news

한어Русский языкEnglishFrançaisIndonesianSanskrit日本語DeutschPortuguêsΕλληνικάespañolItalianoSuomalainenLatina

Yangtze Business Daily News●Changjiang Business Daily reporter Pan Ruidong

With the mild recovery of the integrated circuit industry, Changchuan Technology (300604.SZ)'s performance stopped falling and rebounded.

On the evening of July 15, Changchuan Technology released its performance forecast, estimating that its net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company in the first half of 2024 will be between 200 million yuan and 230 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 876.62% to 1023.12%.

Changchuan Technology stated that in the first half of the year, the integrated circuit industry as a whole recovered moderately, customer demand in the segments increased significantly, the company's market share continued to rise steadily, and operating income increased year-on-year; in addition, as the company's scale effect became apparent, the expense rate level stabilized, which jointly promoted the growth of net profit attributable to shareholders.

The Yangtze Business Daily reporter noted that as a technology-intensive industry, Changchuan Technology has invested a lot in research and development. Since 2018, the company has invested more than 2.2 billion yuan in research and development. As of the end of 2023, the company's R&D personnel accounted for 54.51%, and the company has 843 authorized patents.

Performance rebounded in the first half of the year

Changchuan Technology's profitability rebounded.

In 2023, affected by factors such as the global macroeconomic environment and changes in industry cycles, customer demand slowed down and Changchuan Technology's performance declined sharply. Its operating income and net profit attributable to shareholders were 1.775 billion yuan and 45.1596 million yuan, respectively, down 31.11% and 90.21% year-on-year.

In 2024, with the mild recovery of the integrated circuit industry and the significant increase in customer demand in the sub-sectors, Changchuan Technology's performance stabilized and rebounded. The company expects its net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company to be 200 million to 230 million yuan in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 876.62% to 1023.12%; its non-net profit is 190 million to 220 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 324.14% to 359.53%.

Regarding the performance growth, Changchuan Technology said that during the reporting period, in addition to the increase in customer demand, the company's product coverage in the field of integrated circuit testing has continued to expand, the market share has continued to rise steadily, and the operating income has increased significantly compared with the same period last year. In addition, the company continues to focus on the investment in research and development of high-end equipment, and the scale effect is gradually emerging. At the same time, the company's operational management level has been effectively improved, and the expense rate level has tended to be stable, which has led to an increase in net profit attributable to the parent company.

A reporter from the Yangtze Business Daily noticed that since the beginning of this year, Changchuan Technology's management expense ratio, sales expense ratio and financial expense ratio have all improved significantly.

The first quarter report shows that in the first quarter of this year, the company's management expense rate and sales expense rate were 11.27% and 7.55% respectively, while in the first quarter of 2023, these two indicators were 16.41% and 14.51% respectively. The company's financial expenses in the same period were -5.6217 million yuan, compared with 8.6994 million yuan in the same period last year.

On July 16, the first trading day after the announcement of the performance forecast, Changchuan Technology surged 6.47% to close at 34.08 yuan per share.

R&D expense ratio reaches 40.28% in 2023

According to information, Changchuan Technology mainly provides testing equipment for integrated circuit packaging and testing companies, wafer manufacturing companies, chip design companies, etc. Currently, the company's main sales products are testing machines, sorting machines, automation equipment and AOI optical inspection equipment.

Currently, Changchuan Technology's customers include many first-class integrated circuit companies such as Changdian Technology, Huatian Technology, Tongfu Microelectronics, Silan Microelectronics, China Resources Microelectronics, and ASE.

As a high-tech enterprise, Changchuan Technology has continued to increase its R&D expenditure since its listing. From 2018 to 2022, the company's R&D expenses were 61.7099 million yuan, 107 million yuan, 187 million yuan, 330 million yuan, and 645 million yuan, respectively, and the R&D expense rate was 28.7%, 26.82%, 23.25%, 20.05%, and 25.03%, respectively.

In 2023, despite a sharp decline in performance, Changchuan Technology's R&D expenses hit a new high since its listing. In that year, the company invested 715 million yuan in R&D expenses, a 10.87% increase against the trend, and the R&D expense rate increased by 15.25 percentage points to 40.28% compared with 2022. At the same time, the company vigorously promoted the construction of the technical team. As of the end of 2023, R&D personnel accounted for 54.51% of the total number of employees.

In the first quarter of 2024, the company's R&D expenses continued to grow to 180 million yuan. So far, since 2018, the company has invested a total of 2.226 billion yuan in R&D expenses.

It is worth mentioning that Changchuan Technology's R&D expense ratio is also higher than that of comparable companies in the same industry, and much higher than its domestic and foreign peers such as Huafeng Measurement & Control, Huaxing Yuanchuang, Advantest and Teradyne.

With huge R&D expenditures, the number of Changchuan Technology's patents has increased year by year. As of the end of 2023, the company has authorized 843 patents (including 341 invention patents) and 63 software copyrights.

In addition to independent research and development, Changchuan Technology also improves its research and development capabilities through mergers and acquisitions. Public information shows that in 2019, Changchuan Technology completed the acquisition of STI, providing strong support for the company's breakthroughs in technical difficulties in the optical field for products such as probe stations.

In 2023, Changchuan Technology completed the acquisition of Changyi Technology (Exis, Malaysia). The company is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of integrated circuit sorting equipment. Its core products are mainly turret sorters, and it has accumulated rich experience in the turret sorter segment.