1. Guoke Wei's "back-to-back enemy", high-level shocks can hardly be changed at a loss.
According to rumors in the circle, recently, a batch of finished products of Guoke Micro was investigated by the Customs, which triggered heated discussions among the insiders and also affected Guoke Micro's performance. Guoke Micro has landed A shares since last July. Since then, this IC design star has attracted much attention. The company has made a fortune in the set-top box market and has received funding from the national major fund. After the listing, the R&D focus shifted to strategic projects such as memory chips and shouldered the mission of realizing localization of memory chips. However, after the listing, the growth potential of Guoke Micro's main business is limited, and it is difficult for the emerging business to break through in the short term. At the same time, the company is still vigorously expanding its new business. The outlook is worrying. In the first semi-annual report after Guoke Micro listing, revenue Loss of profits and losses; 2017 continued to decline in revenue for the full year, but profits were increased by government subsidies; in the first quarter of 2018, net profit loss was expected to exceed 40%.
According to insiders, Guokewei will continue to lose money in the second quarter of this year. Even if profits decline, Guoke Micro will be very popular in the secondary market. According to statistics, Guoke Micro's share price has soared after listing, and it has experienced 112 days. After the soaring increase, the rate of increase reached 58%. In addition, after less than two months after the Spring Festival this year, the share price of Guoke Micro, which continued to lose money, has risen more than 2 times. Do you not know which stories are being promoted?
Relying on Fujitsu to acquire new technology, performance fluctuations and powerlessness
On March 13, 2012, Guoke Microelectronics and Fujitsu of Japan established a joint venture company, Hunan Guofutong Semiconductor Co., Ltd., headquartered in the state-level Changsha Economic and Technological Development Zone, owned by Guoke Micro, with its own independent brand.
Guoke Micro has made breakthroughs in the transformation of satellites into DVB-S technology and began to exert its power in the domestic DVB-S market. At the same time, the domestic DVB-S market is also facing technology at the same time. Product innovation, the original digital set-top box began to turn into a high-definition set-top box, 'village-pass' has also begun to upgrade to 'hukou household'.
Driven by the new changes in the entire DVB-S market in China, Guoke Micro began to show its leading position in the domestic set-top box DVB-S market, but revenue profit was not stable. Data show that in 2014, 2015, 2016 business Income increased by 112.94%, 103.00%, and 33.22% respectively over the previous year. Net profit increased by 467.53%, 8.21%, and 33.07% respectively over the previous year.
It can be seen that Guo Kewei’s revenue in 2014, 2015 and 2016 did not increase year by year, but rather it fluctuates greatly. In fact, this is because Guoke Micro cannot resist and avoid it. Because DVB-S market has strict market access. 3. The mechanism was then uniformly tendered by the then SARFT, but the bidding time was not fixed.
If the then SARFT did not bid for a specific area in the first half of the year, the main business of Guoke Micro would be difficult to carry out, and it would be difficult for the first half of the year to show its performance. At the same time, for the DVB-S chip makers, winning the market requires more downstream The recognition of qualified customers can be seen. It can be seen that Guoke Micro DVB-S business is greatly affected by the policy and the external market competition is also fierce. At that time, the domestic DVB industry has been highly marketized and facing fierce market competition. Micro will face competition from Shanghai Qiqi, Hangzhou Guoxin and other competitors, and the growth potential of the main business is limited.
Guoke Micro also stated that due to the impact of policy expectations and the intensified market competition, revenue from sales of radio and television series chips declined in 2016 compared with the same period last year.
Fortunately, at the time of the rapid development of the domestic DVB-S market, after receiving the support of Japan’s Fujitsu, Guoke Microelectronics introduced a new generation of live satellite high-definition chips GK6202S, which has achieved a certain degree of success. After obtaining technical support Guoke Micro, quickly removed Japanese Fujitsu.
The joint venture established by Guoke Microelectronics and Fujitsu Ltd. of Japan, Fortis Semiconductor, was officially cancelled on November 3, 2015. Its team and business were merged into Guoke Micro. Subsequently, on July 12, 2017, two IPO countries were prepared. Kewei successfully landed on GEM after experiencing some twists and turns.
