Benefiting from factors such as the continued prosperity of the photovoltaic industry, the net profits of many inverter companies last year more than doubled year-on-year. As of now, five inverter companies, Sungrow, Deye Technology, Jinlang Technology, GoodWe, and Yuneng Technology, have released performance forecasts for 2022. Among them, Yuneng Technology’s performance grew the fastest year-on-year. The company is expected to achieve a net profit of 340 million to 380 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of approximately 237 million to approximately 277 million yuan, an increase of 230% to 269%. This is the best performance in the history of Yuneng Technology, but it still falls short of market expectations.
AP Energy Technology mainly deals in photovoltaic micro-inverters and intelligent control short-circuit breakers, which are mainly used in distributed photovoltaic power generation systems. In 2021, the company's micro-inverter revenue accounted for 77.67%. According to data from Wood Mackenzie, an internationally renowned energy research organization, AP Energy Technology ranked second among global manufacturers and first among domestic manufacturers in terms of product shipments in the micro-inverter market in 2020.
Yuneng Technology relies more on overseas markets. Previous financial report data showed that the company’s overseas revenue accounted for nearly 98%, which was greatly affected by factors such as trade frictions and rising sea freight. In the announcement, Yaneng Technology affirmed the booming global distributed photovoltaic market last year, and also stated that its fourth-generation high-current micro-inverter and second-generation intelligent control shutdown products have gained market recognition. Currently, there are sufficient orders for products such as micro-inverters and intelligent control shut-offs.
Yuneng Technology's net profit in the first three quarters of last year was 253 million yuan, of which net profit in the third quarter was 124 million yuan. Based on this calculation, the company's net profit in the fourth quarter of last year was 87 million to 127 million yuan, with a month-on-month growth rate of -29.8%-2.4%. It is very likely that there will be a month-on-month decline. This is mainly due to the fact that Yuneng Technology accrued year-end bonuses and other expenses in the fourth quarter of last year, as well as the fact that some shipments were unable to recognize revenue due to the impact of the epidemic logistics, and the performance was slightly lower than market expectations.
Yuneng Technology will see high growth in volume in 2023, mainly sales of all-in-one machines, and shutdown devices will double their growth. The company's net profits attributable to parent companies from 2022 to 2024 are expected to be 370 million yuan, 1.21 billion yuan, and 1.87 billion yuan, representing year-on-year increases of 257%, 229%, and 55%.
Figure 1: The photovoltaic industry continues to prosper , and inverter companies’ net profits double
As the industry leader, Sungrow ranks first in terms of profit scale, and its performance has exceeded expectations. The company expects revenue last year to be 39 billion-42 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 62%-74%; net profit is 3.2 billion-3.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 102%-140%. In the first three quarters of 2022, Sungrow’s net profit was 2.061 billion yuan. Based on this calculation, the company's net profit in the fourth quarter of last year was 1.139 billion-1.739 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1360%-2129%.
Sungrow said that its market position in core businesses such as photovoltaic inverters, energy storage systems, and wind power converters was further strengthened last year, with shipments and revenue increasing significantly year-on-year. At the same time, benefiting from scale effects, channel expansion and improvement in operational capabilities, the company's gross profit margin and profitability have further improved. The inverter converts DC power into fixed-frequency, constant-voltage or frequency-regulated and voltage-regulated alternating current. In recent years, the photovoltaic and energy storage markets have become the main application areas for inverters.
Thanks to the rapid growth of the inverter business, Deye shares are expected to have a net profit of 1.45 billion-1.55 billion yuan last year, with a growth rate of 150.62%-167.91%. The announcement shows that the energy storage battery pack products developed by the company in the early stage have gradually matured and been put into the market. In the second half of the year, they were quickly shipped with its energy storage photovoltaic inverters; the operating performance of the environmental appliance business also achieved year-on-year growth.
Deye Co., Ltd. was originally engaged in the home appliance parts business and is the largest professional fin heat exchanger manufacturer in China. In recent years, the company has gradually expanded its business proportion in the inverter field. In the first half of last year, inverters became its largest business segment for the first time.
Deye Co., Ltd. is also the only company in China that covers grid-connected inverters, energy storage inverters, and micro inverters. From September to October last year, the company announced two expansion plans, each investing 1.5 billion yuan to build string and energy storage inverter production projects and micro inverter manufacturing and inverter R&D center projects.
Last year, the performance of Jinlang Technology and Goodwe also maintained a high growth trend. Among them, the net profit of Jinlang Technology was 1.04 billion-1.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 119.49%-132.15%. Soochow Securities predicts that in 2023, Jinlang Technology’s energy storage inverter shipments will increase 3-4 times year-on-year, and the scale effect will gradually emerge; at the same time, due to the decline in silicon material prices, photovoltaic installed demand will see high growth, and Jinlang Technology is expected to Technology’s grid-connected inverter shipments ranged from 1.2 million to 1.4 million units, a year-on-year increase of more than 40%. The company is expected to target a market share of 20% in 2025.
GoodWe expects net profit attributable to parent companies to be 590 million to 710 million yuan in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 111.06% to 152.92%. The company emphasized the importance of energy storage in its earnings preview. Benefiting from the vast development space of the photovoltaic market, and at the same time, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict has intensified the European energy crisis, distributed energy storage has shown explosive growth in the European market, and its energy storage inverters and energy storage batteries have increased sales compared with the previous year. magnitude of growth. Goodwe said that in the first half of last year, due to material shortages and the epidemic, its sales were lower than expected. In the second half of the year, as the epidemic eased, the company made efforts in multiple fields.
On January 20, the last trading day of the Year of the Tiger, inverter company stocks rose. As of the close of the day, Goodwe surged 7.98%, closing at 366.5 yuan per share, with a total market value of 45.2 billion yuan; Sungrow Power rose 7.04%, closing at 128.55 yuan, with a total market value of 190.9 billion yuan; Jinlang Technology rose 1.67%, closing at 190.9 billion yuan. at 174.56 yuan, with a total market value of 65.8 billion yuan. Deye shares edged up 0.26% to close at 327.15 yuan, with a total market value of 78.2 billion yuan. Yuneng Technology's stock price fell, down 3.9%, closing at 468.8 yuan per share, with a total market value of 37.5 billion yuan.
