On March 30, ZOOMLION released its 2022 annual performance report. During the reporting period, the Company achieved operating revenue of RMB 41.631 billion and a net profit attributable to shareholders of the listed company of RMB 2.306 billion. The Company was closely focused on the goal of high-quality development, accelerating the transformation and upgrading towards digitalization, intelligence, and greenization. It was strengthening its efforts in three major sectors: construction machinery, agricultural machinery + smart agriculture, and new building materials. The Company was also accelerating the layout of emerging sectors, deepening the expansion of overseas markets, and achieving better operational quality than the industry average. The proportion of revenue from emerging sectors and overseas business had significantly increased in the overall revenue, and the Company would have ample growth momentum for the future.
Stable Market Position of Leading Products
Strong Breakthroughs in Emerging Sectors
In 2022, ZOOMLION accelerated the development and layout of three major sectors: construction machinery, agricultural machinery + smart agriculture, and new building materials, and its growth momentum was continuing to strengthen.
The competitiveness of ZOOMLION's leading products in construction machinery, including concrete machinery, lifting machinery, and construction lifting machinery, continued to strengthen, further consolidating its market-leading position. ZOOMLION's concrete machinery, including long-boom truck pump, truck-mounted pumps, and mixing plants, maintained the industry's top market share, while its market share in mixers rose to second place in the industry. Its market share in lifting machinery maintained industry leadership, with sales of 200-ton and above all-terrain cranes ranking first in the industry. The world's largest all-terrain crane, ZAT24000H, was delivered in batches. The sales scale of construction lifting machinery ranked first in the world. The iteration and upgrading of products were accelerated, and the ultimate R-generation tower crane was launched, which achieved breakthroughs in three core technologies of "all-domain safety, 30-year service life, and remote management", and established a world benchmark for tower crane technology.
Breakthroughs in emerging sectors are another highlight. The Company's intelligent manufacturing demonstration factory for earth moving machinery achieved full production, and the reliability and intelligent technology of its profitable medium and large-tonnage excavators were comprehensively upgraded. The overall market share was increasing continuously, operating revenue of RMB 3.512 billion was achieved during the period, with a year-on-year growth against the trend. Domestic sales of large excavators entered the forefront of the industry. The sales revenue of aerial work machinery products increased by 37.15% compared to the same period last year, with strong growth and leading domestic sales in the industry.
The agricultural machinery industry was accelerating its transformation to achieve quality and efficiency upgrades. In addition to maintaining industry-leading market share in wheat harvesters, dryers, rotary tillers, and rice transplanters, ZOOMLION's smart agriculture sector was focusing on product systems and technological core development. The Smart Wuhu Rice Demonstration Base expanded to 100 bases with a total area of 150,000 mu.
The layout of ZOOMLION's new building materials business was accelerating continuously: Its market share in dry-mixed mortar production equipment remained among the top tier in the domestic market. The benchmark factories for new building materials were established in various regions across the country, including Xiangyin, Ji'an, Bozhou, and Ma'anshan, and the construction of industrial parks was in full swing.
During the period, the relevant diversified layout made progress on multiple fronts, with the rise of emerging sectors and the competitive development of industrial gradients. The Company's high-quality development resilience and endogenous momentum continued to strengthen.
Over 70% Increase in Overseas Revenue
Overseas Business Becoming a New Growth Pole
In 2022, the overseas market demand was expected to be strong, and the export volume of construction machinery was expected to increase significantly. During the reporting period, ZOOMLION's overseas revenue was RMB 9.992 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 72.6%.
ZOOMLION was accelerating the transformation of its overseas business mode with a "global village" mindset and "localization" concept. It deeply cultivated global markets end-to-end, empowered its business model with digitalization, and continuously improved its strategic layout. Its export revenue shown rapid growth in a climbing style every quarter, and the key products and their market achieved breakthroughs. In markets such as Indonesia, India, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, the Company's sales performance increased by over 100% year-on-year. Among the export of ZOOMLION's lifting machinery, the ZAT8000H all-terrain crane, set a new record for the largest tonnage all-terrain crane exported from China.
