The fruit chain is about to collapseApple s battery business is moving to India

Mondo Technology Updated on 2024-01-30

According to reports, in order to diversify the global ** chain, Apple hopes that the batteries of the new iPhone 16 phones released next year will be made in India. However, Apple's desire also depends on whether the output of the first merchant can keep up.

Like the clothing and shoe industries, low-end production capacity cannot be retained.

The first generation of foreign trade factories is garment factories, the second generation of foreign trade factories are electronics factories, and the third generation of foreign trade factories will be auto and parts factories.

Each iteration brings an increase in workers' incomes.

Some people raise the bar to say that the high-end production capacity undertakes the small population, and China needs low-end production capacity to accommodate the employed population

With the advancement of industrial upgrading, most of the nodes of the fruit chain engaged in by Chinese enterprises have been reduced to low-end production capacity.

Now the iPhone series, in terms of chips and screens with the highest technical content, the highest profit margin, except for BOE to make a part of the screen as a spare tire, the vast majority of Chinese fruit chain enterprises, just do low-end processing.

In recent years, Xingkong Jun has been staring at how to transform fruit chain enterprises.

First, the fruit chain transformation pacesetter.

Taking Sunwoda as an example, it is the best example of the successful transformation of China's fruit chain enterprises.

iPhone3, Sunwoda was handpicked by Jobs as a battery supplier, but iPhone4 was "swept away", fortunately Xiaomi was founded, not to mention the battery production capacity of Sunwoda, and established a deep friendship with Rebus.

The batteries of Xiaomi mobile phones and notebooks are basically Sunwoda OEM, and Mi's sweepers are also Sunwoda OEM.

After that, Sunwoda returned to the fruit chain, but the company has been diversifying, engaging in energy storage and power batteries.

According to the statistics of South Korean analysts, Sunwoda has now become one of the world's top ten power battery manufacturers in terms of installed capacity.

The third quarter report of 2023 released by Sunwoda realistically shows that the company achieved operating income of 343 from January to September200 million, down 62%。Achieve net profit attributable to the parent company 8000 million, an increase of 16 percent year-on-year9%, deducting 6100 million, an increase of 26 percent year-on-year0%。

Data**: Straight Flush ifind, Cartography: Poetry and the Stars.

Among them, the net profit attributable to the parent company in the third quarter was 3700 million, an increase of 15 percent year-on-year7%, gross margin 144%, an increase of 1 year-on-year9pct, mainly due to the company's power battery and consumer cell shipments to maintain rapid growth, capacity utilization rate improved.

On the whole, the decline in the company's revenue in 2023 is related to the high base in 2022.

Second, the data in the financial report.

Throughout the industry, battery companies are very hard. In the past, there was the collapse of Jianrui Woneng, and then there was the loss of AVIC Lithium Battery, which was divested, and Guoxuan Hi-Tech, which was injected by Volkswagen with operating difficulties, most of them are asset-heavy operations.

The status of the power battery and consumer battery industry is basically similar, lacking sufficient right to speak, and the ** of the entire industry is declining: Tesla is cutting prices, and mobile phones are also reducing prices.

And the cost of the most priority compression is the battery.

The pressure of the entire industrial chain is concentrated in the battery industry, which has brought obvious financial risks to these enterprises.

1. Inventory risk.

Due to the rapid decline in the market, the risk of inventory decline in electronic products is very large. It can be said that the vast majority of electronic products have been reducing their prices since the first day they are produced.

Inventory that cannot be sold in time will inevitably become a burden on the enterprise.

The third quarterly report shows that Sunwoda's inventory has accumulated to 837.8 billion, and the semi-annual report is as high as 839.1 billion, excluding the provision for inventory decline, the original value of inventory is 897.9 billion, the company made a provision of 58.7 billion inventory price decline provisions.

This amount is very large and is a factor that seriously affects profits.

According to the requirements of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, the interim report does not need to be audited, but the annual report needs to be audited by the firm, so many listed companies may omit or even omit items such as price decline provisions when preparing their own semi-annual reports, so as to avoid excessive impact on profits.

Therefore, the unaudited semi-annual report data can only be used for reference, and the specific real data still needs to wait for the audited annual report to be analyzed.

2. Capital chain risk.

The balance sheet shows that the company's long-term and short-term borrowings and other interest-bearing liabilities exceed 18 billion. The company's annual revenue is about 52 billion, and such a huge scale of borrowing shows that the company's capital turnover is very difficult.

Data**: Straight Flush ifind, Cartography: Poetry and the Stars.

The consequence of being heavily indebted is that interest expenses are relatively high. In the first three quarters of 2023, the company's interest expense was as high as 55.8 billion, which has become one of the important factors affecting net profit.

Judging from the cash flow statement, the main purpose of the company's borrowing is to expand the scale of production. From 2018 to 2023, in the third quarter report, in the past five years, the company has invested more than 25.7 billion yuan in investment cash flow in the purchase and construction of projects under construction and fixed assets.

However, due to the limitations of the company's business model, the huge investment did not bring a very good return on investment.

3. Skills for long-term amortization of expenses.

If the company's operating performance is "truthfully" displayed, for the overstretched Sunwoda, it will make a loss in the financial report if it is not careful.

So the company used some strange accounting accounts, such as long-term amortization expenses.

The company put up to more than 4 billion production line decoration projects in the long-term amortization expenses, rather than a one-time entry into the current expenses, from the actual amortization situation, the company's average amortization period of about ten years, greatly reducing the impact on profits.

Third, the revenue composition still needs to be optimized.

From the perspective of revenue composition, taking the company's 2023 interim report as an example, the company's core products are still consumer batteries (mobile phones, notebooks, electrical appliances, etc.).

Data**: Straight Flush ifind, Cartography: Poetry and the Stars.

Compared with other power battery giants, the growth rate of the company's power battery business is relatively slow.

From the perspective of gross profit margin, the company's highest gross profit margin is energy storage, followed by power batteries, and the lowest is consumer batteries. The main reason is related to the self-sufficiency rate of the battery cell. The self-sufficiency rate of consumer battery cells is only about 30%, and the energy storage battery cells mainly rely on outsourcing, resulting in the company becoming a substantial OEM.

In other words, Indian companies are currently unable to produce battery cells, and Apple has moved its battery factory to India, and battery cells still have to be purchased from other countries.

Xingkong Jun believes that the company needs to further optimize the revenue composition, on the one hand, increase the self-sufficiency rate of battery cells, and on the other hand, increase the business promotion of power batteries with high independent technology content.

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