Poetry and starry sky/articles by special authors of this magazine
July 2020 1 day, Inspur Information (000977. SZ) was rumored to be cut off from Intel's CPU. Intel responded that according to the relevant laws of the United States, it is necessary to make some corresponding adjustments to our supply chain, so we have to temporarily stop supplying this customer. It is expected that the supply will be suspended within two weeks, when the supply to this customer will be resumed. Fortunately, Intel kept its promise and then resumed supply.
Inspur Information has cooperated with Intel for more than 30 years.
In 20 19, the company purchased from Intel up to17.9 billion yuan. If the supply is really cut off, Inspur information will be overwhelmed, but obviously, it is impossible for Intel to find a big customer who can purchase such a huge amount of chips in a short time, which will be very uncomfortable.
In 20 19, Inspur x86 server market share exceeded 10%, ranking third in the world, becoming the server manufacturer with the highest growth rate among the top five in the world; In China market, Inspur x86 server market share exceeds 34%. In China's non-X86 server market, Inspur's market share has remained above 50%. AI server ranked first in China market with an absolute advantage of over half market share for three consecutive years.
In the field of servers, Inspur Information is the first echelon in the global market and the absolute leader in China market.
After the false alarm of Intel's supply failure, you might as well calm down and think about it. If there is a supply failure, does Inspur Information have a spare tire?
According to reports, Intel's sales in 20 19 were $65.793 billion, or about RMB 420 billion. Inspur Information, as one of Intel's largest customers, accounts for nearly 5% of sales. From the data point of view, Intel and Inspur are highly interdependent.
At present, the largest product shipped by Inspur is x86 server, and x86 CPU chip mainly comes from Intel. At present, Inspur can't produce CPU chips, and domestic x86 CPU is only optional. On the one hand, Guang Hai's CPU performance is still far behind the mainstream Intle and AMD. On the other hand, Guang Hai's production capacity is limited, and I'm afraid even the demand of affiliated enterprise Zhongke Shuguang cannot be met.
Although it is one of the largest server manufacturers in the world in terms of shipments, although it has some technical accumulation in architecture motherboards and other aspects, Inspur Information has no spare tire plan for the most critical and core technology-chips.
The profit margin is extremely low
June 5438 +2020 10, the company released the third quarterly report. Benefiting from the urgent demand for cloud centers in industries such as teleconferencing and distance education during the epidemic, the company achieved an operating income of 45.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.02%. The net profit was 628 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 265,438+0.37%.
Compared with the company's huge revenue scale, the net profit is almost pitiful. How can the profit of a server that looks very tall be so low?
We should start with the transformation of IBM at the earliest. It is said that IBM does not do business with a gross profit margin of less than 40%, so when the computer server gradually entered the Red Sea market and the gross profit margin declined, it sold the PC and x86 server business to Lenovo, and later even the most advanced minicomputer business was sold.
IBM and Inspur Information jointly established Inspur Commercial Machinery Co., Ltd., with IBM holding 49% and Inspur holding 5 1% to produce IBM's latest minicomputer. The subsidiary's net profit in 20 19 was close to 60 million yuan, but it lost more than 40 million yuan in the semi-annual report in 2020.
Due to fierce market competition, the gross profit of the server market is getting lower and lower. The financial report shows that the gross profit of Inspur Information has dropped from about 20% ten years ago to about 1 1% now, and the company's net profit is also relatively low.
The company's book short-term loans exceeded 5.2 billion yuan, the highest since listing. Behind the high loan is the company's interest expense of 65438-September1.1.700 million yuan.
Historical maximum inventory balance
The balance sheet of the third quarterly report shows that the company's inventory balance is 65.438+03.685 billion yuan, the highest in history.
In order to stock up, Huawei hoarded a large number of chips, resulting in a high inventory balance. But the current wave information does not have the same concern in the short term. What are the risks of such a high inventory?
As we all know, electronic products are updated very quickly, and the price is reduced very quickly from the factory. The first thing to do is to reduce the risk of price-inventory decline.
Because the data of the third quarterly report is not detailed enough, we take the semi-annual report as an example, and the company has already encountered such risks. In the semi-annual report, the accumulated balance of the company's inventory depreciation reserve reached 965.438 million yuan. Among them, 602 million yuan was added in the first half of the year, nearly five times that of the same period last year, even exceeding the net profit of the same period.
In the third quarterly report, the amount of new assets impairment losses totaled 724 million yuan. Combined with the detailed data of the semi-annual report, most of them should be inventory depreciation reserves.
