SHENZHEN, China, March 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — CIMC Group announced its 2022 annual results on March 28th. The report showed that CIMC Group’s total revenue for 2022 was approximately RMB 141.5 billion, with a net profit of RMB 4.6 billion. Despite a decline from the historical high in 2021, the results exceeded the levels of 2020 and prior years, showcasing CIMC’s ability to maintain a high standard and demonstrating its strong business resilience.
In 2021, CIMC achieved exceptional results in the container shipping market, with record-high revenue and net profit. However, in 2022, the Group faced a challenging and volatile environment, and had to navigate various risks and uncertainties. Despite this, CIMC proactively tackled unfavourable factors, consolidated its logistics and energy equipment manufacturing advantages, increased investment in new energy fields, and diversified its business portfolio. As a result, most of its key businesses maintained a favorable growth or stable development trajectory. With the support of shareholders, customers, and the collective efforts of its employees, CIMC achieved a hard-won accomplishment.
Deepened the strategy of “Steady Operation and Quality Growth”, with key indicators steadily improving
According to the report, CIMC’s container manufacturing division generated an operating revenue of RMB 45.711 billion in 2022, with a net profit of RMB 5.258 billion. The road transportation vehicle division reported an operating revenue of RMB 23.621 billion and a net profit of RMB 1.114 billion, representing a 12.75% YoY increase. The energy, chemical, and food equipment division achieved an operating revenue of RMB 21.250 billion, an 8.82% YoY increase, with a net profit of RMB 1.042 billion, up 17.74% YoY. Tianda Holdings, which focuses on airport and logistics equipment, as well as fire and rescue equipment, generated an operating revenue of RMB 6.672 billion. The logistics service division reported a revenue of RMB 29.346 billion. The recycled load business generated a revenue of RMB 4.849 billion, while the marine engineering division reported a revenue of RMB 5.771 billion.
In view of last year’s performance, CIMC proposes to distribute a final cash dividend of RMB 0.18 (tax included) per share to shareholders, which is subject to approval at the shareholders’ meeting.
Over the past year, CIMC’s businesses have made steady progress in line with the “Steady Operation and Quality Growth” strategy. The Group has maintained a good level of Return-on-Equity (“ROE”) and debt-repaying ability, while also decreasing its debt ratio. CIMC’s prudent approach has solidified its new business model for achieving high-quality development.
In 2022, CIMC was named the “Most Admired Chinese Company of 2022” by Fortune magazine, ranking 84th on the 2022 Fortune China 500 list, up 35 places from the previous year. In 2022, CIMC remained at the forefront of the manufacturing industry, maintaining its focus on technological innovation and self-reliance while aligning its development with the four strategic emerging directions of “cold chain, clean energy, ecological conservation, and rural revitalization”. The Group successfully integrated equipment manufacturing and services, diversifying its business portfolio through the introduction of green products, smart manufacturing, digitalization, asset management, and after-sales services.
Adhered to the solid manufacturing foundation and seized high-quality development with digital intelligence
For four decades, CIMC Group has focused on enhancing its manufacturing capacity, which is the foundation of the company. Its persistent efforts have led to the recognition and respect of “CIMC manufacturing” and “Made in China” worldwide. The Group has consistently consolidated its leading core advantages in various segments of the manufacturing industry, showcasing the attributes of an industry leader.
With the rise of a new era of digital economic growth, marked by trends such as mobile internet, CIMC Group has stepped up its efforts in digital construction and information transformation. Through embracing digital intelligence, the Group is actively seizing opportunities for high-quality development in the manufacturing industry.
In 2022, CIMC’s container division entered a new strategic deployment phase while maintaining its position as the global leader in both core and complementary business sales. CIMC is spearheading the green transition of the container industry through “digital workshops” and “future factories” in the production and manufacturing process. Furthermore, the Company has upgraded all of its dry and reefer container production lines to water-based paint, demonstrating its commitment to sustainability.
CIMC remains a top-performer in the vehicle industry, retaining its global leadership in semi-trailer sales and a prominent position in the domestic special-purpose vehicle market. The “Lighthouse Manufacturing Network” has consistently enhanced efficiency, contributing to this achievement.
CIMC’s energy, chemical, and liquid food business have achieved stable growth, with a specific focus on energy equipment, chemical equipment, and liquid food equipment. Internationally, CIMC has collaborated with Maersk and other partners to develop the green methanol fuel market. In the domestic market, CIMC provides a comprehensive solution package of “ship oil-to-gas equipment + service” to shipowners, completing the initial stage of the offshore natural gas industry.
