New stock preview | Single business dependency exceeding 95%, cash flow shrinking by more than half in three years, Zhongding Intelligent falls into a "overweight" growth dilemma.

On May 15th, the Hong Kong Stock Exchange's prospectus welcomed a familiar face once again - Zhongding Intelligent (Wuxi) Technology Co., Ltd. (referred to as Zhongding Intelligent). Following the failure to submit the application form twice in May and November 2025, this intelligent logistics giant spun off from the A-share listed company Noblelift Intelligent Equipment, is making its third attempt to hit the main board of the Hong Kong stock market. As the industry leader in China's intelligent on-site logistics solutions and the second leader in the industrial field, Zhongding Intelligent has established absolute dominance in the lithium battery track - in 2025, its market share in the field of new energy lithium-ion batteries was as high as 25.6%, ranking first in the industry. From 2023 to 2025, the company's revenue steadily increased from 1.695 billion yuan to 1.882 billion yuan, and net profit also achieved an annual growth of nearly tens of millions. However, behind the impressive report card, the fact that more than 90% of the income is extremely dependent on the "one-legged walk" model of the new energy industry, as well as a high asset-liability ratio of up to 80%, have cast an undeniable shadow on this "three-challenge" journey. In the wave of global carbon neutrality and structural expansion of lithium battery production capacity, can Zhongding Intelligent successfully open the door to the Hong Kong stock market with its deep technological barriers and first-mover advantage, and resolve the risks of highly concentrated customers and industry dependence? Gross profit margin fluctuates sharply Profit quality concerns under high growth halo The prospectus shows that Zhongding Intelligent's revenue increased from 1.695 billion yuan in 2023 to 1.882 billion yuan in 2025, showing a steady growth trend on the surface. However, when this growth is examined in the context of the high-speed track of new energy lithium batteries, many underlying risks can be easily found. The sub-market is expected to have a compound growth rate of up to 14.7% from 2024 to 2029, while Zhongding Intelligent's revenue growth rate over the past three years was only 6.08% and 4.67% respectively (slightly rebounding in 2025), with an overall growth rate of only about 11%, significantly lagging behind the industry benchmark. This means that the company did not effectively leverage its so-called "segment champion" first-mover advantage, but instead gradually fell behind competitors in the rapidly expanding market. At the same time, the company has long been hovering around the fourth place in the overall market, with a market share of about 1.6% in 2025, down from about 1.7% in 2022, indicating a weak scale advantage. The sluggish revenue growth and stagnant market share directly reflect Zhongding Intelligent's passivity and lack of strength in the face of industry expansion. From a profit perspective, the company's gross profit fluctuates significantly. From 2023 to 2025, the gross profit margin experienced a sharp decline from 14.0% to 13.1%, then rebounded to 15.1%. Of concern is the continuous decline in the gross margin of the core business "intelligent on-site logistics solutions" from 13.4% in 2022 to 12.2% in 2024, a cumulative decrease of nearly 1.2 percentage points. The prospectus attributes this to "strategic price cuts to compete for major new energy customers," which reveals the company's extremely limited bargaining power in front of key customers. If top customers continue to exert pressure through concentrated purchasing advantages, the gross margin will face further squeeze. At the same time, the proportion of raw material costs to revenue increased from 73.8% in 2023 to 75.0% in 2024, and the company cannot hedge this pressure through scale or technology premium, highlighting the weak cost transfer capability. While the gross profit margin rebounded to 15.1% in 2025, whether it was due to "real premium" brought about by technological improvement or from incidental structural changes in large customer orders, remains to be verified. The situation is equally pessimistic at the net profit level. From 2023 to 2025, net profits were 78.18 million, 88.63 million, and 97.37 million yuan respectively, with corresponding net profit margins of only 4.61%, 4.93%, and 5.18%, with a cumulative improvement of less than 0.6 percentage points over three years. In other words, for every 100 yuan of revenue generated, the company is only able to retain less than 5 yuan of net profit. Cash flow and balance sheet are more tense. From 2023 to 2025, the company's cash and cash equivalents decreased sharply from about 2.18 billion yuan to about 1.04 billion yuan, a cumulative decrease of over half. At the same time, total assets decreased by about 22.7% from the end of 2023 to the end of 2024, showing a significant shrinking balance sheet. Although the debt-to-asset ratio decreased slightly from about 88.9% to around 80.2%, it still remains high. Behind the high debt and low cash is the company's extremely long operating cycle - from 2023 to 2025, inventory turnover days were 601 days, 482 days, and 327 days respectively. Although there has been some improvement, turnover cycles of more than a year still severely impede fund efficiency, keeping the company's cash flow chain constantly taut. Any changes in the external environment, such as delayed customer