Breakthroughs in storage chips, high-level shock executives have resigned
Guo Kewei, which successfully landed on the A-share market, raised 237 million yuan in funds. However, in 2015 before the IPO, Guokewei received a 400 million yuan investment from the national fund, which is intended to promote the research, development, and application of memory chips. In addition to the funds raised for the listing, Guoke Microelectronics needed such a huge amount of money for two years, and it was difficult to rule out the possibility of making money.
Guo Kewei once stated that as a chip design company that has actually injected capital into the national fund, Guoke Micro has shouldered the national mission and mission of realizing storage localization. In June 2016, Guoke Micro established GOKE US Research Laboratory in the United States. The storage chip business has 66.67% shares of China Microsystems. The main business of GOKE US Research Laboratory is the development of advanced technologies for software and storage systems.
However, the financial status of GOKE US Research Laboratory is not good. The data show that in 2016 the company's total assets were 2.256 million yuan, net assets were -4.8464 million yuan, and net profit was -475.64 million yuan.
According to Guoke Micro's latest financial report, the growth potential of its main business is limited, and the breakthrough in the memory chip business with a localized mission is not smooth. Guoke Wei stated that due to 2017 global solid-state flash memory particles are out of stock As a result, the sales of solid-state storage controller chip products that the company matched with it were lower than expected, and they were also not optimistic about the revenue of Guoke Micro's 2017 revenue.
Coincidentally, Guo Kewei also had an unusual incident this year. It was high-level shocks. In January this year, Guoke Micro announced that company directors Fu Jun and He Guangping resigned for personal reasons. Fu Jun resigned as a director and Director of the Nomination Committee of the Board of Directors, He Guangping resigned as a director.
Among them, Fu Jun also resigned from the post of General Manager and was replaced by Chen Ruozhong, the former senior executive of Ames Semiconductor. He was the general manager of Guoke Micro. Fu Jun is a veteran of the semiconductor industry. He used to work for Huawei and other companies in January 2014. Joined Guokewei and successively served as the company's general manager and director. Fu Jun served as the national ministry and achieved rapid development. He also promoted Guoke Micro's successful listing, holding 3,631,275 shares of the company.
Insiders said that Fu Jun and He Guangping did not rule out leaving the company. To a certain extent, after the company is listed, it is necessary to optimize the management structure.
On April 24, Guo Liwei, Director and Deputy General Manager Jiang Li also resigned. At the same time, he resigned as a member of the Remuneration and Appraisal Committee of the Board of Directors and he no longer held any position in Guoke Micro. Even Guo Jing Microsystems Secretary Gong Jing also successively Resignation. In the face of high-level turmoil, including directors, general managers, deputy general managers, and secretaries of directors, etc. have gone out in succession, the degree of blood transfusion affects the listed companies.
In addition, the author also found that at the same time when the executives left the company, Guokewei still paid for the sales of VP with high salaries, and gave an annual salary of between 1 million yuan and 1.2 million yuan. Guoke Micro's salary for sales VP was given in domestic IC design. The company is rare. After all, the CEO of a domestic IC design company does not have more than one million annual salary.
Super 70% profits rely on subsidies, and will continue to lose money in the second quarter of this year
On April 24th, Guoke Micro's 2017 earnings report, the company achieved revenue of RMB 412 million from January to December 2017, a year-on-year decrease of 15.8%; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was RMB 52,584,800, an increase of 3.01% year-on-year. Revenue declined, profit increased slightly. In the first half of 2017, Guoke Micro achieved revenue of 122 million yuan; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was -255.477 million yuan.
In fact, Guoke Micro's profit increased slightly by 3.01% in 2017. In fact, a large part of it was relied on government subsidies. In 2017, Guoke Micro was awarded a total of RMB 37,902,200 yuan in funds for various tax rebates and government subsidy projects, accounting for the entire year's net. 72% of profits. If there is no tax refund and government subsidies, Guoke Micro's 2017 net profit is only 14.3706 million yuan, a year-on-year net loss of over 70%.