In 2022, CIMC’s marine engineering business made significant progress in its strategic transformation. According to the report, the Company successfully seized the opportunities presented by the dual boom in marine oil and gas equipment and clean energy, resulting in a 77% increase in newly signed orders and a 122% increase in backlog orders YoY. CIMC LAFORCE was awarded the qualification of general contractor and the title of best supplier for FPSO by the Brazilian national oil company. The Company also gained recognition from mainstream customers, earning the title of one of the world’s leading marine engineering companies.
In terms of airport and logistics, fire and rescue business, CIMC further consolidated its leading advantage in airport equipment and officially delivered the first unmanned passenger boarding bridge in Asia, promoting the intelligent revolution of Chinese airports.
In terms of circular transportation business, CIMC seized the opportunity of the booming production and sales of new energy vehicles, and provided customized power battery packaging to leading companies within the industry, thus establishing its leading market position in the domestic market.
In 2022, CIMC Qingdao Reefer was listed among the excellent smart manufacturing scenarios released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, owing to its three intelligent manufacturing scenarios. CIMC introduced the “Digital CIMC” framework, which elevated the Group’s information construction to a global level by collaborating with world-class partners like SAP. This initiative facilitated the intelligent upgrade of the business management system. Furthermore, in the competition for the digital transformation and upgrade of the manufacturing industry, CIMC was crowned the “Industrial Internet Platform Application Leader in China” by IDC China in 2021, which was another significant achievement.
Innovation stimulates momentum and opens new door
In 2022, while focusing on its main business, CIMC Group adhered to its core value of “exploring innovation”. It believed that technology is the primary driver of productivity, and innovation-based businesses serve as new driving forces for the high-quality development. The report showed that under the product strategy of “maintaining product leadership, strengthening technological innovation, and promoting intelligent manufacturing”, CIMC Group continued to increase its research and development investment, with related expenses grew rapidly YoY. In 2022, the Group achieved a total R&D investment of approximately RMB 2.52 billion, a 12.48% YoY increase from 2021.
By the end of 2022, CIMC had acquired nine national-level specialized and “little giant” enterprises, as well as six national-level champion manufacturing enterprises for their products. In addition, four patents from the group (CIMC Lengyun, CIMC Raffles, CIMC Anrui Huanke, and Nantong CIMC Energy) received the 23rd China Patent Award, marking the highest number of patent projects in the Group’s history to receive this honor.
CIMC Group insisted on providing an innovative environment, investing in and incubating innovative enterprises. This has led to emergence of new industries such as environmental protection panels, industrial ecological intelligent equipment, AGV intelligent parking, and intelligent land-based and ocean-based fisheries.
CIMC Group’s cold chain business has experienced rapid growth in revenue. The land refrigerated trucks in the North American market witnessed a significant increase in sales and market share, while sea refrigerated containers and medical refrigerated containers maintained stable income. The Group continued to expand and develop its cold chain business, focusing on developing new products suitable for modern agriculture and new energy vehicle scenarios, such as planting containers, refrigeration and insulation equipment integrated containers, new energy refrigerated containers, and aviation containers. Moreover, the Group has achieved the objective of being the leader in two-way import and export cold chain logistics service between “China-Southeast Asia” in the food cold chain industry.
CIMC’s energy storage technology business witnessed significant growth in 2022, thanks to the increasing scale of the electrochemical energy storage market. The revenue of its container energy storage business reached an all-time high, while the added value of its products continued to improve, resulting in the emergence of a brand effect. In line with the country’s new energy strategy, the Group’s energy storage business focused mainly on equipment applications such as energy storage and new energy. CIMC achieved crucial breakthroughs in cooperation with industry-leading customers, enhancing its independent research and development capabilities and technological innovation strength. The Group made improvements in the generation side, grid side, and user side, while also on the integration level.
In 2022, CIMC’s modular construction business maintained its customer-centric, technology-driven, and innovation-driven approach. The Group offered one-stop, diversified, industrialized, turnkey building solutions to its customers, including consulting, design, manufacturing, construction, and delivery.
CIMC remains committed to its fundamental strategy of global operations while embracing the “internal circulation” strategy. The Group has established strategic partnerships with 15 key players, including ZTE, JD.com, and XCMG, to expand external cooperation and boost domestic business. Currently, there are over 100 projects under discussion, covering various fields such as cold chain, clean energy, ecological conservation, and rural revitalization. The proportion of domestic revenue steadily increased to 51.5% during this period.
