenue of RMB8,863.4 million during the Year.
- In 2023, the gross profit amounted to approximately RMB1,029.9 million, with the net profit of approximately RMB319.9 million, and a profit attributable to equity shareholders of the Company of approximately RMB210.7 million.
- Ingdan focuses on new energy smart batteries, which will drive the development of the “Ingdan Cloud” big data service.
HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – 28 March 2024 – Ingdan, Inc. (“Ingdan, Inc.” or the “Company”, stock code: 400.HK; with its subsidiaries (the “Group”)), a technology services company serving the global chip industry and artificial intelligence (“AI”) and Internet of Things (“IoT”, together “AIoT”) ecosystem, with its core businesses “Comtech” and “Ingdan”, announces its audited consolidated results for the year ended December 31, 2023 (“2023” or the “Year”).
Financial Highlights for the Full Year of 2023
During the Year, the rapid innovation of artificial intelligence (“AI”) has driven the digitalization of various industries, resulting in an increase in demand for AI chips. Accordingly, the demand for the Group’s AI chips has increased. However, as affected by supply shortage of AI chips and coupled with the slowdown in the growth of demand for chips in industries such as consumer electronics, the overall sales dropped. [1]According to data from the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA), in 2023, semiconductor industry sales decreased 14.0% in China, and 8.2% globally, as compared to 2022. Meanwhile, the market demand for chips has returned from shortage to normal industry level towards the end of 2023. Despite this challenging environment, the Group’s revenue declined during the Year but still relatively outperformed the market.
During the Year, the Group recorded total revenue of RMB8,863.4 million, a year-on-year decrease of 7.0%; gross profit was RMB1,029.9 million, a year-on-year decrease of 7.5%; profit from operations was RMB465.4 million, a year-on-year decrease of 13.0%; net profit was RMB319.9 million, a year-on-year decrease of 29.3%; profit attributable to equity shareholders of the Company was RMB210.7 million, a year-on-year decrease of 33.0%. As of December 31, 2023, the Company’s cash and bank balances (including pledged deposits) totaled RMB725.5 million, bank loans were RMB1,597.4 million, and the inventory value was RMB4,506.1 million; the number of basic ordinary shares issued by the Group was 1,394,262,732, and the weighted average number of ordinary shares of diluted earnings per share was 1,371,028,000.
Global AI Chip Market Continues to Grow, Comtech Benefiting from Steady Demand
In 2023, the popularity of Generative AI such as ChatGPT has once again driven the AI boom. The thriving AI market trend in China has driven the growth in demand for AI orders for Comtech. However, due to the impact of supply shortage, the inventory of AI chips was insufficient to fulfill the number of orders. While the delay of deliveries in the first half of the Year had been resolved in the second half, the overall annual sales volume was affected. [2]According to the report from the International Data Corporation (“IDC”), the global semiconductor industry is expected to rebound due to increased inventory rationalization, visibility in the channel, and increasing demand pull from AI server and end point device manufacturers. The outlook for the global chip market has been revised from “Trough” to “Sustainable Growth”, and IDC estimated that global semiconductor sales will achieve a year-on-year growth of 20.2% to US$632.8 billion in 2024. As a technology service platform for the chip industry, Comtech focuses on the application, design, and distribution of IC chips. It covers over 50% of global major high-end chip suppliers and many leading domestic chip makers upstream, as well as tens of thousands of enterprises in five major fields downstream, including smart vehicles, digital infrastructure, industrial interconnection, energy control and big consumption. With the gradual recovery of the domestic economy, the continuous development of the technology industry, and favourable national policies, the outlook for China’s semiconductor industry is optimistic, as it meets the increasing demand for chips and brings more growth momentum to the chip business.
Comtech continued to actively push for the development of chips applications during the Year, and has achieved technological breakthroughs in cutting-edge technological features in the industries of artificial intelligence-generated content (”AIGC”), logistics robots and electronic rearview mirrors for smart vehicles, empowering a number of China’s innovative enterprises, so as to prepare for capitalizing on future market recovery.
- Comtech has laid out plans in the field of AIGC, vigorously expanded the chips application scenarios and opportunities, and successfully deployed NVIDIA products in a prominent Data Centre in Baoding city, with hosting capacity of 360,000 AI servers, to support the goal of building a demonstration city in the era of artificial intelligence.
- Comtech actively explored the application fields of mobile robot chips, supported the chip application and design resolution of innovative industries, successfully deployed STMicroelectronics products to warehousing robots, and provided technical training to help the logistics industry break through industry barriers.