The author found through investigation that relying on subsidies for tax rebates has become the norm for the growth of China National Microfinance. From the perspective of Guojiawei's VAT refunds for 2014, 2015 and 2016, they were 467,500 yuan, 7,829,100 yuan, and 6,700,300 yuan respectively. Yuan, which accounted for 1.22%, 18.65% and 11.65% of the total profit for the year.
In 2014, 2015, and 2016, Guoke Micro's income tax concessions were: 4.834 million yuan, 7.9858 million yuan, and 6.5272 million yuan, which accounted for 11.40%, 18.79%, and 11.34% of the total profit for the year.
It can be seen that in the past few years, a large part of Guo Kewei's profit support is also from the government's tax rebate subsidies.
With such a large tax rebate subsidy, after the listing, Guoke Wei, the first semi-annual report, suffered a sharp decline in its revenue, and its profits continued to suffer losses. Guoke Micro's stock price after listing was soaring. It experienced an increase after 112 days of skyrocketing. 548%; In addition, after the Spring Festival this year, less than two months, the profit of Guoke Micro Stocks continued to increase more than 2 times, I believe that behind the promotion of Guoke Micro's share price is no lack of hype.
Even more surprisingly, the growth potential of the original main business of Microelectronics Co., Ltd. is limited, and it is difficult for the emerging business to break through in the short term. At the same time, Guoke Micro is still expanding its new business and setting up branches. On April 24, Guoke Micro announced that the company A wholly-owned subsidiary will be established in Changzhou, Jiangsu Province. The company will establish 'Jiangsu Guoke Microelectronics Co., Ltd.' with a registered capital of 100 million yuan. Guoke Micro will invest with its own funds, which will account for 100% of Jiangsu Guoke Micro-equity.
It is reported that Jiangsu Guoke Micro will establish a series of chip R&D companies in the Wujin National Hi-tech Zone in Changzhou, focusing on the development of memory chips, driver chips, trusted computing, state secret security, multimedia chips, Internet of Things, communications, artificial intelligence and other chip design services. And these chip R&D can't be completed in a short period of time, and the funds invested are still very challenging for the current National Micro.
Perhaps, setting up a subsidiary in Jiangsu Province is Guokewei’s maximization of government tax rebate subsidies beyond Hunan Province. In a highly marketized chip market, relying on subsidy rebates is obviously not a long-term plan. It is listed on the A-share market. Among the IC design companies, companies such as Guoke Micro, whose profits are heavily dependent on tax rebates, are also uncommon.
Relying on government subsidies in this way means that Guoke Micro's actual performance is not good, and its operations are also subject to bottlenecks. According to the latest announcement of Guoke Micro's performance announcement, the company expects the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies from January to March of 2018 will be -38.00 million to - 330 million, a year-on-year change of -41.14% to -22.57%.
According to insiders, Guoke Micro will continue to lose money in the second quarter. Since the main business of Guoke Micro still comes from the DVB-S market, this market has a clear seasonal factor, and its product broadcast television series chips are subject to the State News Publishing Radio. The Directorate General promotes the impact of direct satellite conversion from standard definition standards to high-definition standards. Downstream customers are waiting for specific details to be issued, which will have a direct impact on Guoke Micro's revenue.
In addition, although Guokewei has entered the IPC chip market, it cannot compete with HiSilicon, Anba, etc. in the high-end market. The gross margin in the low-end market is relatively low, and it needs to face competition from many domestic manufacturers. Further aggravate. At the same time, the National Micro Memory chip market is still a lot of investment, it is difficult to start a substantial profit in the short term. The future development situation will not be optimistic.
2. National IC Investment Fund accepts foreign investment to build a world-class chip industry
Sina Technology News Beijing time April 25 news, China intends to become a global leader in the semiconductor industry. To achieve this goal, China is seeking foreign capital investment. In the United States as a barrier to China's bid to dominate the next generation of technical ambitions, The new move of this big Asian country is unexpected.
In part to reduce excessive dependence on foreign technology, the Chinese government has established a fund that aims to raise 200 billion yuan (about 31.7 billion US dollars) to support a range of domestic companies, from processor designers to equipment manufacturers. Industry regulators said on Wednesday that 'National IC Industrial Investment Fund Co., Ltd.' (referred to as the 'large fund' in the industry) will accept foreign investment.
