Recently, A-share listed companies have been highly active in investment and M&A activities around new quality productivity. Among them, machine vision, as a key link in the application of AI technology in the field of industrial manufacturing, has also attracted the favor of listed companies.

In terms of market demand, the reporter of the Financial Associated Press recently learned from the industry that the downstream demand in the field of machine vision inspection has gradually picked up in the past two years. At the same time, the results of import substitution are obvious, the current localization rate of machine vision equipment has exceeded 90%, and domestic manufacturers have achieved leadership in some key components.

Listed companies are gearing up

"The multi-level capital market is a powerful driving force for promoting new industrialization...... High-quality industrial and manufacturing enterprises representing new quality productivity bring more fresh water to the capital market and allow investors to share the fruits of economic development. Wu Qing, chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, recently wrote an article pointing out that it is necessary to "give full play to the function of the capital market and better serve the new industrialization."

As the "smart eye" of new industrialization, machine vision is a key part of "AI + manufacturing". In the capital market, the number of investment and M&A cases around machine vision is also increasing.

On the evening of Friday (March 7), Lionhead (600539. SH) announced that it intends to acquire Hangzhou Lipper Technology, a "little giant" company of machine vision. Just two months ago, the domestic machine vision leader Lingyunguang (688400. SH) invested nearly 800 million yuan to acquire JAI, the world's leading machine vision company; In late January, another machine vision company, Opt (688686. SH) acquired a 51% stake in Dongguan Taylor's Automation to extend its layout to the motion control system.

Behind the active mergers and acquisitions, what is the prospect of the machine vision market?

According to GGII data, the scale of China's machine vision market is estimated to exceed 20 billion yuan last year, with a year-on-year growth rate of nearly 12%, and the market scale may be further expanded in 2025. It predicts that the global machine vision market will exceed 120 billion yuan in 2025; By 2027, the scale of China's machine vision market will reach 56.565 billion yuan.

This 100-billion-level cake has led countless A-share listed companies to "compete for their waists".

In late February, Lion Head announced that it planned to acquire Hangzhou Lipo Technology, which focuses on machine vision industrial inspection solutions and is a national-level specialized and new "little giant" enterprise. Talking about the reason for the acquisition, the Lion Head Securities Department told the reporter of the Financial Associated Press who called as an investor that it is mainly optimistic about the development of Lipper Technology, and the company believes that it will improve the development quality and profitability of listed companies in combination with the machine vision industry and the current business status of Lipper Technology. According to the restructuring plan announced on the evening of March 7, in 2023 and 2024, Lipper Technology will achieve revenue of 325 million yuan and 416 million yuan respectively; The net profit was 29 million yuan and 43 million yuan.

Lingyunguang and Opt chose to focus on mergers and acquisitions in their main areas and expand more business scopes horizontally.

Optimum is mainly engaged in the research and development, production and sales of core software and hardware products of machine vision. According to the disclosure, the company has realized the full product line layout of machine vision core software and hardware such as vision algorithm library, intelligent vision platform, deep learning (industrial AI), light source, light source controller, industrial lens, industrial camera, etc. Dongguan Taylor's Automation is an operation control company, mainly engaged in the production, research and sales of precision transmission components, and its products are widely used in downstream fields such as LCD panel equipment, semiconductor equipment, lithium battery equipment, and photovoltaic equipment.

Optim told the Financial Associated Press reporter that the linear motor moving parts products of Dongguan Taylor's automation are mainly used in the field of testing, and the products of the company's main machine vision business are synergistic, and they all belong to the field of industrial automation. In its announcement, Optimum said that machine vision and motion control technology are the core technologies of industrial automation, and the company continues to strengthen the cooperation with motion control in the overall vision solution, aiming to provide customers with more competitive automation solutions.

In addition, it is worth mentioning that in order to improve the layout of the industrial chain, in recent years, Lingyunguang has successively invested in Changguang Chenxin (CMOS sensor chip design), Lihengguang Micro (infrared chip), Zhongke Fusion (MEMS chip), Hunan Chiopt (industrial lens) and other enterprises. The acquisition of JAI, the world's leading machine vision company, aims to improve the standard product matrix of vision devices, improve the technology and quality of independent cameras, and expand the product layout of downstream industries.

According to the data, Lingyunguang is one of the earliest enterprises in the field of machine vision in China. JAI is principally engaged in the design, development, production and sales of industrial area scan and line scan cameras. Lingyunguang told the Financial Associated Press reporter that before the acquisition of JAI, the company's overseas revenue accounted for about 10%; The acquisition of JAI is expected to significantly enhance the company's expansion capabilities in overseas markets and regional service advantages, and accelerate the internationalization of existing businesses.

From the layout of Opt and Lingyunguang, it is not difficult to find that the current upstream and downstream enterprises of machine vision are building an ecological closed loop by integrating resources through mergers and acquisitions and cooperation. It reflects the deepening of domestic substitution and the deepening of industrial chain coordination.

The reporter also noted that J&R Technology (301128. SZ) also revealed on the investor interactive platform that the company cooperated with customers to pre-research visual test-related equipment, which can achieve domestic substitution, but the current amount of such orders is still small and will not have a great impact on the company's performance.

"The involution in the low-end field of the machine vision industry is more serious, and new companies will continue to emerge on the track. However, the technical threshold in the field of testing is high, and the entrepreneurial teams in this field in recent years are basically some returnee doctors. "301568. SZ) said.

The industry is gradually picking up

There is a famous saying in the industry that "AI + industry" cannot escape the trap of machine vision. As the "eye" of new industrialization, the domestic machine vision industry is ushering in rapid growth under the dual drive of policy and market.

