Visual China.
Blue Whale financial reporter Xu Xiaochun.
After half a year, Otway disclosed that it had won a large order. On February 22, Otway won the bid for LONGi Green Energy 2700 million yuan of scribing and welding machine, BC printing equipment procurement.
In the past two years, with the substantial growth of new photovoltaic installed capacity, Otway, as an upstream photovoltaic equipment manufacturer, has become a "richest man", making a lot of money, and the company's sales revenue from photovoltaic equipment has increased to more than 90%.
After its listing in 2020, Otway has continuously raised funds to expand its factories through private placement and issuance of convertible bonds, and strengthened its investment in the photovoltaic industry, and only in 2023, it will receive equipment orders from leading enterprises such as LONGi Green Energy and Tongwei Co., Ltd., with a total bid amount of nearly 3.8 billion yuan. Driven by the demand of the downstream photovoltaic industry, Otway achieved a profit growth of more than 76% last year.
More than ninety percent of its revenue comes from photovoltaics, and it has become the leading business of LONGi, Tongwei and Trina Solar.
After the market on February 22, Otway disclosed the first project winning announcement this year, and the company won the bid for LONGi Green Energy's module project, including the procurement of scribing and welding integrated machine and BC printing equipment, with a total bid amount of about 2700 million yuan.
According to the announcement, the two sides have not yet signed a specific contract, Otway will confirm the receipt after the acceptance of the equipment, the average acceptance cycle of the goods is about 6-9 months, affected by the specific delivery time and acceptance time of the project, the impact of the winning project on the performance in 2024 is uncertain, which will have a positive impact on the operating performance of Otway in 2025.
Otway is mainly engaged in the production of high-end equipment, and its products are mainly used in the packaging and testing links of the photovoltaic industry, lithium battery industry and semiconductor industry. However, at present, Otway still has little penetration in the lithium battery and semiconductor industries, and photovoltaic equipment is still the company's main income**. In the first half of 2023, more than 90% of Otway's revenue comes from the sales of photovoltaic equipment products, and the fluctuation of demand in the photovoltaic industry greatly affects Otway's operating performance.
In recent years, there has been a staged crisis of excess under the soaring photovoltaic production capacity, and all links of the photovoltaic industry chain have been falling endlessly last year, once breaking through the cost line, and polysilicon, silicon wafers, cells, and modules have all fallen by more than 45%, and the photovoltaic industry is facing a reshuffle. But at the same time, the leading photovoltaic companies continue to expand.
For example, LONGi Green Energy and Tongwei Co., Ltd. also disclosed the project announcement in June last year, LONGi Green Energy plans to invest in the construction of 20GW monocrystalline silicon rods, 24GW monocrystalline cells and supporting projects, and Tongwei Co., Ltd. will build 25GW solar cells and 20GW photovoltaic module projects to continue to extend the production capacity of the industrial chain. In addition, leading PV companies such as JA Solar and JinkoSolar have all thrown out new project construction plans.
Driven by the demand for continued expansion of production in the downstream industry, in 2023, Otway voluntarily disclosed 6 project winning announcements, all of which came from the photovoltaic industry.
In February and July last year, Otway won the bidding project of Tongwei Co., Ltd. and its subsidiaries for the cutting and welding machine twice, with a total winning bid amount of about 9200 million yuan. In March, Otway won the bid for LONGi Green Energy's silicon wafer sorter, cell and module projects, with a bid amount of 4300 million yuan. In April, Otway won the bid for the module projects of LONGi Green Energy and Canadian Solar, with a bid amount of 3100 million and 2300 million yuan. At the end of August, Otway disclosed the announcement of winning the bid for the last time, and the company won the procurement project of Trina Solar's monocrystalline furnace in Qinghai and Shifang, Sichuan, with a winning bid amount of about 18900 million yuan, which is the largest single contract project disclosed in the whole year.
