The Shangtang technology of Kuang Ceng Yuan Universe meets the curse of names. Is the loss always greater than the gain?

To analyse:

1. Shangtang faces the endless end to “work done but without pay”. The issue of market division and increasing cost management due to massive improvement in the industry is causing concern both internally and externally.

2. "Education" Shangtang Technology has always thought about wind turbines. In a real IPO prospectus, he "crazy" the 47-dimensional universe.

3. The loss of SenseTime is just as dangerous compared to its multiple sources of income. Over the past three years, she has faced the dilemma of “losing more than winning”.

SenseTime is coming soon. SenseTime yesterday announced its IPO in Hong Kong at an issue price of HK $ 3.85-3.99 per share, and plans to raise it to HK $ 6 billion, according to data from the Stock Exchange. Hong Kong.

What's interesting is that Xiangtang was the last to submit an IPO to the Little Dragons AI, but was the first company to come up with an IPO plan.

After the price is announced, the request is divided. But when it does cause controversy, new surprises follow as well.

According to incomplete statistics, since its inception in 2014, SenseTime has risen to the top of intelligence and the meta-world, stating, "It follows all hot spots." However, the business of the company has become more and more difficult with the operating costs and the profits of the companies, requiring hematopoietic capacities which passed to the next level of activity behind major investments in technological R&D development.

Shang Tang does not understand the market?

Since its inception in 2014, SenseTime has performed 12 financial services with a total value of $ 13 billion.

As the entire AI industry has a growing market, SenseTime's revenue growth has entered at a high level. However, while the business is improving rapidly, the company's profits are not good.

According to the report, Shangtang's sales in 2018, 2019 and 2020 will be 1.85 billion yuan, 3.03 billion yuan and 3.45 billion yuan, respectively. As of June 30, 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, the loss of SenseTime was 3,433.3 million RMB, 4,968 million RMB, 12,158 million RMB and 3.71 billion RMB, respectively, for a total of 0 , 2.4 billion RMB.

Even after the reform, the company's operating profit remained at 150 million yuan, 1.155 billion yuan, 780 million yuan and 578 million yuan.

Thanks to a combination of funding, R&D investments have become an important part of a company's income.

According to Shangtang Technology's financial data, from 2018 to 2020 and the first half of 2021, R&D expenditure was 849 million yuan, 19.16 billion yuan, 2.454 billion yuan and 1.77 billion yuan, 45, 9%, 63.1 billion yuan, 63.3%. yuan, respectively, 71.3% and 107.3%, total R & D expenditure reached 6.99 billion yuan.

The enterprise-style redesign allowed SenseTime to become a significant breakthrough in technology leadership. However, in the short term, Shangtang's sales growth did not pay off significantly.

“Shangtang technology exhibits one of the 'idealistic' characteristics of education. Endless research into the use of technology has led to product advancement, lack of confidence in energy. technology. However, the investment market is not much higher than the education market. Relationships and ideas, "some insiders said.

At the end of 2018, at the end of 2019, at the end of 2020 and as of June 30, 2021, SenseTime's revenue was 1.332 billion RMB, 2.625 billion RMB, 3.748 million RMB and 3.926 billion RMB; worth mentioning. . It is increasing every year. As of 2018, bad debts have reached 121 million yuan, 211 million yuan, 610 million yuan and 785 million yuan.

In other words, SenseTime, which is a key player in technology, faces a tough problem that "works well but doesn't pay."

Diversified “crisis” and R&D “dilemma”

In fact, since AI technology is a widely used tool, it often has to be integrated with other technologies or situations when solving problems, and its service score expression carries weight. A direct benefit of this is that the AI ​​must be tailored to the needs of Party A, and the different personalities and departments are different, making it difficult to fully scale the size of equipment and technology.

In fact, SenseTime has also taken a few steps to address AI technology development and deployment issues.

Meanwhile, actively develop the business to improve service coverage of business scenarios and capabilities. According to the company with the richest trading companies of the Four Dragons, according to its business announcement, the SenseTime market has expanded more than 10 operations, including smart marketing, smart life and smart city.

However, after the completion of various events, the issues of market allocation and management of increased costs due to the improvement of various services became significant. At the same time, the investment of 5.6 billion yuan for the expansion of general technology and related activities will not only face problems such as research and technological development, low battery life of chips, but will also create new income for the business. Business income.

Some in the industry have bluntly said to Sina Technology, “If SenseTime is not profitable enough, it will be a huge disaster in the future and may not be able to achieve or manage profitability.

(With an investment of 4 billion in earnings, the SenseTime AI supercomputing center building is like a "chip")

What is gold?

SenseTime, created in 2014, is now the largest version of “Forvision Dragons” compared to “Competitors”. However, when the number of employees exceeds ours, the SenseTime loss is even greater than that of our others.

According to data sources, from 2018 to 2020, the decline of Yuncong Technology was nearly 2.9 billion yuan, that of Yitu Technology was 5.1 billion yuan, that of Megvii Technology was nearly 14.3. billion yuan and that of Sense Time of 20.5 billion yuan.

Shangtang Technology, who has a strong “learning” mood during the rush, is also very interested in the conversion funnel.

At the start of its formation in 2016, AI companies participated in a number of data contests and various contests, and SenseTime, with a large team of engineers, continuing to achieve the advanced level of CVPR print materials. , ICCV and ECCV. . Long term.

Since 2018, new types of processes have appeared, such as basic software and hardware, and SenseTime has started to research and develop large AIDC devices.

As the year 2021 dawns, the automotive electronics industry has started to become a hotspot in the world of research and technology, and SenseTime has created SenseAuto Jueying, the new independent name of the solution. smart car of the year.

In the actual IPO prospectus, SenseTime “went wild” on the wave of metauniverse content, which was mentioned 47 times in the ad.

The folks in the industry mentioned above have heard of SenseTime's quick hotspot, but have expressed concern about the long-term drop. SenseTime pushes the boundaries. When can I get the money? "

As more AI companies start to register, marketing potential has become an important factor in determining how a business grows and how AI businesses operate. being better than their competition in terms of sales rather than losses would be something that AI companies need to pay more attention to. for.