'The main goal of the second phase of the national fund is still financing. We welcome the participation of foreign companies.' Chen Yin, chief engineer and spokesperson for the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology) explained.
The core of the recent dispute between the world's two largest economies, the United States and China, is semiconductors. The dispute between the two countries has not only led to high tariffs, but also reduced China’s investment in U.S. companies and gave China wireless communications from the fifth generation. The development of science and technology such as artificial intelligence brought a blow. The U.S. government is considering the use of the 1977 law. According to this law, President Donald Trump may declare a state of emergency in order to prevent trading and confiscation of assets.
With the United States putting ZTE on the blacklist for seven years, Beijing suddenly realized that China urgently needs to reduce its dependence on U.S. technology. The move against ZTE has instead stimulated China’s existing plans to invest 1,500 in the next decade. Billion US dollars, gradually seize the leading position in the field of chip design and manufacturing. US executives and officials have repeatedly reminded that this ambition of China may harm the interests of the United States.
At present, China’s annual semiconductor imports amount to approximately US$200 billion—almost equal to the level of oil imports. China is trying to reduce its dependence on imported semiconductors. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), China consumes 59% of the world The chip, but the sales revenue of domestic manufacturers only accounted for 16.2% of the global sales revenue in the industry. This is still a small problem. The more serious problem is that the weak semiconductor industry may weaken the national security and combat the booming technology. industry.
In the first phase of the fund, a total of 140 billion yuan was raised, and the funds flowed to about 20 domestic listed companies, including ZTE and chip maker SMIC International Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (SMIC). Investors mainly focus on the central and local governments and state-owned enterprises. It is not clear whether the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has accepted external investment.
'China has a huge electronic information market. We will continue to carry out innovation and international cooperation,' said Chen Yin. 'We will strive for rapid breakthroughs in key technology areas.'
3. History of domestic chips sinking: China Star Micro used to account for 60% of the market Huawei picked up banner team
The US ban may have caused ZTE to enter a state of shock. At 3pm on April 20th, ZTE chairman Yin Yimin appeared at the Shenzhen ZTE headquarters. The US embargo dictated the company’s life and death of 80,000 employees.
A week ago, on April 16, the U.S. Department of Commerce ordered a ban on U.S. companies selling components and other products to ZTE for a period of seven years. When the news came out, public opinion was awkward and 'coreless soul' became a hot word, reflecting the core behind it. The shortage of technology stimulates all people.
According to the data, China’s IC imports reached 377 billion pieces in 2017, an increase of 10.1% year-on-year. Imports amounted to US$260.1 billion (approximately 17561 million yuan). China’s spending on semiconductor chip imports is already nearly double that of crude oil.
Although the chip is not a consumer-oriented terminal product, it is widely used in electronics, digital products, communications equipment and other technology industries. Whether it masters the core technology of the chip or not, it is also considered to be the key point of whether to hold onto the lifeblood of science and technology.
PC camera chip once accounted for 60% of global share
When referring to domestic chips, Deng Zhonghan is an unquenchable name. He is the first student of the University of California, Berkeley, who has been in business for the first time in 130 years, and has received a degree in business. He was recommended by the principal of Berkeley to senior officials of the Ministry of Information Industry at the time. The person is presiding over the development of the Chinese chip industry.
In 1999, under the call of strong domestic government capital, Silicon Valley elite Deng Zhonghan returned to China to start a business. Zhongxingcun Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as 'Zhongxingwei') was established in Zhongguancun. The Ministry of Information Industry was one of the major shareholders. In the following six years, Zhongxing Micro has captured the market. Blank, There are no two scenes when the government helps the next:
On March 11, 2001, 'Starlight 1' was successfully developed and announced the birth of the first multimedia chip with independent intellectual property rights in China; in March 2005, the digital multimedia chip and the Shenzhou spaceship won the first prize for national science and technology progress.