According to the data, machine vision is one of the basic application technologies of artificial intelligence, which gives machines the ability to "see" and "recognize" by simulating the human vision system. Machine vision can replace the human eye in a variety of scenarios to achieve a variety of functions, mainly including identification, measurement, positioning and detection.

A complete machine vision system usually consists of two parts: the first part is "vision", that is, the hardware components of the system, mainly including light sources, lenses, industrial cameras, and image grabbers; The second part is "Jue", that is, the visual processing software of the system. The industrial machine vision industry includes machine vision component and system manufacturers, system integrators, and more.

According to the "14th Five-Year Plan" for the development of the digital economy, machine vision is clearly listed as one of the core technologies of intelligent manufacturing, and plays a central role in industrial automation and intelligent detection. At present, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Shandong and other places have issued policies related to strategic emerging industries, smart factories, digital transformation, and intelligent manufacturing industry upgrading to support the development of intelligent manufacturing segments represented by industrial machine vision.

The reporter of the Financial Associated Press learned from multiple interviews that the current orders in hand of A-share machine vision-related companies are different.

Juzi Technology(300802. SZ) insiders told the Financial Associated Press reporter that the company has sufficient orders in hand this year, and the business department is very busy. The above-mentioned relevant person of Opt also said that at present, the company's leaders are communicating more and more with the customer's technical business.

A relevant person from the machine vision equipment manufacturer Si-Tek told the Financial Associated Press reporter that the current order situation in hand is okay. "As far as we know, benefiting from the 'national subsidy' policy, some chip manufacturers in the field of consumer electronics are basically in a state of 'explosive orders'. If consumer electronics manufacturers have the need to expand production, it is also very beneficial for us. ”

TZTEK (688003. SH) also told reporters that the downstream demand for industrial vision is mainly due to the expansion of consumer electronics and semiconductor industries and the launch of new products, but the expansion of the semiconductor industry in the past two years has not been particularly much; At present, in addition to the photovoltaic sector, the company's emerging businesses are showing a growth trend, especially the PCB table (printed circuit board) has recovered significantly.

According to the announcement of TZTEK, the PCB printed circuit board industry is the foundation of the electronic information industry, and the market scale is huge. In the future, with the continuous upgrading of the global PCB product structure, domestic PCB equipment is expected to accelerate the realization of import substitution, and the market scale is expected to grow rapidly. According to Prismark, the global PCB market size will expand from $69.5 billion in 2023 to $90.4 billion in 2028.

Lingyunguang told reporters that in recent years, the downstream market of machine vision has entered the stock period, and the terminal demand for consumer electronics and new energy has shrunk, but in the long run, the previous decline in demand is phased. With the iterative upgrading of technology, the consumer electronics and new energy industries will enter the next big cycle and big growth period in the future.

"The decline of a single industry doesn't have that much impact on machine vision." According to the prediction of relevant people of Opt, although the real AI mobile phone products with various functions of AI have not yet appeared, such products are expected to be launched in batches in the next few years, which will bring huge incremental demand.

Domestic substitution is speeding up

At present, the "AI Six Little Dragons" such as Zhipu, the Dark Side of the Moon, the Leaping Stars, and Baichuan Intelligence are well-known in the industry, but less than three years have passed since the "AI Four Little Dragons" became popular.

At that time, SenseTime Technology, Megvii Technology, Yuncong Technology (688327. SH), YITU Technology has risen with computer vision technology and won the title of "AI Four Little Tigers". However, under multiple pressures such as technological generational replacement, profitability problems, and the encirclement and suppression of giants, the once ambitious "Four Little Tigers" are no longer in the limelight, and only YITU has achieved partial profitability through business contraction.

Generally speaking, the AI industry cycle starts in ten years. The "AI Tigers" are gradually "low-key" in the new AI cycle, which means that the industry reshuffle is accelerating.

In the eyes of industry insiders, the era of relying solely on visual technology is over, and multimodal fusion and vertical scene cultivation will become the new focus of competition. In view of the future development trend of machine vision, the consensus of the industry includes: application scenarios will be further expanded, domestic substitution will be accelerated, 3D vision and multimodal fusion will be achieved, etc.

The reporter of the Financial Associated Press learned that the breakthrough of 3D visual perception technology is becoming the core driving force, and the development trend of the machine vision industry has shifted from "passive detection" to "active optimization"; At the same time, emerging application scenarios continue to emerge, and the penetration rate of 3D vision in industrial quality inspection, autonomous driving (such as path planning), humanoid robots and other fields is increasing rapidly. According to the forecast of the China Research Institute of Puhua Industry Research Institute, the market size of 3D machine vision inspection will reach 10.435 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for more than 25%.

According to the recent investor research minutes released by Opt, machine vision is an important part of industrial automation and intelligent equipment, and its development progress is highly related to the localization degree of the equipment itself. At present, there is still a lot of room for localization in the localization rate of high-end equipment in the automobile, semiconductor and other industries, and the company will benefit from the process of domestic substitution with downstream customers.

Optimum also mentioned that the software system of machine vision is a relatively weak field of localization in the entire machine vision industry chain, and overseas brands still have a certain competitive advantage for a long time. With the progress of overall vision technology and the practical verification of domestic vision software systems in more application scenarios, the localization of software systems will bring sufficient growth space to the industry.

GGII statistics show that with the upgrading and iteration of China's machine vision technology, the proportion of local brand market size has increased year by year, reaching 51% in 2020, surpassing overseas brands for the first time. At present, domestic brands have become a new force in the market. Data shows that in 2023, the market share of domestic brands of machine vision has reached 63%.