Minsheng Securities released a research report saying that DeepSeek accelerates the process of AI equality, and only by cloudification can AI form a consensus on a global scale, and enterprise service SaaS is expected to usher in development opportunities far beyond the remote office period. From the perspective of classification, general-purpose SaaS is expected to become the infrastructure of AI Agent, and the value of SaaS will be improved by historical data mining. Vertical SaaS uses AI to achieve more capabilities and expand market scale, and general SaaS and large model manufacturers use vertical SaaS to supplement the ecosystem.

The main views of Minsheng Securities are as follows:

DeepSeek accelerates the process of AI equality and fully opens up the era of AI applications.

In January 2025, DeepSeek open-sourced R1 achieved the effect of benchmarking OpenAI o1 with low training/inference costs, and developed a large number of official application integration cases, fully opening the era of AI applications.

After AI equality, the essence of competition in AI applications is the competition between data and portals.

The AI strategies of the two cloud giants, Salesforce and ServiceNOW, are focused on data and on-premises

Data: Large models can only determine the lower limit of AI applications, and high-quality non-public data determines the upper limit of AI applications.

Entrance: SaaS has a significant entrance effect, SaaS platforms can extend to the upstream or downstream of the workflow according to user needs, and continuously tap user needs.

SaaS is expected to usher in a value revaluation and accelerate the two-wheel drive of cloud migration and AI agent.

Take the case of SAP, the global traditional software giant, in its cloud transformation and AI transformation in 2024

Accelerate cloud migration: There is a global consensus that AI can only be made cloud-based, and enterprise service SaaS is expected to usher in a new stage of enterprise cloudification far beyond the remote work era.

AI Agent: AI Agent will open up a trillion-dollar blue ocean market for enterprise service SaaS. In general, AI Agent symbolizes the paradigm shift of software from "tool" to "digital labor", AI Agent makes software no longer a simple "expense" but an "investment", and the potential market size of software vendors has expanded from the IT budget of enterprises to the real labor market, achieving a significant jump. General SaaS is expected to become the infrastructure of AI Agent, and the value of SaaS will be increased by utilizing historical data mining. Vertical SaaS uses AI to achieve more capabilities and expand market scale, and general SaaS and large model manufacturers use vertical SaaS to supplement the ecosystem; AI Agent has stronger consumption attributes, and in the future, it can adopt a diversified payment model to open the valuation ceiling of software.

Valuation perspective:

At present, the valuation of PS-TTM of SaaS companies is basically smaller than the average value since 2019, far lower than the valuation level at the peak of cloud expectations in 2020, and it is expected to achieve Davis double-click in the AI era.

Recommended Target:

Office: Kingsoft Office (688111.SH), INTSIG (688615.SH), Foxit Software (688095.SH).

CRM: Kingdee International (00268), Yonyou Network (600588.SH).

OA: Pan Micro Network (603039.SH), Zhiyuan Internet (688369.SH), iSoftStone (301236.SZ).

ERP: Dingjie Digital Intelligence (300378.SZ), Hand Information (300170.SZ), Nancal Technology (603859.SH), SIE Information (300687.SZ), China Software International (00354).

Programming: Zhuoyi Information (688258.SH), Puyuan Information (688118.SH), Jinzheng (600446.SH).

Customer service: Montnets Technology (002123.SZ), Color News (300634.SZ).

AIGC: Wondershare Technology (300624.SZ), Meitu (01357).

Medical: Runda Medical (603108.SH), iFLYTEK Medical Technology (02506).

Finance: Xinzhi Software (688590.SH), Tax Friends (603171.SH), Straight Flush (300033.SZ), Hang Seng Electronics (600570.SH).

Legal: Huayu Software (300271.SZ), Jinqiao Information (603918.SH).

Terminal AI: Thundersoft (300496.SZ), EZVIZ Network (688475.SH).

Local life: Worth buying (300785.SZ), Focus Technology (002315.SZ), Guangyun Technology (688365.SH).

Risk Warning:

The implementation of technology is less than expected, and the competition in the industry is intensifying.