In the first half of the year, the profitability of instrumentation is low

“Although the annual forecast of China's instrumentation industry is relatively good, the era of double-digit growth in the production, sales, and profits of most companies has passed.” A few days ago, in an interview with the China Industry News reporter, the Honorary Chairman of the China Instrument and Meter Industry Association Yan Jiacheng stressed that.

He told this reporter that in the first half of this year, the instrumentation industry grew steadily, with better-than-expected growth in production and sales. However, the growth rate of industry profits was not high, and the negative growth in exports was an abnormal phenomenon. "The situation is more severe."

Better-than-expected growth in production and sales

According to reports, in the first half of this year, China's instrumentation industry continued its steady growth in the second half of last year. The increase in production and sales was higher than the annual forecast of 16%, which was also higher than the 16.8% growth in the same period of last year.

Yan Jiacheng told reporters that in the first half of the year, the industry’s main business revenue increased by 17.4% year-on-year. According to historical statistics, the year-on-year increase in main business income was generally about 1.5% lower than the year-on-year growth in industrial output value and industrial sales. Therefore, in the first half of this year, The industry's gross industrial output value and industrial sales output should increase by 18.5% to 19% year-on-year, which is higher than the average increase in industrial and manufacturing industries in the country.

Since the monetary base was too tight at the beginning of last year, the growth in production, sales and main business income of the industry at the beginning of this year was unusually high. It then declined with the base level and stabilized at the middle of the year. At present, the entire industry is operating at an increase rate of 15% to 20% in the middle-speed range, which is conducive to structural adjustment and sustainable development of the industry.

In Jia Jiacheng’s view, the increase in the instrumentation industry is higher than most of the manufacturing industry, “mainly due to the country’s economic restructuring, support for scientific and technological progress, and attention to people’s livelihood and other related policies.”

Among them, the production and sales accounted for about 40% of the industry's industrial automation instrumentation and control systems due to increased demand for industrial upgrading, the increase rate is higher than the industry by 2%; farming, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery, education, automotive, medical and other equipment increased by more than 20%; The increase in electronic instruments, experimental analysis, and other scientific instruments was close to 20%.

However, it is worth noting that the profit growth of the industry is not high.

In this regard, Jia Jiacheng analyzed that there are three major reasons: First, the rapid increase in labor costs, management, operating costs remain high, resulting in an increase in the cost of the industry than production and sales. Second, most companies do not have sufficient demand and economies of scale have declined. Industrialization of high-tech products has only been effective in a few enterprises. In addition, one-third of the 20 sub-sectors showed negative growth or low demand year-on-year, of which optical instruments, exploration seismic instruments, and meteorological and oceanic instruments all had double-digit negative growth; experimental analysis, supply meters, etc., only increased by 3%~7. %.

According to the ring comparison data, the profit growth trend of the industry in the first half of the year was normal, and the rapid drop from the previous year was mainly due to the fluctuation of the base year.

Ju Jiacheng pointed out that the ultra-high growth rate of over 29% at the beginning of the year was caused by a base that was too low in the previous year, and it was a normal fall in March and May, and a drop of more than 5 percentage points in June compared with the same period in the previous year. % caused by non-industry factors due to this year. "The third quarter profit is expected to rise year-on-year and gradually normalize."

He stressed that although the industry-wide data are still acceptable, the division of enterprises has increased. “In the 3959 enterprises in the statistical industry, 760 loss-making enterprises accounted for 19.2%, up 12.43% year-on-year.”

Exports emerge negative growth industry short board is not broken
Since the beginning of this year, the import of instruments and meters industry has been growing at a low rate, basically continuing the trend of the previous year. The difference is that the growth rate was above 5% in the previous year, and it was below 5% this year. The monthly increase did not fluctuate greatly.

Yan Jiacheng reminded, “But the industry’s exports have reversed the normal trend of double-digit growth for many years. First, it changed to a low growth rate of less than 5% in April, and then to 2.59% in June.”

He disclosed to reporters that of the 161 categories of products, there were 56 categories of declines, and 28 categories had a low single-digit growth, accounting for more than 50% of the total, and there was no shortage of large export commodities that had a long-term competitive advantage in the international market. For example, optical components with an export volume of more than 1.5 billion U.S. dollars are reduced by 12.19%, and annual electricity meters with export volume of more than 26 million units are reduced by 26.08%. “The situation is grave.”

