Pilot Intelligence made a net profit of 768 million last year and signed a new order of 3.849 billion for lithium-ion equipment in the first quarter of this year.

Recently, pilot Intelligence (300450) disclosed the results of 2020 and the first quarter of 2021. The company achieved operating income of 5.858 billion yuan in 2020, an increase of 25.07% over the same period last year, with lithium battery production equipment accounting for 55.27%. The net profit belonging to shareholders of listed companies was 768 million yuan, an increase of 0.25% over the same period last year. The company continues to strengthen core technology research and development, continue to consolidate and open up the market, providing a strong support for sales scale and profit growth.

In the first quarter of 2021, the company realized operating income of 1.207 billion yuan, an increase of 39.32% over the same period last year, and a net profit of 201 million yuan, an increase of 112.97% over the same period last year.

According to the pilot Intelligence, the gross profit margin of the company's lithium equipment dropped slightly to 33.54% in 2020, mainly due to the decline in the gross profit margin of the equipment in the rear section of the subsidiary Titan New Power. The company's gross profit margin has returned to more than 40% in the first quarter of 2021.

At present, the leading intelligent orders are full, and the front, middle and back products of lithium power equipment have entered the company's core customer supplier system, and have been highly recognized by customers. The amount of new orders received by the company reached an all-time high in 2020, with 11.063 billion yuan (excluding tax) in 2020 and 3.849 billion yuan (excluding tax) in the first quarter of 2021. Battery Network noted that in 2020, the company signed a cooperation agreement with BMW to provide it with an overall solution for the PACK intelligent production line of new energy vehicles.

The leading intelligence is firm in the whole line strategy, multi-plate collaborative platform development, positioning lithium power complete solution suppliers, and firmly grasp the general trend of lithium power development in the future. The company said that there was a large investment in strategic R & D in the early stage, but with the continuous improvement of the scale of the whole line, optimizing business modules and business processes at the same time, reducing cost and efficiency on the premise of ensuring quality and enhancing the ability of cost management and control, the scale effect has been shown continuously.

On April 27, in order to further implement strategic cooperation and clarify the details and objectives of strategic cooperation, pilot Intelligence and Ningde Times signed the Supplementary Agreement on Strategic Cooperation Agreement between Wuxi pilot Intelligent equipment Co., Ltd. And Ningde Times New Energy Technology Co., Ltd., which supplemented and revised the terms of the original strategic cooperation agreement.

After this strategic investment, the two sides are expected to further strengthen their cooperation. When there is no strategic investment in pilot intelligence, the relationship between Ningde era and the leading intelligence department is pure commercial cooperation, although the company's lithium equipment has strong technical performance and good service capability, but based on the consideration of equipment supply chain security, Ningde era is unable to cooperate deeply with the leading intelligence in equipment supply, and there is also a certain degree of fluctuation in the purchase volume over the years. From January to September in 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020, the amount of equipment purchased by Ningde era for pilot intelligence is 732.24 million yuan, 280.03 million yuan, 1.76607 billion yuan and 973.13 million yuan respectively, which fluctuates greatly from year to year.

After this release, the future cooperation between the two sides will be comprehensively strengthened, and the pilot intelligence will benefit directly in several aspects: (1) after the strategic investment, the purchase amount of the pilot intelligence in the Ningde era will be higher and more stable. The cooperation with Ningde era is expected to firmly establish the status of pilot intelligence as the world's largest lithium equipment manufacturer. (2) the Ningde era has a clear plan for the construction of overseas production bases in the next few years, and the pilot intelligence currently occupies a leading position in overseas orders in the Ningde era. in the future, it will further strengthen the share and supporting service capacity of the pilot intelligent overseas lithium battery equipment, and promote internationalization in coordination with the Ningde era, which will also greatly reduce the risk of the company's overseas layout. (3) the advantage of pilot intelligence in the middle-end and back-end lithium power equipment is more obvious, and the omni-directional cooperation with Ningde era can further improve the performance of front-end equipment through the continuous feedback of Ningde era and improve the production capacity of whole-line equipment in an all-round way. at the same time, the demonstration effect produced by entering the supply chain of Ningde era will enhance the share of pilot intelligence in other lithium power manufacturing enterprises.

According to the forecast of the future demand for global power batteries, with the rapid growth of future production capacity in the Ningde era, it is estimated that the total procurement of core production equipment in 2021, 2022 and 2023 in the Ningde era will be about 10 billion yuan, 12 billion yuan and 15.5 billion yuan respectively. According to the "supplementary agreement" signed by the two sides, in the next three years, under the premise that the company's product quality, service, technology, price and other conditions are competitive, Ningde era gives the pilot intelligent priority according to the amount of not less than 50% of the new investment in core production equipment (including coating, winding, formation, etc.), that is, priority procurement of the company's products within the above-mentioned quota. Therefore, the order amount of pilot Intelligence in 2021, 2022 and 2023 is expected to be no less than 5 billion yuan, 6 billion yuan and 7.75 billion yuan.

With reference to the gross profit margin of the leading intelligent lithium battery equipment during the reporting period, assuming that the gross profit margin of the company's lithium battery equipment in 2021-2023 is 35%, under the premise of the above-mentioned general assumption (the same below), it is estimated that the new gross profit of the strategic cooperation for the leading intelligence in 2021-2023 is 1.75 billion yuan, 2.1 billion yuan and 2.713 billion yuan respectively, and the net profit for the leading intelligence is 723 million yuan, 867 million yuan and 1.12 billion yuan respectively.