As a core business of JS Micro, multimedia chips are widely used in the cameras of PCs and smart phones, and were purchased by first-tier IT companies such as Sony, Samsung, Hewlett-Packard and Philips. In 2003, the global market share reached 60%. In November 2005, Vimicro Signed on NASDAQ, became the first Chinese chip design company with independent intellectual property rights listed on NASDAQ.
Markets that cannot be ignored
'Zhongxingwei is a technology-oriented enterprise', Deng Zhonghan did not hesitate to this position. In the era of mobile Internet, the Silicon Valley elite with technical cleanliness faced trouble. At this time, shipments of mobile phones and mobile terminals began to squeeze PCs on a large scale. Living space.
Another product of Vimicro is mobile phone music chips. But soon, in the IC design industry, MediaTek in Taiwan began to provide single-chip solutions for mobile products. The music chips are embedded in the main chip, eliminating the need for separate use of music chips. This is significantly less expensive than a multimedia chip that requires several chips.
At this time, Vimicro has insisted on multi-chip R&D. In fact, with the increasingly powerful computing power of baseband chips, the trend of integration has been spurred. Qualcomm, TI and other major international companies have also started to launch single-chip solutions integrating multimedia functions. That is, using a single-chip baseband chip to integrate multimedia capabilities eliminates the need for a separate multimedia chip.
A cruel reality is that once the chip industry falls behind, it will be difficult.
Therefore, MediaTek quickly left the star slightly behind and quickly grasped the control of the entire industry chain.
In China Star Micro, the ratio of R&D and sales personnel reached 7:2. In MediaTek, the proportion of R&D and sales is roughly equal. 'In China's technology-based companies, it is often the most technical person to be the CEO, but it is actually suitable for management. Less than 20%. And competent technology company CEO must be a market master, because the market determines the direction of the company. ' Northern Light Venture Capital partner Chen Datong interviewed in the "Entrepreneur" pointed out.
Under the ideology of this technology being completely dominant, the income ratio of Vimicro from the Mainland has continued to shrink. In 2003, the income from the Mainland was still 26%. By 2007, the annual report showed that it was already less than 5%. In December 2015, China Star Micro was Nasdaq delisted. In comparison, 90% of MediaTek mobile phone chips came from the mainland. In 2017, MediaTek's annual revenue reached 50.8 billion yuan, while China Star Micro's annual revenue was only 2 billion yuan.
Vimicro is almost a microcosm of all IC design companies in China: Entrepreneurs are mostly highly educated returnees, working experience in foreign companies such as Silicon Valley, IBM, etc. Relying on the immense wealth of Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurial ventures and China’s expanding market Entrepreneurship. I believe that with his own technology, he can pull venture capital, but in the end he ignores the market environment and he is getting away from the first echelon.
After delisting, China Star Micro entered the field of security and artificial intelligence chips, but it was no longer the same as Starlight China.
Huawei chips bound to its own products
Different from the star, Huawei Hass began to be born with the symbiosis with its own product.
In October 2004, Huawei founded HiSilicon, formerly known as Huawei Integrated Circuit Design Center, and officially opened Huawei's mobile phone chip R&D road.
At that time, the speech “Lacking to buy, could not be bought as if to rent” reverberated. The article “A reprint of domestic chips and operating systems” mentioned that chips are highly dependent on investment industries. The gap between technology and R&D gaps is often The gap in capital investment. However, due to the long investment return period, many chip companies have abandoned their investment plans because of their funds. They have turned to foreign investment to increase the rate of return on investment. This has also intensified our dependence on foreign chip technology on the other hand. .
In 2000, ZTE and China National Development and Investment Corporation jointly established ZTE IC. It first started the research and development of 3G mobile phone baseband chips in Asia, which was ahead of Huawei’s Huawei. However, ZTE’s culture does not encourage trial and error. Finally, the directors Long Hougui chose to give up, the team disbanded, and many went to Hass.
When Huawei decided to establish Hass, there were also great differences within the company. After all, there are ready-made products and solutions in the international market, which are much lower than self-developed costs.
The firm belief of Ren Zhengfei, the company's helm leader, in its independent research and development, made Huawei one of the few companies on the domestic chip market that could be linked to 'independent innovation'.