CIMC Group leveraged the strengths of each business segment, seized potential opportunities within the industry chain, and fortified technological and product innovation to shape new competitive advantages in each sector. The Group achieved unprecedented heights and made remarkable breakthroughs with the help of technological innovation.
Continuing to deepen the energy revolution by gradually transitioning towards Green and embracing renewables
CIMC Group’s business units have placed a strong emphasis on green transformation, with a focus on researching and developing new materials, technologies, and processes to achieve their goals.
In 2022, CIMC’s container business segment introduced its first container powder coating technology and continued to explore environmentally friendly manufacturing for containers. The segment achieved significant breakthroughs in various fields, including the development of thermoplastic composite material. This material found application in containers, oil pipelines, automotive parts, new energy batteries, green building materials, communication equipment, and high-speed trains. The container business segment took a leading role in the development and industrial application of thermoplastic composite materials. Moreover, CIMC integrated its container resources, increased research and development of technology and innovation in the field of new energy integrated equipment. The Company also completed several large-scale energy storage projects and is partnered to shape the future of energy.
CIMC Vehicles actively researches and promotes green products that utilize new energy and are lightweight. It has developed a series of safe and energy-saving products, such as the new energy charging concrete mixer truck, KOGEL-9.6 meter lightweight refrigerated truck, and CIMC-Geely Yuan-cheng-xing-zhi 4.2-meter steel flatbed container (pure electric vehicle model).
Centered around the green transformation, CIMC has also actively explored and developed the application and expansion of clean energy businesses. In the revolution of green energy, CIMC has always been ambitious about new energy, remained vigilant towards the change of technological path, and comprehensively deployed equipment towards hydrogen energy, offshore photovoltaic, offshore wind power, and energy storage.
In terms of land transportation, CIMC Enric played a significant role in supporting the Beijing Winter Olympics’ aim of achieving carbon neutrality by providing dozens of sets of hydrogen storage and refueling equipment. CIMC Enric also achieved a breakthrough by developing the first 40-foot liquid helium tank container in China, which addressed the domestic gap in liquid helium storage and transportation products. Furthermore, the Company’s self-developed small LPG tanker with an unloading pump became the first to pass the “three new” evaluation in China, paving the way for the rural micro gas pipeline construction and promoting comprehensive development of the blue ocean market of gas utilization in rural areas.
In terms of maritime segment, with the synergy of various businesses including CIMC Seaspan and CIMC Enric, CIMC has vigorously developed “gasifying Xijiang River” in Zhaoqing City. The first batch of LNG-powered cement tankers were officially launched, which has helped to completely transform the bulk cement transportation method and make shipping in the Pearl River and Xijiang River basins more environmentally friendly and efficient. CIMC also independently developed the world’s largest 20,000m³ LNG transportation and refuelling vessel, as well as the first domestic ammonia fuel refuelling vessel, which are driving the world’s shipping decarbonization trend. CIMC Florens is aggressively developing the offshore wind power energy equipment industry, independently constructing the “3060” series, the world’s largest and latest generation of wind turbine installation vessels, and 30-meter offshore wind power operation and maintenance vessels. All these developments helped promoting the strategy of offshore clean energy, boosting the sustainable development of the offshore wind power industry, and transforming the Group into the “green practitioner.”
Achieving Rural Revitalization upon the implementation of the support measures
Promoting rural revitalization is a responsibility entrusted to CIMC by the Party and the State, and it is also an integral part of fulfilling its social responsibility and building a world-class enterprise. In 2022, CIMC made industrial development and rural revitalization a continuous and routine business. The Group fully supported the “common prosperity” initiative and, through multiple precise and effective assistance measures, the Group actively contributed to the development of local communities, and played a crucial role in rural revitalization.
On one hand, CIMC Group adapted to local conditions and facilitated industrial assistance. By driving upstream and downstream industries and supporting mass employment, the Group enhanced its ability to generate revenue and established a long-term supportive mechanism.
