AI is difficult to make money, how much fight for HKUST Xunfei?

Source | Tech Planet

Wen | Yang Xiaosi

According to the "China Internet Development Report (2021)" statistics, there are 1,454 AI companies in China, of which there are only a handful of large -scale profitability. HKUST Xunfei is one of them.

The latest quarter of the financial report shows that HKUST Xunfei Q1 achieved revenue of 3.506 billion yuan, an increase of 40.18%year -on -year; the non -net profit of 146 million yuan, an increase of 37.73%year -on -year. Although the growth rate of revenue and non -net profit is good, it has been continuously continued: why the super brain 3.0 landed, how to achieve the goal of 100 billion revenue in 2025, is HKUST Xunfei AI "Painted Cake Man"? Continuously declining net profit, more than 220 dynamic price -earnings ratios, how many bubbles are there in HKUST Xunfei?

In the sound of the hustle and bustle of the market, let's first understand the Da Da Xunfei. In 2019, HKUST Xunfei's revenue exceeded the 10 billion mark for the first time, reaching 10.079 billion yuan, and adhered to the 20 -year AI revenue to 10 billion yuan. The revenue in 2020 and 2021 further increased to 13.025 billion yuan and 18.314 billion yuan. Among pure AI companies, the revenue revenue of tens of billions is also one of the few two or three in China.

It's just that this score is far as bright as the surface looks so glorious.

"Cantonese long voice project, good price, there is a personal chat that can be done." In a certain data labeling group, everyone sent a list from time to time. Some of these people collected and autonomous driving collection and marked lists are more like a voice list similar to the University of Science and Technology. In the background provided by the other party, the corpus of different dialects and different languages ​​is waiting for manual review. Many businesses of HKUST Xunfei are completed.

AI is not so amazing and needs to be involved manually; AI is not a set of algorithms, and many times need customized development. AI commercialization is not that simple. After the accuracy is more than 90%, each step is very difficult to move forward.

Different from large manufacturers such as Baidu and Ali, it has the main business to make money. The main business of HKUST Xunfei is the artificial intelligence voice semantic business. Therefore, although the AI ​​industry has not yet matured, HKUST Xunfei must rely on AI to make money to support their families.

On June 30, HKUST Xunfei released a new generation of learning machines, established a car technology company on June 23. On May 23, the Science and Dada Senior Office AIR ..... continuous actions, all of which conveyed the University of Science and Technology Flying accelerated business signals.

The virtuality and reality of the 100 billion target

What will happen to listed AI companies? See the stock price of Shangtang's cut on June 30.

Nowadays, Shangtang Technology, which has a market value of 104.9 billion, is almost the same as the 95.7 billion yuan of HKUST Xunfei. In fact, the market value of HKUST Xunfei also fell from 150 billion yuan a year ago to today's 100 billion lines. The pain of Shang Tang, HKUST Xunfei has not experienced it.

Therefore, HKUST Xunfei pays great attention to commercial achievements. At the performance communication meeting on April 20, 2021, Liu Qingfeng, chairman of HKUST Xunfei, proposed the "100 billion target": at the end of the "14th Five -Year Plan", the education business must contribute 30 billion yuan. Medical and consumer intelligent hardware With a contribution of 20 billion yuan with the open platform; 10 billion in three directions in three directions of automobile business, operators, and smart cities.

Among HKUST Xunfei's operating revenue in 2021, among the operating revenues of 18.3 billion, smart education revenue was 6.07 billion, open platforms and consumer business revenue of 4.687 billion yuan, smart cities' revenue of 2.851 billion yuan, and smart car revenue of 449 million yuan. In the next four years, HKUST Xunfei will achieve 5 times revenue growth in almost every business. The pressure can be imagined.

At present, consumer products related to intelligent education and education are the main disks of HKUST Xunfei, and they are also a fast -growing area. Different from the technical models of other AI companies, HKUST Xunfei has developed many C -end products such as smart recording pens, translation pens, smart office books, AI learning machines, etc. Among them, the learning machine is the key layout of HKUST Xunfei. On June 29, HKUST Xunfei released two X3POR and Q20 learning machines, including 4999 and 3199 yuan.

Although the development of AI learning machines is still in the budding period, HKUST Xunfei has formed a complete layout of high -end Xunfei T10 (6899 yuan), mid -range X3POR and Q20, and low -end Xunfei A10 (less than 2000 yuan) series. HKUST Xunfei is a step -by -step/small bully in the AI ​​era, and it seems to have a certain reason.

