ZhiKe | With all the positive factors, why has Inspur Information fallen by 25%?
Author | Fan Liang
Editor | Ding Mao
With leading Internet companies increasing their capital expenditure on AI, servers have become one of the most direct beneficiaries.
However, changes in the capital market often precede the fundamentals of enterprises. For example, after Alibaba announced an increase in AI expenditure, the market's positive expectations were fulfilled, but the stock price of Inspur Information, the largest server manufacturer in China, began to decline from its peak. Especially under the impact of the United States imposing reciprocal tariffs globally in April, the uncertainty of the trade environment further hit Inspur Information's stock price, with the company's stock price falling by up to 40% from its peak.
On April 29, Inspur Information released its first - quarter financial report for 2025. The company's operating income increased by 165.31%, and its net profit attributable to the parent company after deducting non - recurring items increased by 78.03%. Despite the impressive performance in the first quarter, the stock price has only rebounded by about 6% since the release of the financial report. The market is mainly concerned about the uncertainty that the trade environment and cloud providers' capital expenditure will bring to the company's future performance.
On May 12, the Ministry of Commerce officially announced the joint statement of the China - US economic and trade talks in Geneva, indicating that the China - US economic and trade talks have achieved more than expected progress. So, from the current point of view, what exactly are the reasons hindering the rise of Inspur Information's stock price, and is the company still worth paying attention to in the future?
Growth Driven by Large - Customer Capital Expenditure
Inspur Information's products are mainly various types of servers. According to the official announcement, they mainly include four categories: general - purpose servers, storage servers, high - end servers, and edge servers, which have accounted for more than 99% of the total revenue for many years.
Reviewing the changes in Inspur Information's revenue over the past decade, the company's revenue has mainly experienced two waves of pulsed growth. From 2016 to 2018, it increased by 270% from 12.668 billion yuan to 46.941 billion yuan; from 2023 to 2024, it increased by 74% from 65.867 billion yuan to 114.767 billion yuan.
The reason for the above phenomenon is that from 2016 to 2018, there was a huge explosion in domestic cloud demand, and the cloud - computing capital expenditure of corresponding Internet giants increased sharply, driving the rapid increase in server demand, and Inspur Information's revenue also exploded accordingly. From 2020 to 2023, due to the overall pressure on the macro - economy, the demand for cloud computing from enterprises and government agencies slowed down, so Inspur Information's revenue growth rate slowed down. After 2024, the explosion of AI led to a sharp increase in computing power demand, and Internet companies at home and abroad once again increased their capital expenditure, and Inspur Information's revenue entered a period of explosive growth.
It is not difficult to find that Inspur Information's revenue follows the basic logic of explosion of cloud - computing demand - increase in Internet capital expenditure - significant increase in the company's revenue.
Chart: Changes in Inspur Information's Revenue. Source: Wind, 36Kr compilation
Further analyzing the revenue - driving factors, the sharp increase in overseas revenue is one of the core reasons for Inspur Information's significant revenue growth in 2024. In 2024, Inspur Information's domestic revenue was 80.686 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 43.26%; its overseas revenue was 34.081 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 256.98%, and its proportion in the total revenue also increased from less than 15% historically to nearly 30%.
In terms of customer structure, in 2024, the top five customers of Inspur Information accounted for nearly 75% of the total, among which the first - largest customer accounted for 31.51% and the second - largest customer accounted for 21.85%. Looking at Inspur Information's historical customer concentration, in most years, the concentration of its top five customers remained between 20% and 30%. However, in 2017, 2018, and 2024 when the company's revenue grew rapidly, there was a significant increase in customer concentration, which also confirms that the two waves of pulsed growth of Inspur Information were mainly driven by a small number of Internet giants increasing their capital expenditure.
Therefore, judging whether the capital expenditure of large customers is sustainable and whether it has a cycle has become an important means to predict the future performance changes of Inspur Information.
Chart: Relationship between Inspur Information's Revenue and Customer Concentration. Source: Wind, 36Kr compilation
According to statistics from Guosen Securities, in 2024, the capital expenditure of overseas cloud providers such as Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta far exceeded their previous performance guidance, and the cumulative year - on - year growth rate of their expenditure exceeded 60%. This is the core reason for the rapid growth of Inspur Information's overseas revenue in 2024. However, regarding the capital expenditure forecast for 2025, the market believes that except for Meta, which will continue to maintain a high - growth rate, the year - on - year growth rates of cloud expenditure of other overseas providers, although still positive, will decline to varying degrees. In particular, the growth rate of Microsoft's cloud expenditure will drop to around 6%, and recently, Microsoft also said that it would slow down or suspend the construction of some data centers.
Chart: Capital Expenditure of Overseas Cloud Providers. Source: Guosen Securities, 36Kr compilation
Statistically, CICC estimates that the year - on - year growth rate of the capital expenditure of the four providers in 2025 will be about 30%, and about 10% in 2026. This means that even without considering the potential impact of tariffs, it will be difficult for Inspur Information's overseas revenue to maintain the extremely high growth rate of 2024. Therefore, in 2025, the focus of the company's performance growth will probably return to the domestic Internet customer market.