According to data released by the National Energy Administration, by the end of 2023, the installed capacity of solar power generation in the country was about 60949GW, up 55% year-on-year2%。Among them, 216 new photovoltaic installations will be added in the country in 202388GW, a significant increase of 148% year-on-year, almost the sum of the new installed PV capacity in the past four years, a record high. PV has surpassed hydropower to become the second largest power source in the country, and the PV industry may maintain structural growth in 2024.
Chengye PV, failed PV, the actual controller has borrowed money to participate in the fixed increase and expansion.
Founded in 2010, Otway was born in the low tide of the photovoltaic industry, and the domestic photovoltaic production equipment was monopolized by imported manufacturers, and the highest level remained high.
When Otway was established in 2013, it invested heavily in the research and development of photovoltaic equipment for stringers, which are the core equipment in the production of photovoltaic modules. At that time, photovoltaic equipment was the only income of Otway**, and Otway also occupied a certain market position in the field of photovoltaic equipment with stringers.
With the development of new energy vehicles, lithium power batteries have become a new outlet for the new energy industry. In 2016, after the acquisition of Wuxi Otway Intelligent Equipment, Otway entered the lithium battery equipment market and sold modules covering cylindrical and soft-pack lithium power batteries.
In May 2020, Otway was listed on the Science and Technology Innovation Board, and the company determined the medium and long-term strategic goal of building a "smart factory", and its product layout planning involved the fields of photovoltaic equipment, lithium battery equipment and semiconductor equipment. Otway raised funds through IPO76.4 billion yuan, of which nearly 6% is used for the construction of production bases. However, by the time of listing, most of Otway's revenue still came from photovoltaic equipment, and in 2019, lithium battery equipment was even sold at a loss, and the gross profit margin was negative.
As the leading upstream business in the photovoltaic industry, Otway's performance is closely related to the prosperity of the photovoltaic industry. In 2018, the "531 New Deal" released information such as subsidy decline and suspension of photovoltaic power plant construction scale, the photovoltaic industry declined, and the pressure was quickly transmitted to the field of photovoltaic equipment, and the gross profit margin of Otway fell by more than 8 percentage points in the following two years.
Around 2021, the continuous growth of terminal installed capacity in the photovoltaic industry has driven the continuous expansion of the upstream and downstream of the industrial chain, and at the same time, the continuous progress of photovoltaic technology in all links has driven the replacement of existing production capacity, and the two-phase superposition has affected the core links of the photovoltaic industry chain such as silicon wafer equipment, battery equipment and module equipment, and the demand for high-performance equipment has been increasing.
After the listing, Otway raised funds and expanded production in a variety of ways. In June 2021, Otway threw out a fixed increase plan for the first time, and the company raised 5500 million yuan, mainly used for the research and development and industrialization of high-end intelligent equipment, the company believes that there are major market opportunities for technological progress and equipment import substitution in downstream industries. The private placement was fully subscribed by Ge Zhiyong, one of the actual controllers of Otway.
In fact, Otway seized the opportunity of the photovoltaic industry this time, and the company's revenue from photovoltaic equipment sales has further increased, and the gross profit margin has now rebounded to nearly 39%, and the company's profit has grown rapidly.
In May 2022, Otway completed the fixed increase plan, and in December of the same year, Otway threw out the convertible bond plan. Otway raised funds through convertible bonds11400 million yuan, mainly used for the construction of platform-based high-end intelligent equipment smart factory, with an investment of about 10400 million yuan, and the remaining funds will be used for the research and development and industrialization projects of photovoltaic cell advanced metallization process equipment laboratory and semiconductor advanced packaging optical testing equipment.
Affected by the strong demand in the photovoltaic industry, Otway has frequently won bids for large-scale photovoltaic head enterprise projects in the past two years, and as of September 30, 2023, Otway has about 114 orders in hand8.3 billion yuan, and the total number of new orders signed from January to September was about 899.2 billion yuan, an increase of 75 over the same period last year93%。
Otway expects full-year 2023 operating income to grow by 7811 per cent, reaching 630.4 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was about 125.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7615%, the company maintained a performance growth rate of more than 70% in the fourth year.