The report shows that the Company's overseas revenue accounts for 24% of total revenue, an increase of 15.38 percentage points year-on-year. ZOOMLION said that the Company's international development would continue to break through in 2023, and overseas business revenue was expected to maintain rapid growth.
Accelerated Formation of Intelligent Manufacturing Industrial Cluster
New Energy Products Leading the Industry Technology
During the reporting period, ZOOMLION continued to strengthen technological innovation, leading the industry's transformation and upgrading towards digitalization, intelligence, and greenization, and consolidating the foundation for the Company's high-quality development.
In 2022, ZOOMLION launched 127 major new products and carried out research on 330 key core technologies. The Company not only developed products such as the world's largest 2400-ton all-terrain crane, the world's longest 5-axle 70-meter truck pump with a capacity of 55 tons, and the first domestic 4LZ-15F self-propelled grain combine harvester, but also took the lead in the industry to create a new model of fully digital closed-loop construction process based on the accumulation and implementation of technology in single-machine intelligence, human-machine collaboration, and machine-group collaboration, to build the industry's first green and smart construction site.
In terms of digital transformation, ZOOMLION has currently achieved digital management and control of the entire process of R&D, supply chain, manufacturing, sales, and service, which improved the efficiency of the enterprise. As a result, it was selected as one of the first 30 "Digital Navigation" enterprises in China in 2022. In addition, the Company has innovated key technologies for leading the industry in full-process intelligent manufacturing, and has comprehensively upgraded intelligent manufacturing from the main machine to the components. During this period, the application research of the Company's advanced intelligent manufacturing technology has been rapidly transformed. A number of intelligent parks, intelligent factories and intelligent production lines such as the Earth Moving Machinery Park of ZOOMLION Smart Industrial City, the only production base in the world to realize the intelligent manufacturing of full-process excavators, have been put into operation successively, and the construction of intelligent parks such as construction lifting machinery, pumping machinery and aerial work machinery parks has been promoted in an orderly manner. An intelligent manufacturing industrial cluster is accelerating.
New energy evolution is one of the important directions for the development of construction machinery. ZOOMLION has innovated in multiple dimensions in the fields of lithium battery, electric drive, hydrogen energy, and complete machine, fully opening up the three technology chains of new energy and creating a new situation of green development. The new energy main machine has achieved full-category coverage and "group-based" development, and has created a number of benchmarking products such as the world's first 220t hybrid all-terrain crane, the world's first 40t battery electric off-road wheel crane, and the world's first distributed electric crawler crane. Up to now, ZOOMLION has more than 100 new energy products.
During the reporting period, ZOOMLION applied for a total of 1,017 patents in the "digitalization, intelligence, and greenization" technology, including 465 in greenization, 115 in digitalization and 437 in intelligence. The number of national-level green product evaluation standards led by ZOOMLION ranked first in the industry.
In addition, ZOOMLION continued to reduce cost and improve efficiency, and the quality and efficiency of operation and management were increasing continuously. During the reporting period, the Company reduced cost and improved efficiency by continuously promoting the integration of suppliers, the application and replacement of new materials, new processes and new technologies, the localization of imported parts, and the improvement of the self-manufacturing rate of key parts. The gross profit rate of the Company's product sales had improved quarter by quarter since the first quarter of 2022, and increased to more than 24% in the fourth quarter of 2022. Through strict control of various costs and expenses, the overall expenses in the period decreased by 28.65% year-on-year. In terms of cash flow, the Company's cash flow ratio has increased in the past three years, exceeding 111% in 2022. The net cash flow generated from the Company's operating activities was RMB 2.425 billion.
Industry experts said that the special bonds helped the recovery of infrastructure industry, the policies in the real estate industry were gradually optimized, and the demand in overseas markets was strong. The construction machinery industry is expected to see a recovery and rebound in 2023.
ZOOMLION said that the Company will continue to focus on high-quality development, adhere to the business policy of "active business strategy and sound financial planning", accelerate the transformation and upgrading of digitalization, intelligence and greenization, firmly grasp the opportunity of market recovery, make every effort to promote international development, make two-way efforts in products and capital markets, and make breakthroughs in the industrial echelon, thus achieving steady and high-quality development.