At the same time, despite the fact that the industrial restructuring and technological progress have been effective, the industry's short board has not yet been broken.

Yu Jiacheng told reporters that one of the reasons for the rapid growth of industrial automation since the second half of last year is that it has adapted to new market-based changes in both new technology and new projects, and promoted thermal power and metallurgy in the service sector. The business adjustments for high-balance development in many fields have been outstanding, among which the coal chemical industry, oil and gas projects, rail transit, public utilities, thermal power and denitrification, building material technology reform, nonferrous technical transformation, and stand-alone automation have made remarkable progress.

A number of large-scale automated engineering projects have emerged from the Chinese enterprise assembly, and their scale and technological level have reached international standards.

According to Yan Jiacheng, as a large-scale chemical industrial park project where many chemical projects gather, the DCS, AMS, optimization software, MES, and ERP of Sichuan Haohua Honghe Chemicals are all provided by Chinese-funded enterprises, achieving integration of management and control, and the project consists of domestic The well-known control system company assembly, together with the largest on-site meter company in China, has created a MAV model for Chinese companies with a high localization rate.

In addition to automation equipment, there are examples of industrialization of high-end test equipment scientific research results. It is reported that the detection equipment for oil and gas pipelines that have been embargoed by foreign countries has been successfully developed and is used in pipeline projects in China, Central Asia, China, and Myanmar. As an indispensable precision equipment for the metallurgical industry, high-speed on-line non-destructive testing equipment has long been monopolized by foreign companies, and high maintenance costs are expensive. Now many domestic companies have developed their own breakthroughs and are creating conditions for production applications.

Despite continuous technological progress, the industry's gap is still significant. According to reports, the shortcomings of the entire industry are mainly manifested in two major areas.

First of all, the progress in the field of industrial automation is mostly concentrated on the monitoring and control equipment used in the process industry, while the sensors, controllers, servo systems, and management and control software used in discrete industries have weak foundations and slow development, which will seriously affect the automation and digitization of China's manufacturing industry. And intelligent development.

Secondly, because scientific instruments are small in quantity and technically difficult, and foreign product technologies and applications are highly mature, there are few breakthroughs in high-end products in China except for individual varieties.

Doing a good job in the increase in "convergence and integration" of production and sales, or exceeding 16%

In Jia Jiacheng's opinion, like many manufacturing industries, the quality of products is not high, and the backward production mode and low efficiency are the common problems of most of the instrumentation and meter companies. The implementation of the integration policy is beginning to change the situation.

He explained that enterprises in the industrial automation and electrical instrument industry have achieved initial results. Some enterprises have set up informatized institutions and full-time personnel, and hired foreign technical experts to pay high salaries. The early-stage and basic enterprises have started to integrate the modern production model to promote the production process informationization, and established the enterprise information management as the core. System, the implementation of the production of orders, traceable production, in order to completely change the appearance of enterprises, improve the quality of connotation, to deal with a new round of competition.

For the second half of the year, Ju Jiacheng’s judgment is that the industry will continue to grow steadily since the second half of last year. The year-on-year increase in production and sales will run in the 15% to 20% range. The pullback affected by the previous year’s base will bottom out in the third quarter and pick up. Stabilize.

He told reporters that the entire industry is in a period of healthy development of structural adjustment, and its main symbols are five: the increase in production and sales is greater than the increase in imports; the increase in sales of Chinese enterprises is greater than that of foreign-funded enterprises; the increase of medium-to-high-end products is greater than that of general products; service business The increase was greater than the increase in production and sales of products; the increase in exports was greater than the increase in imports.

“Although the industry’s exports have shown negative growth in June, but because the export delivery value still maintains a positive growth of around 10%, it is expected that exports will rebound to a single-digit slow growth rate in the second half of the year.” He said that if there were no accidents, the industry The annual growth in production and sales will exceed the forecast value at the beginning of the year by 16%, reaching about 18%, and the total output value of the industry will exceed 800 billion yuan. The year-on-year increase in profits will also recover from the mid-year low of 12.45% to over 14% of the full-year forecast.

“Although the instrument and meter industry forecast trend is relatively good throughout the year, but in the past high economic growth period, the era of double-digit growth in the production, sales, and profits of most companies has passed. The industry has entered a 'small number of companies develop faster, most companies are flat. Or slow growth, about 20% of the company's losses in the new period." Yan Jiacheng stressed.