Reporter of the Economic Business: Zhu Chengxiang Editor of the Economic Business: Yang Xia
The RF industry was once a hot spot for primary market investment. Weijiechuangxin (SH688153, stock price 35.25 yuan, market value 14.404 billion yuan) is the leader in terminal PA ( power amplifier , referred to as power amplifier), and has high expectations for investors. Then, after the listing price fell, Weijiechuangxin was almost halfway down from the issue price.
On April 12, 2022, Weijiechuangxin logged into Science and Technology Innovation Board , with an issue price of 66.60 yuan per share. After listing, Weijiechuangxin has not yet implemented dividend distribution and distribution. As of the closing on September 29, the stock price closed at 35.25 yuan per share, down more than 47% from the issue price, with a market value of 14.404 billion yuan.
Weijiechuangxin is the leading domestic PA, but its core PA module device filter requires external acquisition. In addition, in the first half of 2022, the company may have a backlog of inventory due to the decline in sales of downstream mobile terminals, and the inventory turnover rate of dropped from 2.33 in the same period last year to 0.73.
IC photo
The PA leader
RF discrete devices with decline in revenue are ranked according to their value, namely filter, amplifier, switch and low-noise amplifier (LNA). According to Minsheng Securities data, the market share of RF front-end discrete device filters, PA, RF switches and LNA in 2020 was 54%, 34%, 7%, and 2% respectively.
Among domestic RF manufacturers, Zhuoshengwei (SZ300782, stock price 96.65 yuan, market value 51.586 billion yuan) uses RF switches as a breakthrough point to gradually expand LNA and accept module business, and once grew into a ten-fold stock with A shares with a well-known stock. Weijiechuangxin is the leader in the PA field. According to Southwest Securities data, in 2021, Weijiechuangxin's 4G RF PA modules have shipped over 1.2 billion, ranking first in domestic manufacturers, and the cumulative shipment of 5G RF PA modules has also exceeded 100 million.
From the perspective of value, PA has a higher value, but from the perspective of market trend, Weijiechuangxin's stock price performed poorly.
According to Yole Development data, the market sizes of PA modules, discrete filters, FEM modules, connecting SoC chips, , antenna tuners, discrete switches, discrete LNA (low noise amplifier) in 2019 were US$5.376 billion, US$3.683 billion, US$2.577 billion, US$1.72 billion, US$569 million, US$446 million and US$398 million, respectively.
. Yole Development predicts that by 2025, the market sizes of PA modules, discrete filters and FEM modules will reach US$8.931 billion, US$4.23 billion and US$4.572 billion respectively.
From the perspective of market size and future growth space, Weijiechuangxin, which mainly sells PA modules, has broad prospects. However, compared with Zhuoshengwei, which mainly engages in FEM modules, discrete switches, and discrete LNA, Weijiechuangxin is relatively inferior.
In the first half of 2022, Weijiechuangxin's revenue was 1.312 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 22.93%; Zhuoshengwei's revenue in the same period was 2.235 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 5.27%. Zhuosheng Micro's gross profit margin is 52.55%, while Weijiechuangxin's gross profit margin is 30.49%.
Regarding the gap in gross profit margins between the two companies, the staff of the Secretary-General of Weijiechuangxin replied to the reporter of " Daily Economic News " via WeChat: "For comparison with other companies, you can pay attention to the products. As far as I know, there is currently no listed company whose main business is PA."
At the same time, the reporter referenced and looked up the prospectus of the chip designer Huizhiwei, which is in the process of IPO. Its prospectus shows that the gross profit margins of Huizhiwei in 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 6.06%, 6.69% and 16.19% respectively.
Regarding the decline in revenue, Weijiechuangxin said that it was mainly due to the weakness of the global market in this period and the decline in terminal demand. According to CINNO Research data, the sales of smartphones in the Chinese market in the first half of 2022 were about 134 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 16.9%. Compared with the revenue of Weijiechuangxin and Zhuosheng Micro, although the terminal market sales were sluggish, Zhuosheng Micro's revenue fell by only a slight 5.27%, while Weijiechuangxin fell by more than 20%.
Analyzing the two subdivided tracks, we can see that Weijiechuangxin mainly sells PA modules, namely RF transmission links; Zhuoshengwei mainly uses discrete switches, discrete LNA and FEM modules, and its RF modules are mainly accepting links.
According to Weijiechuangxin's 2022 interim report, the RF front-end RF PA module (taking the high-integration PAMiD module as an example) mainly includes RF power amplifier , duplexer (consisting of two bandpass filters in parallel), and RF switches; and the receiver mainly includes low-noise amplifiers, filters, and RF switches. The former is the signal transmission link, and the latter is the signal reception link.
From the perspective of revenue structure, Weijiechuangxin PA module revenue accounts for as high as 89.91%, and receiver modules account for 8.85%. Zhuosheng Micro RF discrete devices account for about 70% of the revenue, and RF module revenue accounts for about 30%.
key devices still need to be externally produced
Weijiechuangxin core product is PA (power amplifier), but the filter with the highest value and most technical difficulty among RF devices cannot be produced by itself. The high-integration PA modules that Weijiechuangxin mainly sell require filters, which requires external filters to be retrieved from related devices of Weijiechuangxin.
It is understood that according to the degree of integration, PA modules can be divided into low-integration, medium-integration, and high-integration products. Among them, low integration includes PA and control chip; medium integration includes PA, control chip and radio frequency switch; high integration products include PA, control chip, radio frequency switch, filter and LNA.
After the development of communication technology and years of R&D investment and product iteration, the integration of Weijiechuangxin PA modules has been continuously improved. The PA module products with medium integration are mainly MMMB PA and TxM. In addition, it has achieved mass production and sales on products such as high-integration L-PAMiF. Except for the LTCC filters in SMD and high-integration modules, which are directly purchased supporting devices, the other integrated chips and substrates are manufactured by suppliers after being independently designed by Weijiechuangxin.
So, will Weijiechuangxin independently design and produce filters in the future? In this regard, the above-mentioned staff did not answer relevant questions.
It is worth noting that Zhuoshengwei has started to independently build radio frequency filter products. The 2022 interim report shows that the filter products of the company's own production line have already included SAW filter , high-performance filter, duplexer and quadrimer. The company's SAW filter has been produced in small batches during the reporting period and will enter the mass production stage in the third quarter; the high-performance filter has entered the small batch production stage during the reporting period and is about to enter the mass production stage. At this point, the construction of the filter process R&D platform will be completed in the third quarter, and will continue to optimize and evolve in the future; the duplexer and four-mechanical devices have undergone wafer wafers, and the preliminary verification results have reached the design indicators.
Daily Economic News