In fact, HKUST Xunfei has also pinned the revenue expectations of the next 10 billion yuan in C -side categories such as learning machines. From sales results, high -end products such as T10 are the number one sales volume, and the mid -to -low -end competition is facing Baidu and Hero. Among them, this year's dark horse Hero Swo stabilized sales in the 4,000 yuan gear, and Baidu made a cost -effective signboard, the Xiaoli G16 and S16, etc., becoming the first sales machine sales of JD.com for less than 2,000 yuan. Low -end can not play old manufacturers Jingdong ROE small screen, Little Bawang Reading Lang and so on.

Of course, in addition to the AI ​​learning machine series, HKUST Xunfei also has the seven areas of AI hardware products of translation machines, smart recording pens, smart office books, smart hearing aids, Xunfei conference headphones, and smart mouse series. The capital market is also closely observing the sales of Ke Daxun flying in the C -end market. In the 618 e -commerce war this year, HKUST Xunfei also won the sales championship in a number of sales. The sales increased by 40%year -on -year, and the stock price also rose.

Some of these products are implanted by HKUST Xunfei for free transfer capabilities for life. For example, starting from the AIR 2799 yuan of smart office, it includes this ability. This is also known that it is not an advantage over Apple and Huawei's hardware products, so it is differentiated with the competitiveness. However, this method also led HKUST Xunfei to lose the software service revenue paid on demand. From the perspective of the industry trend, another prospect of HKUST Xunfei is a smart car.

On June 23, the capital injection was 100 million yuan, and HKUST Xunfei established a automobile technology company. Earlier, HKUST Xunfei has launched products and solutions such as Flying Fish Smart Assistant, Flying Fish OS. Its 2021 annual report showed that more than 1,200 models were delivered, and the accumulated capacity of more than 39 million units in front of the automobile was more than 39 million. Tens of millions of vehicle volume, the business revenue of the smart automobile business sector is only 449 million yuan, although the growth rate of 38.92%year -on -year is OK.

In fact, in the field of car voice interaction, HKUST Xunfei accounted for more than 60%of the domestic market share, and still defeated the international head smart voice company NuanceDe. HKUST Xunfei has also upgraded from SDK to productized services such as Flying Fish OS. However, it still needs to be implanted in smart cockpit products and cannot be used as an independent service output. Therefore, 10 billion revenue needs to increase by 25 times on the basis of the current basis, which is still difficult.

In the field of smart medical care and smart cities, both are the purchase model of the prices of big guests. This piece is expected to be stable but cannot explode. Therefore, in terms of comprehensive, the various businesses under the target of 100 billion yuan in the revenue of HKUST faced the pressure of competition and growth.

Technology, market or policy dividend?

HKUST Xunfei is a consumer product, the output of AI solutions, and also undertakes government business, reflects the difficulty of making money by AI companies. TO C, To B, to G's three legs walk through three legs.

The earliest Science and Technology Feifei was mainly to B business. In 2000, HKUST Xunfei began to cooperate with Lenovo. The model provided voice synthesis technical support based on HKUST Xunfei for Lenovo's "Tianxi" computer, while Lenovo subsidized 1 yuan to HKUST Xunfei each.

After entering the mobile era, HKUST Xunfei was also very anxious and launched some to C business. Xunfei input method is the third player who is weaker than Sogou input method and Baidu input method. Xunfei is a pity that it has not become the Chinese version of Siri.

After AI software products are difficult to break through, HKUST Xunfei began to make software and hardware such as recording pens and learning machines. At the semi -annual performance briefing meeting in 2019, Liu Qingfeng, chairman of HKUST Xunfei, said that HKUST Xunfei Hardware products will be launched around the office series, family scenes, car and toys. field. However, it has been understood that unrelated education is the important base for HKUST Xunfei.

For a long time, thanks to HKUST Xunfei have advantages in the government market, this has given HKUST Xunfei a lot of changing ideas. For example, the consumer market of the translator is difficult to expand, and it is also a good way to take government procurement. "The cost of the translation machine is 1,000, and it can sell 3,000 yuan." A friend who competed with HKUST Xunfei told Tech Planet. Of course, HKUST Xunfei is not deliberately selling expensive. "It supports special languages ​​such as Tibetan and Victoria, which requires qualifications to be obtained." And involving these fields, the artificial calibration platform mentioned earlier will also be involved. This ability is a service that is difficult for some Internet factories to do.

In addition, with this set of CBG fusion models, HKUST News Flying is not necessarily advanced AI capabilities compared to Baidu, and can also get out of its own large -scale commercial path.

Of course, this model is not without disadvantages, and sometimes fighting in the interior. An internal employee told Tech Planet: In the category of reading the pen, there are internal business units directly doing consumer products and can be sold to thousands of yuan; It only takes tens of yuan. In this way, many partners buy a technical solution for HKUST Xunfei to make lower prices and compete with their own products. Because the internal divisions are different performance KPIs, no one will take care of each other.