In 2012, Zhengfei made a speech to Huawei Labs and the chip was temporarily useless. It still needs to continue. The company has accumulated so much wealth that it may be because of that point that someone else got stuck and finally died. It is the company's strategic banner and cannot be shaken. '
In 2009, Huawei launched the first K3 processor for the open market. Positioning and Spreadtrum, MediaTek competed against the Shanzhai market. Due to K3's mature and unsuitable sales strategy, Huawei did not apply it to its own products. Do not accidentally flap the street.
In 2010, Apple's self-developed A4 processor was successful on the iPhone 4, which stimulated Hass. 2 years later, Hass introduced the K3V2 processor and began to integrate with its own products, positioning it at the flagship Mate 1, P6 and other machines. type.
In 2012, the mobile phone processor has started a multi-core process. It was surprising that Hass grabbed K3V2 before Texas Instruments and Qualcomm and became the world’s second quad-core processor.
Since the K3V2, some Huawei handsets, especially flagships, have been using their own Hass chips. On the one hand, earlier Hass chips left Huawei's mobile phone support and it was difficult to survive on their own. So far, Huawei Hass has rarely sold its own chips externally. Simple to sell can be used, but also to provide customers with the appropriate service solutions.
In addition, the binding of Huawei's flagship and Hass chips has produced even more important impetus - Hess has rapidly upgraded and stabilized its supply. This is reflected in Huawei P7 and Unicorn 910T, Huawei Mate7 and Unicorn 925, and even Huawei. Mate 10, Glory 10 and Kirin 970.
The advertising flagship mobile phone has done its own endorsement for its chips. The self-developed chip has also ensured the competitiveness of the flagship mobile phone. Although this symbiotic relationship also has certain risks, Kirin chips have finally obtained the market under the guarantee of strong R&D investment and R&D strength. Recognition.
In January 2018, Qualcomm held a technical cooperation summit in Beijing. Domestic manufacturers were absent from Huawei alone. In November 2017, Xiaomi and OV signed a memorandum with Qualcomm. In the three years, they purchased no less than US$12 billion chips, and Huawei did not participate. Adhering to the chip self-production self-study strategy gave Huawei the confidence to refuse.
In 2014, Huawei invested Rmb40.8 billion in research and development, which accounted for 14.2% of sales revenue in the year. R&D investment was more than the total of 400 A-share companies, and far exceeded Lenovo’s total R&D for 10 years. Huawei's R&D expenses reached 897 in 2017. Billion yuan, much more than Apple and Qualcomm. Over the past ten years, Huawei has spent more than 394 billion yuan on research and development, ranking among the world’s top technology companies.
In fact, in the chip field, the United States is in a leading position in all directions, and China has only made breakthroughs in certain fields. According to the Beiqing News report, the breakthrough areas are not the core, high-end areas, such as China in memory, CPU , FPG and high-end analog chips, power chips and other areas, almost no. 'If China has made R & D, in some small categories may be a breakthrough.' Core Research chief analyst Gu Wenjun said. Financial world weekly
4. A deep-seated 'China Core' may wish to learn an interesting raspberry pie
From the Chinese core, but not Ni Guangnan.
Since he took part in the creation of Lenovo in 1985, Ni Guangnan and the 'domestic chip' and the 'domestic operating system' have struggled for 30 years. He is like Sisyphus in Greek mythology, pushing the stone uphill again and again. Disappointed and returned again and again.
This is really a tragic story.
In 1994, Ni Guangnan, who was determined to develop chip technology, and Liu Chuanzhi, who insisted on practical use, broke out in conflicts. As a result, the "Technology Trade" and "trade and technology" discussions began in China. It is difficult to evaluate whether this debate is there. A true and correct answer, but at the time, Liu’s claims were undoubtedly more relevant to Lenovo’s own interests.
This brutal internal struggle ended with Liu's victory. Ni Guangnan was forced to leave Lenovo, the company named after his invention.
After that, Ni Guangnan also participated in many projects such as domestic chips and domestic office software. However, these projects went without exception. The destiny declared Liu Chuanzhi's correctness in an extremely cruel way.