Key investment points:
Definition of metauniverse
Metauniverse is a highly intelligent and concrete virtual world, a decentralized economic and social system, and an integrated application of a variety of emerging technologies. Roblox put forward eight elements of the meta universe in its prospectus: identity, friends, immersion, low delay, diversification, anywhere, economic system and civilization. However, we believe that the meta universe should also have another essential element - intelligence.
The realization of the meta universe depends on the development of five technology bases
The realization of metauniverse needs the support of five underlying technologies: 5g technology ensures the communication foundation, and low delay is the guarantee of a good sense of experience; VR technology breaks the boundary of virtual reality, and immersive feeling is the necessary demand to realize the meta universe; Cloud computing provides computing power support, and powerful cloud computing power reduces the threshold of user terminal equipment; Blockchain technology builds an economic system, and an independent and safe economic system will bring new employment opportunities in the meta universe; Digital twin technology creates a parallel world, and the meta universe scene is fully implemented, completely changing people's way of production and life.
Metauniverse changes the way of production and life, and games and social networking may become the first landing scenes
Metauniverse has a wide range of application scenarios. We can enter the meta universe to socialize, play games, consume, study and other daily life; It can also improve production efficiency and accuracy and reduce production costs through metauniverse, such as metauniverse + medical treatment, metauniverse + factory, metauniverse + aerospace and so on. With the continuous breakthrough of metauniverse related technologies, the above scenes will be gradually implemented. Among them, the game platform and social platform are the easiest to realize full digitization and build the metauniverse world. Many companies outside China have also begun to make efforts in these two fields. We expect that the first batch of mature meta universe games and meta universe social platforms will be launched on a large scale in 2022.
The popularity of the concept of meta universe continues to rise, and large factories outside China are competing for layout
With the renaming of Facebook to meta, major manufacturers have also successively announced their official entry into metauniverse. Overseas is led by Facebook, and Microsoft, apple, Google, etc. have entered the bureau one after another. China's major Internet manufacturers are also unwilling to lag behind. Tencent, byte beat, Baidu and Alibaba have also begun to layout the meta universe. At present, the layout mode of major manufacturers is mainly acquisition + combination of their own products. The game industry is dominated by Tencent and Netease; In the social software industry, byte beating takes the lead; Baidu and Alibaba are more likely to lay out the meta universe in the direction of cloud computing and VR.
VR / AR and cloud computing are expected to take the lead in making breakthroughs
Combined with the analysis of meta universe underlying technology and seven industrial chains, VR / AR equipment and cloud computing have large market scale, rapid growth, continuous growth on the demand side, and broad market prospects in the future. In 2024, the global market scale of VR / AR equipment will reach 480 billion yuan, with a growth rate of about 54%; In 2020, China's cloud computing market reached 209.1 billion yuan, with a growth rate of 56.6%. With the continuous expansion of the market, Chinese science and technology enterprises have entered the market one after another, and the market scale is expected to usher in explosive growth in recent years. China's three cloud primary core technologies tend to be mature, relevant derivative technologies have entered a period of development outbreak, the market is active, and the high growth rate is expected to continue.
Investment advice
To sum up, we give Thunder Software Technology Co.Ltd(300496) ( Thunder Software Technology Co.Ltd(300496) . SZ) and Silkroad Visual Technology Co.Ltd(300556) ( Silkroad Visual Technology Co.Ltd(300556) . SZ) in the field of VR; In the field of cloud computing, Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) ( Sangfor Technologies Inc(300454) . SZ), Unisplendour Corporation Limited(000938) ( Unisplendour Corporation Limited(000938) . SZ) "overweight" rating. Risk warning: the meta universe policy is becoming stricter; Technological development did not meet expectations.
