Edit | Yu Bin
Produced | Chaoqi.com “Yu Jian Column
Recently, Times Angel Technology Co., Ltd., an invisible correction solution provider with invisible braces as its main product, was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. The stock price opened 131.21% higher at 400 Hong Kong dollars per share. The capital market reacted strongly, indicating that Times Angel has already Become a major player in the field of orthodontics on the secondary market dental track.
Although the capital market has voted with its feet to tell us how good the dental track is, Angel of Time has also reborn in the experience of capital operation and is expected to become a spokesperson in the field of orthodontics. However, in recent years, Angel of Time has been plagued by many lawsuits, and the corrective plan proposed by the company has been questioned by the industry. The backward use of materials and the insufficient case database have restricted the development of Angel of Time.
So, is Angel of Time being awarded the aura of a heavy player on the dental circuit, is it worthy of the name, or is it a mere illusion?
70% gross profit business is really good! Still really expensive?
Today’s Angel of the Times, being pushed to the forefront, is inseparable from its 70% gross profit margin. According to data from the Prospectus of Time Angel, from 2018 to 2020, the gross profit margin of Time Angel has been rising, from 63.8% to 70.4%. This shows that when consumers buy a 100 yuan product from Time Angel, the actual cost is only 30 yuan.
In fact, 70% of the gross profit is not an exaggeration. Among the products demanded by the beauty, the gross profit margin of cosmetics has always been very high. The gross profit margin of Estee Lauder is 80.6%, the gross profit margin of Shiseido is 75.59%, and the gross profit margin of Shanghai Jahwa is 77.7%. The gross profit rate of beauty equipment is generally as high as 70%.
Products with high gross profit margin generally correspond to higher marketing costs. High marketing costs mean that product demand is not so strong. For example, cosmetics, brands, and a wide variety of products, consumer choices may rely more on advertising, marketing, brand influence, External stimuli and so on. To put it simply, a product with a high gross profit must be considered valuable by consumers. As far as a company is concerned, the higher the barrier to competition, the more confident it is to make a high gross profit. However, judging from the trend of the era angel Mori Lu all the way up in the past few years, its moat has no sign of deepening. Compared with marketing expenses, the proportion of research and development expenses is not prominent. From 2018 to 2020, the research and development expenses of Age Angel It accounted for 10.3%, 12.5%, and 11.4% of revenue in the same period. In fact, Angel of Age’s brand self-innovation ability is not outstanding. According to relevant data, Time Angel’s strongest competitor, the international big-name Insime, holds 800 patents, and Time Angel has only 92 registered patents in China, which is far from Insime. The gap in the number of patents not only reflects the weakness of Time Angel in self-service innovation, but also reflects the difference in brand positioning between Yinshimei and Time Angel. Yinshimei focuses on the high-end market, with an average price of more than 40,000. Time Angel focuses on the mid- to high-end market of 20,000-20,000 yuan. Although in the domestic orthodontics field, price sensitivity and results orientation give Time Angel the opportunity to impact the high-end market, research and development Insufficient investment, the Angel of the Times always has a certain gap from Yinshimei, and it may be even more powerless to seize the high-end market. Therefore, although Angel of the Times is in the blue ocean market of the tooth circuit, it also has 70% of the gross profit, but if it wants to go smoothly on the road of future development, I am afraid it will not be so easy. Angel of the Times wanted to “overtake on a curve”, but it caused controversy “Slow technological iteration, material comfort greatly affected by subjective feelings, high initial investment, and long return period” are the main pain points under the glamorous appearance of the orthodontic track, which also makes it easy for many entrants to follow in the development process The road of focusing on marketing rather than R&D, because it wants to make quick money. Time Angel’s sales and marketing expenses from 2018 to 2020 accounted for 17%-19% of its revenue in the same period. Compared with the R&D investment in the same period, the controversy of focusing on marketing and over R&D is also very loud. Moreover, Angel of Time starts from the sales process, hoping to weaken the dominant position of dentists in the sales link, realize consumers’ self-purchasing, and let Angel of Time realize overtaking in corners. It is understood that Li Huamin, founder of Time Angel Group, has repeatedly emphasized the importance of “digital oral cavity” in public. In 2014, Li Huamin proposed that the future invisible braces will no longer be medical supplies guided by dentists, but popular products that consumers choose to buy, and said that this will be the direction that Angel of the Times will focus on in the future. In 2018, Angel of Time announced publicly that it would invest 100 million yuan each year in the next three years, dedicated to promoting innovation and research and development in the field of orthodontics. However, industry professionals expressed disagreement. Zhang Jun, the chief physician of the Orthodontics Department of Shaanxi Provincial People’s Hospital, once publicly stated that orthodontics should be tools in the hands of orthodontists. Mobile control. Some professionals also pointed out that it is impossible to design a scientific