Why did Iflytek, a "loss-making stock", become the new favorite of the organization?

Recently, Iflytek has been investigated by hundreds of organizations, and it has the momentum of becoming the "new darling of newspaper groups". On the other hand, the company's "big moves" are frequent, including personnel changes, management structure adjustment, business layout entering the harvest period, and fundamental inflection points have emerged. This may be the new logic of its recent strong trend and its market value exceeding 1 billion.

The announcement on February 28th shows that Iflytek has welcomed nearly 1 institutions for research. Since July last year, the popularity of research in Iflytek has obviously increased, and more than 1 institutions have gathered together for research, which seems to imply that the company is expected to become the new favorite of the agency newspaper group.

Previously, Iflytek's artificial intelligence business had been controversial in the capital market because it increased its income without increasing its profit. In addition, its business is more complicated, the cost performance of investment and research is relatively low, and the enthusiasm of institutions has not been high. As a giant with a market value of 1 billion, Iflytek's fund shareholding ratio is much lower than that of its peers, and it can be called an "institutional unpopular stock" among large companies.

It is worth noting that Iflytek has made frequent moves recently, and it seems that both the business structure and performance will usher in a fundamental turning point. With the boom of artificial intelligence industry, unicorns are listed one by one. As the big brother of A-share artificial intelligence, Iflytek's valuation is expected to rise.

institutional research

since last year, the popularity of institutional research in Iflytek has increased significantly. Previously, the participation of institutions in Iflytek was extremely low. At the end of the second quarter of 22, the proportion of corporate fund positions ranked second from the bottom among the top ten companies in the computer sector, far below the average.

In 22, Iflytek was investigated 15 times by institutions, which is equivalent to the sum of the four years from 216 to 219. In 219, investor relations activities were disclosed only once, and in 218, it was five times. Specifically, the number of institutions in many research activities exceeded 1, which made Iflytek frequently take the crown of the list of institutions surveyed by A-share listed companies.

according to the analysis, the main reason why Iflytek institutions held less positions before was that their business lines were too complicated and the cost performance of in-depth tracking was not high. The company involves education, politics and law, consumers, smart cities, medical care, automobiles and many other industries, and some business lines contain a number of sub-businesses, so the research cost is too high. Nowadays, the marginal change between the company and the industry has been very certain, so in the case of studying the mismatch between cost and position, market funds gradually began to choose to intervene.

however, judging from the recent market situation, Iflytek is experiencing a violent shock, and institutions seem to be in a wait-and-see game stage.

On the stock price, after the daily limit reached a record high on February 23rd, Iflytek quickly ushered in a wave of sharp adjustment, dropping 15% for three consecutive trading days. This "roller coaster" market is not accidental. Just a month ago, Iflytek just staged a similar story. For five trading days from January 19th, the company's share price rose continuously, with a cumulative increase of nearly 15%, and then fell by nearly 1% in the next five trading days.

in terms of funds, Iflytek transactions have been quite active recently. According to the data on March 1, the main force had a net outflow of 1.75 billion yuan on the 2th and 89 million yuan on the 5th. In terms of Hong Kong capital, there was a net inflow of 1.111 billion yuan on the 6 th and a net outflow of 1.7 billion yuan in the past three days. In addition, there have been 1 large-scale transactions in the past 6 days, including 5 discount transactions and 1 premium transaction.

In the last three months, Iflytek * * * has been listed on the Dragon and Tiger List for four times, all of which show that the daily net purchase is higher than 15 million yuan. Specifically, three of them are daily limit and one is daily limit; Among them, the turnover in three days exceeded 3.5 billion yuan. On January 21st, Iflytek's net purchase on that day was as high as 663 million yuan, and the turnover on that day was as high as 6.82 billion yuan, which also showed the high trading enthusiasm.

It is worth mentioning that the plunge in Iflytek on February 3rd was a stock price crash in the afternoon, which finally closed the daily limit. The turnover on that day exceeded 4 billion yuan, and the market value fell below 1 billion yuan. After-hours data showed that Shenzhen Stock Connect bought 44 million yuan and sold 29 million yuan, and the two institutions sold a total of 143 million yuan.

Iflytek's response to the market concerns caused by the sharp fluctuation of stock prices is to raise the lower limit of the annual performance forecast range. On the day of the flash crash, Iflytek announced that due to the continuous improvement of business in the fourth quarter, according to the latest progress of financial audit, the expected range of performance was further clarified: the accumulated net profit in 22 was 1.229-1.393 billion yuan, up 5%-7% year-on-year.

according to the company's third quarterly report released on October 27th, the company's annual performance guideline is that it is expected to realize a net profit of 1.65-1.393 billion yuan in 22, a year-on-year increase of 3%-7%. In other words, the updated version has increased the lower limit of the interval by 2 percentage points.

The company has made frequent "big moves"

Since last year, Iflytek has made frequent moves in its high-level structure and business strategy, and its transformation and reform have been accelerated. Improve operational efficiency

In terms of personnel structure, the company issued seven announcements of personnel changes in one year, and the reform of management structure was accelerated, and now it has been promoted to "autocratic president system".