payments or fluctuations in raw material prices, could trigger a liquidity crisis. High over-reliance on single business "Fictitious" growth may be unsustainable Observations indicate that although the company's overall revenue and gross profit showed growth over the three years, when we examine the changes in business structure and the profitability of each segment, there are many disturbing signals hidden within. In terms of revenue structure, the intelligent on-site logistics solutions have always been the absolute cornerstone of Zhongding Intelligent. From 2023 to 2025, the revenue of this segment was 1.603 billion yuan, 1.728 billion yuan, and 1.787 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 94.6%, 96.1%, and 95.0% of total revenue. On the surface, the core business has maintained robust absolute growth, with a cumulative growth of about 11.5% over the three years, basically matching the overall revenue growth of the company. However, when comparing this growth rate with the estimated annual compound growth rate of 14.7% in the field of new energy lithium battery on-site logistics equipment, the company's core business has not outperformed the market. What is more concerning is the fluctuation in the gross margin of this segment. In 2023, the gross margin was 12.8%, decreasing to 12.2% in 2024, and although it rebounded to 14.4% in 2025, the sustainability of this rebound is questionable. The decline in gross profit margin in 2024 was explained in the prospectus as "strategic price cuts to compete for major new energy customers," indicating that the company has weak bargaining power in front of major customers and can only sacrifice profits in exchange for orders. The performance of the after-sales service segment is particularly worrisome. The revenue of this segment increased from 47.51 million yuan in 2023 to 82.12 million yuan in 2025, a cumulative growth of 72.9%, with its share of total revenue increasing from 2.8% to 4.4%. It seemed to have become a new growth point for the company. However, its gross margin experienced a cliff-like decline: from 60.0% in 2023 to 43.9% in 2024, and further down to 28.6% in 2025, with a cumulative decrease of over 31 percentage points. After-sales service typically has high customer stickiness and profitability, with gross margins generally significantly higher than equipment sales. The near halving of Zhongding Intelligent's after-sales service gross margin over three years is highly unusual. One possible explanation is that the company is forced to provide a lot of concessions or free services in the after-sales process to retain major customers; another possibility is that as the number of equipment holdings increases, the costs of after-sales service (such as spare parts, manpower, response time) rise significantly, and the company has not been able to effectively pass on these costs to customers. In either case, this means that the company not only lacks pricing power in new equipment sales, but even the traditionally stable "cash cow" business is rapidly becoming low-profit or even profit-less. The significant shrinkage in after-sales service gross margin directly erodes the overall profit quality of the company - in 2023, after-sales service contributed a gross profit of 28.5 million yuan, accounting for 12.0% of the total gross profit of 237.84 million yuan; by 2025, despite nearly doubling in revenue, the gross profit was only 23.5 million yuan, accounting for 8.3% of the total gross profit of 284.18 million yuan. In other words, this segment is transitioning from being a high-profit contributor to an inefficient asset. Looking at the on-site logistics equipment and other sales segment, its performance more starkly reflects the decline of the company's non-core business. The revenue of this segment decreased sharply from 44.40 million yuan in 2023 to 12.88 million yuan in 2025, a three-year decrease of 71.0%, with the share of total revenue dropping from 2.6% to 0.6%. Although its gross profit margin increased from 11.2% to 20.2%, due to its small base, its contribution to overall profit can be almost ignored (only 2.606 million yuan in 2025). The continuous contraction of this segment indicates that the company has not successfully opened up a second growth curve beyond the intelligent on-site logistics solutions. The company had previously attempted to expand into new businesses such as automotive components, but from the data disclosed this time, the on-site logistics equipment and other sales segment likely included these peripheral businesses, and their rapid decline precisely confirms the failure of the company's cross-industry expansion. In summary, while Zhongding Intelligent's business performance appears to be stable growth, when each segment is analyzed separately, it is evident that its growth logic is facing a severe test: the instability and weakness of the gross profit margin of the core business, the rapid loss of the traditional profit stronghold of after-sales service, and the overall contraction of non-core business sources. In the increasingly competitive field of new energy lithium batteries, if the company cannot quickly reverse the downward trend of the gross margin of after-sales service, and establish true technological or cost barriers in the core business, its future growth will increasingly resemble "fictitious" growth - the income numbers increase, but the quality of profit, cash flow, and risk resistance continue to deteriorate. The sustainability of this growth logic deserves the high vigilance of all potential investors.