Midea Group spent about 4 billion yuan to buy back shares. It was approved at the general meeting of shareholders on the afternoon of July 23. When answering the investor's question, Jiang Peng, secretary of the board of directors of Midea Group, said that the profit of the US robot business is better than that of the US. There is a home appliance business, it is not high, but compared to other robot companies, the profit margin is not low.
For the application of robots, Jiang Peng believes that the future automotive field will gradually become saturated, and the Chinese robot market has the advantage of diversified business structure. The general industrial field has a great demand for robots, and the robot penetration rate is low, so the beauty The robot business will have a lot of market space in the future.
In order to realize the 'human-machine new generation' strategy proposed by the United States this year, Jiang Peng revealed that there will be no adjustment in the number of future employees of the United States, but the staff structure will be further optimized to increase the proportion of R&D and technical personnel.
Optimistic about future development
Last year, the United States proposed to transform into a technology group. The revenue exceeded 200 billion yuan for the first time. At the beginning of this year, its market value exceeded 400 billion yuan.
However, this year, due to the weak real estate market, the overall growth rate of the home appliance industry slowed down, and Sino-US trade friction and other factors, the US share price has since been adjusted back. On July 23, the market value of Midea Group was 308.55 billion yuan, that is, after more than half a year. Time, the market value has shrunk by about a quarter.
The 50-year-old Midea is no longer a purely home appliance group. After acquiring a 94.55% stake in Germany's KUKA, one of the world's four largest robotics companies in 2016, Midea's robotics business is growing rapidly.
Midea's 2017 annual report shows that the Group's operating revenue last year reached 240.712 billion yuan, of which consumer appliances (mainly ice-washing products, household appliances, kitchen appliances and three major sectors) achieved revenue of 98.748 billion yuan, contributing 41% of revenue. ; HVAC (including household air conditioning, commercial air conditioning two major sectors) to achieve operating income of 95.352 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 40%; robots and automation systems (including KUKA robots, two Ande logistics) revenue of 27 billion Yuan, accounting for 11.23%.
Since the beginning of this year, the performance of Midea has continued to grow against the trend. In the first quarter of 2018, the Group's operating income was 69.738 billion yuan, up 16.7% year-on-year; the net profit of returning home was 5.256 billion yuan, up 20.76% year-on-year.
What is more noteworthy is that during the AWE (China Home Appliances and Consumer Electronics Expo) in March this year, the United States officially released the new strategy of 'human-machine new generation', and wanted to build the 'American version of the industrial Internet': open the R&D side, production equipment end , supply chain, business, logistics and user, hope to achieve zero inventory production, 100% logistics tracking management and C2M (consumer to manufacturer) customization.
The current stock price and market value, for the United States, naturally can not fully reflect its future value. Therefore, the United States made a large-scale stock repurchase. According to its repurchase plan, the United States plans to spend no more than 4 billion yuan, not more than 50 yuan / The price of the shares is expected to be no less than 80 million shares, accounting for 1.2% of the company's current issued share capital. The implementation date is within 12 months after the shareholders' meeting.
According to the financial data audited on December 31, 2017, the 4 billion yuan of funds used for repurchase accounted for 1.61% of the total assets of the US, accounting for 5.43% of the company's net assets.
Midea’s independent directors believe that this move conveys growth confidence and safeguards the company’s share price and the interests of investors. In fact, from around June 14 to around July 4, Midea’s share price has fallen by nearly 20%. July 23 On the day, the shareholders' meeting passed the US repurchase plan, the share price of Midea Group rose from 46.38 yuan to 46.58 yuan.
Transformation technology company
Midea’s robot business is further accelerating. At the end of March this year, Midea and KUKA established three joint ventures in China and laid a new robot production base in Shunde. Wen Kaiming, CEO of KUKA General Industrial Robotics, visited the company in June this year. According to a financial reporter, the new KUKA Shunde plant in the US will be put into operation in the fourth quarter of this year. The total number of factories in Shanghai and Shunde is expected to reach 100,000 robots in China by 2024. The goal of KUKA is 2020. Years ago became the first Chinese robot manufacturer.
According to the data of robot-related industry associations, China's robot market capacity will reach 210,000 units by 2020. From the capacity estimation, Wen Qiming expects that by 2024, KUKA will occupy 25% to 30% of the Chinese robot market. On the basis of achieving 3.5 billion euros in revenue in 2017, it plans to achieve revenues of 4 billion to 4.5 billion euros by 2020.
This means that while maintaining the steady growth of the 'stock business' of home appliances, Midea hopes to continue to make rapid progress in the “incremental business” of robots, eventually becoming a global consumer electronics, HVAC, robotics and automation systems and intelligent logistics. Technology Group.
From the transformation of home appliance companies to technology groups, the United States is not without difficulties and challenges. The weighted average return on equity of the US group in 2017 reached 25.88%, while the weighted average return on equity of Midea Group in 2016 was 26.88%. The integration of Toshiba White Power slightly lowered its yield.
In order to improve the ROE of the robot business, both Midea and KUKA are working hard in the direction of 'soft and hard combination', that is, not only producing and selling robot hardware, but providing a complete industrial Internet solution including software and systems. The company has established Meiyun Zhisui Software Co., Ltd., relying on its own production automation and manufacturing transformation experience to provide digital services for enterprise management. According to Xu Chengmao, vice president of Midea’s Central Research Institute, 'the role of software is much greater than Hardware'.
It is worth mentioning that last Friday (July 20), Midea Group jumped to the 323th place in the Fortune Global 500 with revenue of 35.974 billion US dollars last year. This is the third in the US after 2016 and 2017. The second time in the Fortune Global 500. Compared with 2017, Midea Group has risen 127 this year, ranking a record high. In the future to achieve higher rankings, the United States must work harder on 'soft power'.