CIMC New Material vigorously develops the bamboo industry and contributes to local economic benefits. In 2022, CIMC New Material further accelerated the development of rural revitalization workshops and completed the construction of 20 new rural revitalization workshops in Anhui, Hunan, Fujian and other places. In November 2022, Zhulian Technology, a subsidiary of CIMC, signed a cooperation framework agreement with the Yueyang Economic Development Zone, planning to build a renewable fiber industrial park. This project will not only promote local economic development but also effectively help the Yueyang Economic Development Zone better solve the problem of reed treatment in Dongting Lake, and make positive contributions to the development of China’s degradable materials industry and environmental protection.
Further, as a world-leading supplier of logistics and energy equipment, CIMC Group provides high-quality and reliable equipment and services to global customers and society. The Group leverages its expertise in equipment, supports national strategies and accelerates the modernization of China’s agriculture and rural areas.
CIMC Vehicles continues to make efforts in areas such as grain transportation and refrigerated transportation, providing efficient and convenient transportation as well as loading and unloading integrated solutions for grain transportation. At the same time, it strongly supports the safe and economic development of the trunk cold chain logistics industry, and promotes the supply and marketing of agricultural products.
In April 2022, CIMC Enric had developed an LPG tank truck with an unloading pump that passed the national technology review for “new materials, new technologies, and new processes,” making it the first batch of LPG micro-network equipment to pass the review. This achievement filled a technical gap in the provision of clean energy to rural areas. As of today, CIMC Enric has delivered two of these LPG tank trucks with unloading pumps to China National Petroleum Corporation, both of which are now in use.
In 2022, CIMC Vehicles supplied Yunnan Yunling Central Processing Center with reusable baskets to replace disposable recycling packaging. This offered a practical logistics solution for reducing carbon emissions, as well as lowering costs and increasing efficiency.
CIMC Cold Chain addresses the problem of preserving agricultural products during long-distance transportation, with the aim of helping farmers achieve common prosperity. In July 2022, CIMC Cold Chain reached a partnership with Guangxi Supply and Marketing E-commerce Co., Ltd. to extend the shelf life of laichee using innovative equipment and technology in mobile cold storage. This approach prolongs the preservation period by 5-10 days compared to traditional pre-cooling methods, effectively reducing the 5-10% loss of fruits and vegetables during circulation, promoting the sale of laichee from Lingshan to a wider market.
CIMC Fisheries has developed a new “container+” approach to promote the transformation and modernization of traditional aquaculture. In March 2022, the first phase of the XinHui CIMC Fisheries Technology Demonstration Base was completed, encouraging local farmers and cooperatives to engage in seedling breeding and raw fish breeding, thereby contributing to the achievement of common prosperity.
Looking ahead: Stand Firm, Fight Hard, Restart
As of 2023, the global economic perspective remains challenging, and the effects of foreign inflation and central bank interest rate increases have yet to be fully reversed. Nevertheless, the domestic market is already experiencing a revival, and the “Maintain Stable Growth” policy has been explicitly prioritized in the Central Economic Work Conference, which presents new opportunities for market development.
The stock market is showing signs of acceleration, signalling the start of a new phase. CIMC Group has clearly stated its future development vision: “To build CIMC into a High-quality, Respected World-class Enterprise”. To achieve this, CIMC aims to strengthen, optimize, and expand its logistics and energy equipment industries while exploring strategic emerging sectors that fit within market demand and industry gaps. By building a resilient business portfolio, enhancing profitability, and achieving long-term stability and prosperity.
CIMC Group intends to further integrate its logistics and energy equipment manufacturing and service advantages, with a focus on consolidating its industry-leading position and solidifying and improving its overall performance in the future. To achieve this goal, the Group plans to strengthen its equipment manufacturing main business by integrating upstream and downstream industry chain resources and providing more comprehensive and integrated services. It also intends to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of product greening, digitization, and intelligence, while creating product leadership through technological innovation. Additionally, the Group plans to adhere to the national development strategy by seizing the opportunities presented by “smart logistics” and “clean energy”. It aims to expand its existing advantages within the scope of its main business and build new core competencies around four strategic themes: “cold chain,” “clean energy,” “green environment,” and “rural revitalization.” By doing so, CIMC Group hopes to further advance its standing within the industry and secure its position as a leading global enterprise.
In 2023, CIMC Group plans to adeptly seize opportunities for advantageous business development, guided by the 2035 Vision Outline and actively investing in the construction based on the 14th Five-Year Plan. The Group is committed to realizing its new vision of “Building a High-quality and Respected World-class Enterprise” and will make unremitting efforts in three key areas: strengthening, expanding, and persisting.
SOURCE CIMC