- The smart vehicle market also saw the opening of new opportunities with the electronic rearview mirror industry. Comtech and AMD-XLINX jointly launched the “Smart Vehicle Vision Development Package” to realize various advantages such as self-adaption, low latency, scalability, and customization—to meet the future expansion needs of smart vehicles for cross-domain integration capabilities.
New Energy Industry Structural Upgrading, Ingdan Leads in Battery Cloud Services
Ingdan focuses on the new energy industry and is committed to developing the industry for two-wheeler battery replacement and re-utilization. By building a reliable asset management platform for traceable lithium battery life-cycle data, it provides customized solutions for two-wheeler battery replacement, power re-utilization and energy storage, etc. Ingdan’s proprietary platform for smart battery management monitors real-time battery status, effectively improves battery usage efficiency and cycle, realizing the smart management of the whole battery life cycle from production calibration, safe operation, asset management, efficiency management to recycling tracking, etc.
[3]According to analysis by CICC Qixin International Consulting, the penetration rate of battery swapping for electric two-wheelers in China was 22.5% in 2022. With the successive implementation of mandatory policies such as the ”No Indoor Charging Policy” in various regions, coupled with the rapid development of the domestic instant delivery market, and the continuous improvement of battery swapping facilities, the penetration rate of battery swapping services continues to rise. The market for battery swapping services for electric two-wheelers in China is expected to experience rapid development. The report predicts that from 2022 to 2026, the market size of battery-swapping services for electric two-wheelers in China will increase from RMB4.24 billion to RMB20.5 billion, and the penetration rate of the swapping market will reach 54.1% by 2026. In line with China’s ”double carbon” national goal of reaching carbon peak in 2030 and realizing carbon neutrality in 2060, the upgrade of the energy industry structure is expected to bring about rapid changes in the industry layout. Ingdan strategically focuses on the two-wheeler battery cloud services, aiming at the new market trend of battery cloud in order to seize the RMB100 billion ”blue ocean” market opportunity, which would enable the Group to sustain profitability while contributing to the advocacy of the product standardization of China’s two-wheeler battery replacement industry, and support the realization of the national ”double carbon” goal.
Outlook
Mr. Jeffrey Kang, CEO of Ingdan, Inc., said, “With the rapid development of AI and its applications expanding to various industries, the Group remains an optimistic outlook on business growth and development prospects this year. The PRC government’s work report for this year also emphasizes the crucial direction of deepening the research and development and application of big data and AI, vigorously launching the “AI+” initiative, and actively driving the digital transformation of the manufacturing industry. Comtech will actively participate in the establishment of national standards in the digital transformation and chip applications sectors. Leveraging its technological research and development capabilities and industry expertise, the Group aims to further enhance its influence and competitiveness while fostering healthy competition and industry development.
Looking ahead, we will continue to focus on the AI industry chain and strengthen the business deployment of “Comtech” and “Ingdan”, aiming to build the ”AIoT chip-device-cloud” closed loop of the smart hardware industry. At the same time, we will continue to plough into the field of new energy smart batteries, drive the development of the big data platform “Ingdan Cloud”, actively seize the opportunities brought by the transformation of the digital economy, while supporting the national standards for digital transformation, and driving the Group towards becoming a big data enterprise, so as to continuously inject momentum into the Group’s growth.”
Caution Statement
The information contained in this document has not been independently verified. No representation, warranty or undertaking, express or implied, is made by the Company or any of its affiliates, advisers or representatives as to, and no reliance should be placed on, the fairness, accuracy, completeness or correctness of such information or opinions presented or contained herein. The information contained in this document should be considered in the context of the circumstances prevailing at the time, is subject to change without notice and the Company makes no undertaking to update the information in this document to reflect any developments that occur after the date of the presentation. It is not the Company’s intention to provide, and you may not rely on these materials as providing, a complete or comprehensive analysis of the Company, or its financial or trading position or prospects. Neither of the Company nor any of its affiliates, advisers or representatives accept any responsibility or have any liability whatsoever (in negligence or otherwise) for any loss howsoever arising from any use of this document or its contents or otherwise arising in connection with this document.
This document may contain statements that reflect the Company’s current intent, beliefs, and expectations about the future as of the respective dates indicated herein. These forward-looking statements do not guarantee of future performance and are based on a number of assumptions about the Company’s operations and factors beyond the Company’s control and are subject to significant risks and uncertainties, and accordingly, actual results may differ materially from those described in these forward-looking statements. Neither the Company nor any of its affiliates, advisers or representatives has any obligation, nor do they undertake, to update these forward-looking statements for any events or developments including the occurrence of unanticipated events that occur subsequent to such dates.
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