On February 7th, Iflytek announced heavy personnel changes. In order to make the chairman focus more on the company's future development strategy and the construction of the company's core mechanism, and at the same time strengthen the cultivation of talents, Liu Qingfeng, chairman and president, will resign as the company's president and appoint Mr. Wu Xiaoru as the company's president to take charge of the company's routine operation and management.

it is reported that since April, 29, the position of president in charge of the company's production, operation and management has been concurrently held by the company's chairman, which is in a state of centralized management. In order to achieve better hierarchical management, the company began to explore the implementation of the "rotating president system" in 214, and initially realized the division of labor in internal management; Now it has evolved into "autocratic president system", and after the division of labor and decentralization, the company's operating efficiency is expected to be further improved.

in terms of business, with the acceleration of intelligent application in various industries, the company's productization is constantly advancing, and the scale effect and profitability are expected to be further improved.

in the education business, since last year, Iflytek has won the bid for regional education projects. In the first half of 22, the winning bid in the company's education field increased by 175% year-on-year. Among them, the winning bid for the smart school construction project in Bengbu City was 1.586 billion yuan, and the winning bid for the project of "Teaching students in accordance with their aptitude" artificial intelligence+educational innovation application demonstration zone in Qingdao West Coast New District was 859 million yuan. At present, the above two projects have basically completed the delivery plan during the year, and the products have entered the normal use.

in the medical business, Iflytek is also expected to enter the harvest period. Since 215, the company has laid out its medical business and achieved breakeven in 219. At present, iFLYTEK's medical assistants have been put into use in nearly 1 counties and districts in 11 provinces including Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Zhejiang, Beijing, Guangdong and Fujian, with more than 2, townships and medical institutions and more than 2, village-level medical institutions.

It's worth mentioning that the actual controller of Iflytek recently "swept" a large increase of more than 2 billion yuan, which also shows confidence in the future development of the company.

on January 19th, Iflytek announced that it plans to raise 2-2.6 billion yuan from Liu Qingfeng, one of the actual controllers, and Yanzhi Technology, a company controlled by, and all of the funds will be used to supplement the working capital after deducting the issuance expenses. The issue price is 33.58 yuan/share, and the number of shares issued is 59.56-77.43 million shares.

Iflytek said that Mr. Liu Qingfeng, the actual controller of the company, is closely related to the long-term interests of the company, and the stability of the company's control rights will be strengthened after the fixed increase is completed. Before the increase, Liu Qingfeng, the company's actual controller, and HKUST Holdings jointly controlled the voting rights of 16.17% of the company's shares, which was at a low level. According to the calculation of the issuance ceiling, after the completion of this fixed increase, the proportion of the company's actual controllers controlling the voting rights has become 18.99%, consolidating the controlling position.

On the other hand, after this issuance, the company will obtain sufficient liquidity, which is conducive to optimizing the company's capital structure, improving its ability to resist risks, and further meeting the needs of core business growth and business strategic layout; It is also conducive to the company to seize strategic opportunities in the fast-growing artificial intelligence industry and lead the development of the industry.

in the first year of AI stock, the valuation was pushed up

From the perspective of industry, the artificial intelligence industry has accelerated its development and the prosperity has been continuously pushed up, which is conducive to Iflytek's higher valuation.

the first is the growth of the demand side. Catalyzed by the COVID-19 epidemic in 22, the application of AI has been accelerated, and now it has been widely used in robot screening, image-assisted diagnosis, distance education, unmanned distribution and other fields. In the post-epidemic era, in the key tracks of AI applications such as education, medical care and logistics, the inflection point of external demand may be quickly seen.

followed by policy support. As the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, 221 will also play a role as a booster for the development of artificial intelligence industry. Some experts pointed out that it is estimated that by 23, the scale of the core industry of artificial intelligence will exceed 1 trillion yuan, driving the scale of related industries to exceed 1 trillion yuan, and cultivating a high-end and efficient intelligent economy indicates that players on the artificial intelligence track will have greater opportunities.

more importantly, with the AI unicorns intensively landing on the Science and Technology Innovation Edition with high valuations in the primary market, Iflytek, as the leading A-share AI company and one of the few profitable companies in the industry, is expected to see its valuation rise.

The data shows that with the opening of science and technology innovation board in 219, the listing process of artificial intelligence enterprises has obviously accelerated. In 219, ArcSoft Technology (machine vision algorithm) landed in Science and Technology Edition; In 22, Roborock (intelligent sweeping robot), CAMBRIAN (AI chip), No.9 Company (intelligent electric scooter) and other companies will follow closely.

At present, many AI companies, such as Haitian Ruisheng, Yitu Technology, Yunzhisheng, Yuncong Technology and Yuntian Lifei, have disclosed their prospectuses. In addition, Shangtang Technology and Kuangshi Technology, which are also the four little dragons of AI, have also reported plans to go public. Industry insiders predict that 221 will be a big IPO year for artificial intelligence enterprises.

With the high performance growth in 22 and the dual enthusiasm of AI and new energy vehicles in 221, the medium and long-term opportunities in Iflytek may just begin, and some market participants will even see a long-term valuation of nearly 2 billion.

some analysts estimate that Iflytek will be given a "buy" rating, which will be 12 times PS in 221, with a target market value of 198.65 billion, taking into account the accelerated trend of artificial intelligence industry, the premium of leading companies and the rising trend of performance/productization rate.