and effective personalized plan without face-to-face inspection and communication. Based on Time Angel’s idea of ”putting the cart before the horse”, the rumors that the braces produced by Time Angel are mainly dominated by manufacturers have also begun to be heated, and Time Angel’s answer to this question is that the proportion of manufacturers’ back-end designs will be more, but the back-end is still Mainly to dentist. In fact, a small orthosis may seem unremarkable, but it involves many disciplines, including clinical stomatology, materials science, mechanics and other disciplines, which have relatively high technical barriers. The Angel of Time wants to weaken the proportion of dentists in the sales link, which may also be related to the scarcity of orthodontic dentists. It is understood that in 2019, the United States had 48.1 general dentists and 3.3 orthodontists per 100,000 people, while my country had only 14.8 general dentists and 0.4 orthodontists per 100,000 people in the same period. Not only is the proportion of orthodontists low, but the training cycle is long, ranging from 8 years to 11 years. There are only 250 orthodontic postgraduates in the country every year, and the number of dental professional service institutions is small. The shortage of orthodontists may be short. There is no relief inside. As a result, the shortage of orthodontists will most likely limit the development of Age Angel in the near future. At this point, Age Angel should be very clear. After all, Angel of Time’s products are basically tied to dentists and recommended to consumers by orthodontists. Angel of Time, who values channel marketing, will not be aware of the negative impact of lack of dentists. What’s the difference between 0.4% distance? At present, in the domestic market, Yinshimei’s market share is 41.4%, followed by Time Angel with 41% of the market share. From the data point of view, Time Angel is only 0.4% away from Yin Shimei, which is 0.4%. It’s not that simple behind the% gap. First of all, Angel of Time is inferior to Hidden Beauty in terms of material comfort. It is understood that Angel of Time uses Master Control material, while Angel of Time uses Smart Track material. Moreover, Angel of Time currently uses the same material as Hidden Beauty. The used material “EX30” belongs to the same generation. Some people in the industry pointed out that the difference in materials is not only in price, but also in comfort. The comfort of Hidden Beauty is not only better than Angel of Time, but also has relatively small errors in tooth movement. The materials currently used by Angel of Time are not as good as hidden and beautiful in terms of corrective strength, thickness, elasticity, and wrapping properties. The material shortcomings are not only a stumbling block for Angel of Time to catch up with Yin Shimei, but also reveal the shortcomings of Angel of Time in technology. In order to make up for the lack of comfort of materials, Angel of Time launched the “Champion Edition” braces, a multi-mode invisible appliance based on its “standard version” series of braces. It is understood that the “Champion Edition” has two aligners made of master Control and master Control S. It is speculated that the “Champion Edition” is a superposition of the soft version, the “standard version” and the hard version, the “standard version”. Attempts to use quantity to alleviate the discomfort brought about by the technical level have not responded positively. In addition, according to the industry classification standards established by Insime, accessories are divided into “traditional accessories” and “optimized accessories”. The latter can optimize tooth movement efficiency and reduce the number of accessories mentioned. Movement error. However, Time Angel’s optimization in this area has not made a significant breakthrough. As of November 2020, the optimization accessories used by Time Angel are not resin protrusions that “can directly provide active force on tooth movement.” Secondly, the disparity in case data between Yinshimei and Time Angel also has a significant impact on the future development of Time Angel. According to public data, Invisime has more than 8 million cases worldwide and about 1 million cases in Asia, while the total proportion of Angel of Time is less than 600,000. Not only that, for consumers, orthodontics are usually only once in a lifetime, and the repurchase rate is extremely low. This is not objective for business growth in the orthodontic field, but Shimei has a high market share in the United States. , The market share in China also occupied the first place with 41.4%. Angel of Time mainly relies on the domestic market, and it is also very difficult to go overseas. In the business blueprint, Insimei has clearly taken the lead. Therefore, the distance between Angel of the Times and Invisible Beauty is far more than the 0.4% market share gap shown in the data. Products, technology, and brand power may all be the direction that needs to be pursued in the future. Concluding remarks At the time when the economy of beauty is prevailing, the demand for beauty is kicking off a new round of capital feast. As the leading company on the orthodontic track, Angel of Time is waiting to see how this heavyweight player will perform in the secondary market. Although the invisible braces are both good for medical beauty and dentistry, there are always shadows under the sun. The scarcity of dentist resources and the lack of technical input make Angel of Time still far away from the veritable leading enterprise. Therefore, guiding capital to accelerate the cultivation of professional talents, increase R&D investment, improve product quality, and build stronger technical barriers are the things that Angel of the Times may have to consider in the follow-up
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