For HKUST Xunfei, it may be the primary task to do camp revenue, and the loss caused by internal consumption is ignored.

In addition to the loss of investment income, in the first quarter of 2022, the net profit of HKUST Xunfei was 111 million yuan, a year -on -year decrease of 20.57%. Of course, the non -net profit was 146 million yuan, an increase of 37.73%year -on -year, because it received 166 million yuan in government subsidies in the first quarter.

Relying on government subsidies and reduced profits, this also makes it difficult for HKUST Xunfei to invest in huge sums of money. In particular, in 2021, capitalized R & D investment accounted for 38.49%. From 2008 to 2021, the capitalization rate of R & D investment was about 46.2%, which was a relatively high level. This data also makes many people think that HKUST News Feiyin eats food, which will be affected by the amortization costs brought by the long -accumulated intangible assets.

The proportion of R & D investment is not high, resulting in technical products not absolutely ahead, but for financial reports, they should not give priority to strengthening revenue. Therefore, net profit will rely more on government financial subsidies. HKUST Xunfei seems to enter a cycle of strange circles.

Many people think that the AI ​​industry has accumulated a certain stage, and there will be a sudden outbreak. From the perspective of the development and effectiveness of the Giant Science and Technology, the trend of non -linear growth cannot be seen. Is it difficult for the niche market to break through the ceiling?

Twenty years ago, at the campus of the Chinese University of Science and Technology in Hefei, Anhui, 18 students created today's HKUST Xunfei. Starting from the voice technology, the founder Liu Qingfeng and the instructor Wang Renhua decided to "go to the sea" and registered the predecessor of the HKUST Xunfei, Silicon Valley, for 3 million yuan.

This also sets a technical business route for HKUST Xunfei frame -intelligent voice semantics. Objectively speaking, this field has always been difficult to find a large -scale commercialization scene.

Inspiring HKUST Xunfei to do smart hardware, there is actually an unexpected thing. The first time that Tsinghua University team divided the prize technology, the quasi -child translation machine was not officially launched, and it attracted the interest of HKUST Xunfei for this product. So I invited the other party to participate in the entrepreneurial competition of HKUST Xunfei. During the period, in order to participate in the product design drawings and other information, the pagoda technology was not invested in this competition. Essence

Since then, HKUST Xunfei has followed up in many intelligent hardware fields and has achieved success in learning machines and AI office products. Of course, it is not all the backward hair victory. In the field of children's watches, the product itself values ​​voice interaction. However, because the entrance time is relatively late, players in the field of vertical in the field of vertical are also lacking. The first field did not succeed.

It is true that the market size of these niche areas is not much. It is just that if the niche market cannot be invincible and serving big customers, it will encounter obstacles.

For HKUST Xunfei, traditional home appliance companies such as Gree, Midea, Haier have urgent intelligent transformation needs, and lack of intelligence capabilities themselves. It is a rare partner of HKUST Xunfei. At present, these companies are currently partners of HKUST Xunfei, but the requirements of these customers are high and demand has changed a lot, and it is difficult to win the entire large order. It should be said that, relative to the G and C market, To B has become a system output service, or the relatively weak link of HKUST Xunfei.

Of course, it is also necessary to realize that the AI ​​industry, which has been established for 20 years, has been established for 20 years. As many artificial intelligence commerce cannot be landed, HKUST Xunfei has also attracted much attention as AI. The market value has been hovering near 100 billion yuan, and it has become a "technology Moutai" posture.

It is just that the difficulty of controversy has also made many people think about the real fair market value of HKUST Xunfei.

According to data from Wisdom, the total amount of smart voice markets such as smart life, smart education, smart home, and smart medical care is close to 500 billion yuan, which does not include the hundreds of billions of market investment in smart telecommunications. In the overall market share of the domestic intelligent voice, HKUST News won the first place with a market share of 44.2%.

However, there are actually a lot of moisture in this market size. From the perspective of the smart home market, the control center identity of the intelligent voice control is not absolute, and the hardware itself may still be the main consumer value. From the perspective of market value value, the global market share of Nuance is five times that of HKUST Xunfei. The former passed on Microsoft to acquire at a price of $ 16 billion. HKUST Xunfei has approached Nuance today.

Therefore, compared with the fields of autonomous driving and face recognition, the intelligent voice market may not be high enough, but the foam is not low.

Fortunately, the market no longer fights. Around 2019, Baidu and Ali fought the final price of the smart speaker, and now everyone has no entrance dispute. "20-50 chip modules, or a few dollars of voice SDK, everyone is making a difference."

HKUST Xunfei also knows the market, but it needs the goal of 100 billion yuan in revenue to gather more attention.

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