Regarding the capital expenditure rhythm of the cloud business/data centers of domestic Internet companies and operators, CICC predicts that the year - on - year growth rate of the capital expenditure of Internet companies is expected to reach 79% in 2025, and 14% in 2026. The relatively low forecast for the capital expenditure growth rate in 2026 is due to two reasons. On the one hand, capital expenditure is cyclical, and after the initial investment, manufacturers need to operate their assets to convert them into performance. On the other hand, there is still some uncertainty about the specific situation of long - term AI applications, so a conservative forecast is given for the time being. Overall, the capital expenditure rhythm of domestic cloud providers will have a significant impact on Inspur Information's performance in 2025.
Chart: Capital Expenditure of Domestic Cloud Providers. Source: CICC, 36Kr compilation
Direct Sales for Volume, Distribution for Profit
In addition to the customer structure, the sales channel is another hidden factor that has a significant impact on the company's profit margin.
Inspur Information mainly has two sales channels: industry and regional. Simply put, the industry channel is a direct - sales channel, mainly targeting large - order customers in the Internet, finance, government, etc. Inspur Information provides one - to - one marketing services and operates through the JDM (Joint Design Manufacturing, where customers participate in product development) model; the regional channel is a distribution channel, mainly targeting scattered - order customers, and sales services are carried out by distributors and system integrators.
In 2024, the sales volume of the industry channel was 96.733 billion yuan, accounting for 84.29%; the sales volume of the regional sales channel was 18.034 billion yuan, accounting for 15.71%. In recent years, the revenue of regional customers has shown a continuous and slight increase, while the revenue of industry customers has increased explosively in 2024.
Chart: Revenue Proportion of Inspur Information's Direct - Sales and Distribution Channels. Source: Wind, 36Kr compilation
The two channels have very different financial impacts on Inspur Information.
First, in terms of gross - margin comparison, in 2024, Inspur Information's comprehensive gross margin was 6.85%. Among them, the gross margin of the industry channel was only 5.04%, while the gross margin of the regional channel was as high as 16.07%. Although the revenue of the regional channel accounted for only 15.71% in 2024, its gross - profit amount accounted for 37.28%.
Chart: Comparison of Gross Margins of Inspur Information's Direct - Sales and Distribution Channels. Source: Wind, 36Kr compilation
The reason why the gross margin of the regional channel is much higher than that of the industry channel is that, on the one hand, large - industry customers have high procurement amounts, and they participate in product development under the JDM model, so their bargaining power is higher than that of regional customers; on the other hand, Inspur Information also provides value - added services such as software for regional customers, which also increases the gross margin of regional customers.
Generally speaking, industry customers mainly focus on volume with low profit margins and have a certain degree of volatility. Although regional customers have a low revenue proportion, they have high profit margins and stable growth, showing a complementary situation. However, in the future, as the proportion of large - industry customers continues to increase, the supporting effect of channel customers on the gross margin will weaken, and Inspur Information's gross margin will show a continuous downward trend.
In addition to the gross margin, the R & D and sales expense ratios are also two main factors affecting Inspur Information's net - profit margin.
In 2024, Inspur Information's R & D expense ratio was 3.06%, and the sales expense ratio was 1.26%. From the perspective of traditional industries, Inspur Information's R & D and sales expense ratios are not high. However, considering the company's low gross - margin level, a slight fluctuation in the expense ratio will cause a significant fluctuation in the absolute value of net profit.
For example, in 2021 and 2023, Inspur Information's revenue remained basically stable, but its net profit after deducting non - recurring items fluctuated significantly. In 2021, the main reason for the sharp increase in profit was that the company's sales expense ratio decreased by 0.78 percentage points year - on - year. In 2023, the sharp decline in profit was due to the increase in customer concentration and the year - on - year decrease of the gross margin by 1.14 percentage points.
In 2024, Inspur Information's net profit attributable to the parent company after deducting non - recurring items was 1.874 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 67.59%, basically in line with the revenue growth. In terms of profit margin, Inspur Information's net - profit margin after deducting non - recurring items in 2024 was 1.63%, slightly lower than that in 2023.
In the first quarter of 2025, Inspur Information's net profit attributable to the parent company after deducting non - recurring items was 427 million yuan, a year - on - year increase of 78.03%, far lower than the revenue growth rate of 165.31%. This is mainly because the company's gross margin decreased from 8.08% in Q1 2024 to 3.45%, and the net - profit margin decreased from 1.68% to 0.98%. The fundamental factors behind this are firstly, the further increase in the proportion of large - industry customers with low gross margins, and secondly, the possible increase in procurement costs due to the trade environment.
This situation of "increasing revenue but not increasing profit" is also one of the main reasons why the stock price did not rebound significantly after the release of Inspur Information's first - quarter report.
Chart: Comparison of Inspur Information's Gross Margin and Net - Profit Margin. Source: Wind, 36Kr compilation
The Secret to Maintaining Scale: JDM Model
Comparing with enterprises in similar industries and with similar businesses, it can be found that Inspur Information's current profitability is more similar to that of consumer - electronics OEMs such as Foxconn Industrial Internet and Huaqin Technology, and lower than that of enterprises with server businesses such