The era of humanoid robots is coming, Kingfa Technology’s special engineering plastics are expected to meet explosive growth
Latest News: Recently, at the Xiaomi autumn conference, Xiaomi Group founder Lei Jun launched Xiaomi’s first full-scale humanoid bionic robot CyberOne for the first time. With the launch of Tesla’s robot Optimus, I believe that in the near future, the era of humanoid robots may truly come.
Li Zhe, chief researcher of the machinery industry of Minsheng Securities, said that compared with industrial robots, humanoid robots are firstly more versatile in application scenarios, because their humanoid shape is more acceptable, and it may break the barriers of factories, commercial and households and become a truly universal product; secondly , which can be used as a natural commercial entrance, and many commercial values will be reflected from the humanoid robot in the future.
The upstream core hardware of humanoid robots mainly includes servo motors, reducers, controllers, sensors, etc., accounting for almost 70% of the cost of robots. Compared with ordinary industrial robots and service robots, humanoid robots are very different in structural design, hardware composition, control algorithm, core performance requirements and parts selection. For example, ordinary industrial robots have joints between 2-10 axes. The number of joints of the humanoid robot is expected to be more than 40 (Tesla Optimus 40), each joint requires a servo motor, and the servo motor is also one of the main core components of the humanoid robot.
Special engineering plastics are widely used in electronic components such as servo motor connectors of robots, especially LCP has excellent properties such as good fluidity, good dimensional stability, high temperature resistance, high frequency dielectric stability, etc. It is suitable for precision components. One of the best material choices for micro motors, high frequency signal connectors.
Humanoid robots have very high technical barriers and can be said to be a new application scenario, which will also bring new incremental markets to upstream and downstream industries. Minsheng Securities predicts that the humanoid robot market will reach 63 billion yuan by 2025 and 372 billion yuan by 2030.
Soochow Securities believes that the humanoid robot market will be a trillion-level market in the future. Soochow Securities Research Report said that Tesla Optimus is expected to cut in from personal/home application scenarios, and then expand to commercial service scenarios and unstructured industrial scenarios. , the trillion market can be expected. In terms of entry sequence, it is expected that the potential market space will reach 14 trillion yuan in the short term, and in the medium term, it will enter commercial service scenarios and industrial applications in “unstructured” scenarios, with a potential market space of 25 trillion yuan. Long-term expectations for further breakthroughs in interactive technology After entering the emotional/accompanying scene, the potential market space reaches 31 trillion yuan.
The trillion-level market also brings imagination to other companies in the industry chain. For example, special engineering plastics that are inseparable from robot servo motors have high comprehensive performance and long-term use temperatures above 150 degrees Celsius. Like humanoid robots, technical barriers are very high. High, the domestic development is relatively late, the core technology is mainly mastered by foreign companies, and the domestic companies that master the core technology and have a certain production capacity include Kingfa Technology, Water Shares, etc.
Kingfa’s current representative products of special engineering plastics are mainly PA10T (semi-aromatic polyamide) and LCP (liquid crystal polymer). Among them, PA10T is one of the PPA family. Its siblings also include PA4T, PA6T, PA9T, PA11T, PA12T, etc. The production technology of these materials has always been monopolized by foreign companies and belongs to domestic scarce technology. PA10T, which also fills the gap in my country’s independent research and development of high-temperature nylon.
In recent years, due to the surge in demand, Kingfa Technology’s special engineering plastics have become the company’s new profit growth point, production and sales are booming, and it is expected to continue to surge. Financial data shows that in the first half of 2022, the sales volume of special engineering plastics products was 10,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 15.23%; among them, the LCP sales volume was 2,000 tons, a year-on-year increase of 53.85%. The subsidiary Zhuhai Wantong Special Engineering Plastics Co., Ltd. will achieve a net profit of 228 million yuan in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 121.35%. In the first half of 2022, it will achieve a net profit of 122 million yuan, accounting for 15.23% of the total net profit.
In terms of production capacity, the company’s special engineering plastics production capacity in 2021 is 25,000 tons/year (including 6,000 tons of LCP), a year-on-year increase of 66.67%. Data comparison shows that the company’s new production capacity in 2021 will be quickly digested. According to the data of the 2022 semi-annual report, the company expects to add an annual output of 11,000 tons of PA10T/PA6T synthetic resin projects by the end of 2022; in 2022, the company has launched a project with an annual output of 15,000 tons of LCP and 6,000 tons of PPSU/PES synthetic resin. Kingfa’s special engineering plastics are expected to continue to grow explosively in the future.