Dividend, reduction and equity pledge
At the same time of poor performance, the company also has two outstanding indicators: dividends and equity pledge.
The cash flow statement shows that since 20 17 years, the company has accumulated dividends of 108 billion yuan, which is close to half of the accumulated net profit. Considering the tight cash flow in recent years, the company almost borrowed money to pay dividends.
Isn't it good for investors to pay more dividends?
This should be analyzed from the ownership structure of the company. In 20 17, inspur group, the largest shareholder of the company, held more than 4 1%. Nearly half of the company's dividend cash went into the pockets of major shareholders.
The purpose of the company's dividend is not only to give back to investors, but to give back to major shareholders, because Inspur Group is short of money. For example, Inspur Information announced on September 23 that the controlling shareholder Inspur Group has gone through the formalities of equity pledge registration for 70 million shares of the company's unrestricted shares due to the need of non-public offering of exchangeable corporate bonds, which is used to guarantee the share exchange of this non-public offering of exchangeable corporate bonds.
In addition to dividends, Inspur Group has also continued to reduce its holdings in recent years. In just three years, the shareholding ratio has dropped from more than 465,438+0% to about 36%.
According to the announcement of 5438+00 in September and June, 2020, Inspur Group pledged 70 million shares and 45 million shares twice, accounting for 2 1.9% of its shares. The actual controller of Inspur Group is the local SASAC. In state-owned enterprises, equity pledge is a very rare phenomenon.
This further shows that the capital chain of Inspur Group, the major shareholder, is very tight, which has a potential impact on the company's operation and may even lead to the transfer of benefits.
In the semi-annual report of Inspur Information, the company's accounts receivable from Inspur Group exceeded140,000 yuan, but strangely, this amount actually accrued bad debts of 765,438+10,000 yuan.
Generally speaking, there is no need to make provision for bad debts between affiliated enterprises, especially between affiliated enterprises with superior-subordinate relationship, because there should be no bad debt risk. Inspur Information is a subordinate unit of Inspur Group. Inspur group is a state-owned enterprise, and its benefits are acceptable. How can it not pay its debts?
In addition, is it really possible to take legal procedures to sue yourself?
For another example, the Venezuela project of Inspur Group owes Inspur Information 295 million yuan, and even as early as 20 16, the provision for bad debts was fully accrued.
In a sense, the losses caused by the failure of major shareholders' investment should be borne by major shareholders, not by listed companies themselves.
This accounting treatment of inspur information is suspected of harming the interests of small and medium-sized investors.
Low R&D investment
Inspur information, as a leading enterprise in the industry, should increase investment in research and development. However, the third quarterly report shows that the company's R&D expenditure is 654.38+0.88 billion yuan, accounting for only 4. 12% of the company's revenue. In contrast, Huawei's R&D expenditure in 20 19 exceeded100 billion, accounting for more than 14% of revenue.
Regardless of the amount or proportion, the R&D investment of Inspur Information is relatively low, which is difficult to match the company's high-tech enterprise image. Since 20 18, the company's R&D expenses have been 65.438+0.75 billion yuan, 2.35 billion yuan and 65.438+0.88 billion yuan (three quarterly reports), accounting for 3.72%, 4.55% and 4. 12% of the revenue respectively.
Server is a talent-intensive industry, and the technology iteration is very fast. If we can't guarantee enough R&D investment, it will be difficult for the company to stay ahead in technology. The gross profit margin of the company is less than half that of ten years ago, and the main reason behind it is insufficient investment in research and development.
In recent years, the international situation is unpredictable, and the company's excessive dependence on overseas suppliers such as Intel has laid a hidden danger for its future development. The company should make great efforts to solve the problem of independent control of core technologies.
The annual report is not optimistic
From the data of1-September in the third quarterly report, the performance of Inspur Information is still quite beautiful, but looking at the data of the third quarterly report alone, it is found that it is not so optimistic.
The company's revenue in the third quarter was1521700 million yuan, down 8.82% year-on-year; The net profit also decreased compared with the third quarter of 20 19.
After a lot of buying in the first and second quarters, the decline in the third quarterly report indicates that the company's annual performance may not be so optimistic.
The company's huge inventory is probably the last straw to crush the camel.
In order to cope with the possible outbreak of server demand and power outage risk, the company purchased server accessories such as chips and hard disks on a large scale, resulting in high inventory.
But the reality is that from the third quarter, the market demand began to shrink, the company's inventory is difficult to digest, and it will continue to depreciate over time.
The risk of the company's inventory falling in price is increasing, and it is very likely that it will "storm" in the annual report and devour the not-so-rich net profit.