The general direction of the strategy is agreed by everyone, the key is to look at the implementation, which is the difficult year of 2021, the enlightenment brought to us.
Author 丨 Meng Hua
Edited 丨tian grass
Produced 丨 Automan Media
At present, although the full year of 2021 data is not available, the 11-month data can also be roughly qualitative. The three private car companies - Geely, Great Wall and BYD, how competitive the situation is, is often the "annual topic" that the industry is more concerned about.
If you look at the sales volume from January to November 2021, it is Geely that comes out on top.
Geely's sales of 1071381 vehicles, down 3.1% year-on-year, ranking 4th in the manufacturer list, with a market share of 5.9%; Great Wall sales of 823346 vehicles, up 15.3% year-on-year, ranking 8th in the manufacturer list, with a market share of 4.6%; BYD's sales of 625854 vehicles, up 72.8% year-on-year, ranking 13th in the manufacturer list, with a market share of 3.5%.
If according to the "growth", the strongest performance is BYD, not only the growth rate is super high, but also won the first place in the comprehensive list of new energy (EV, PHEV) in the first 11 months, more than the second and third places combined. New energy vehicles are the development trend, and BYD seems to have achieved incremental codes.
Among the three, if you look at it roughly, BYD's new energy business is currently doing the most, it is too arbitrary to conclude that it will definitely surpass the other two in the future.
There are questions: how long will the vitality of fuel vehicle products last? Can the growth of the new energy business be seen higher and higher?
In the long run, it is clear that it will be difficult for us to answer such questions. But for 2022, the situation is relatively clear.
First of all, although the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has greatly deepened, fuel vehicles are still in the "main channel" in 2022.
Secondly, the new energy vehicles in 2021 are greatly distorted by the supply chain, and the domestic and foreign markets are also in a fierce change, if the negative factors are alleviated, that is, the supply chain is restored to a generally normal (expecting 100% recovery should be a luxury), the high growth of new energy vehicles can still be expected. But the second one, which wants to fundamentally shake the first, will take longer and will certainly not happen in 2022.
1
lucky
The traditional business is robust
New energy has yet to take off
In the first 11 months of 2021, Geely's new energy vehicle sales were 64,500 units, an increase of 164.8% year-on-year, but it only accounted for 6% of its own sales, and the proportion was quite unsatisfactory.
Some people criticize the "Blue Geely Plan" for improper targeting, that is, 90% of new energy vehicle sales in 2020. At present, none of the traditional car companies have reached this standard, and this plan is obviously too advanced.
But Li Shufu's dream of new energy does not seem to be extinguished by setbacks. Geely restarted the plan in 2021 and specifically divided the plan into "Blue Geely Action Plan I" and "Blue Geely Action Plan II", the former mainly developing energy-saving and new energy vehicles, and the latter targeting pure electric smart cars.
As early as 2019, Geely created a "geometric" pure electric brand, which actually has this meaning.
On October 31, 2021, Geely held the "Smart Geely 2025 - Geely Longwan Technology Club and Global Power Technology Brand Release" activity. Geely proposed that before 2025, in the name of "Longwan Action III", 25 new energy products will be launched, 10 geely brands, and 5 geometry, lynk & co, and "new power exchange brands".
Geely announced that the "Smart Geely 2025 Strategy" and "Raytheon Power" brands will promote Geely's full-stack self-developed ecosystem in the fields of new energy, automatic driving, intelligent networking, intelligent cockpit and other technologies.
Geely wants to speed up the pace of new energy product launch and adopt a multi-pronged strategy. This is in line with the complexity of Geely's own product line.
Geely's new energy product route has roughly two main lines: Geely brand (including Lynk & Co) and geometric brand; two sub-lines: Geely's other brands (Polar Star, Maple Leaf, Lotus, etc.) and entrepreneurial brand Extreme Kr.
The main line and the sub-line, not static, only indicate the current situation. If the secondary line is done well, it can rise to the main line.
However, geometric brands are now not developing as expected. In the first 11 months of 2021, the sedan geometry A (10780 units) and SUV geometric C (10381 units), with a total sales volume of 21161 vehicles, accounting for roughly 1/3 of its own new energy sales, failed to become the sales spindle.
Some blame it on the distribution system of G-nets and L-nets. Because Geely has a wide range of car series, it is necessary to sell models with different positions on the same platform, which is somewhat similar to the sales of "isomorphic" models of North and South Volkswagen. But the latter is a real competitive relationship, and Geely does not shy away from internal competition in doing so. Consumers do have more choices, but they also make consumers uncertain about Geely's sales strategy.
It has also been pointed out that the Geometry A is a hardcover electric version of the Emgrand GL, while the Geometry C is an electric version of the Emgrand GSe. If you go back two years, consumers don't care where the native platform comes from, but now compared with the opponent's big fanfare pushing pure electric platform, the geometric series is a bit untenable.
Geely also recognized this, and in October 2021, the release of the Krypton 001 began to be delivered only half a year ago, setting a new record for the delivery of real cars by new brands. Geely's mechanical qualities, engineering experience and the ability to integrate electric platforms are still online.
Social media called the extreme krypton 001 as the "king of the configuration table", air suspension, color changing canopy, 4 doors of electric power suction and other luxury cars that are hundreds of thousands of yuan or even more than a million yuan can appear in the configuration, more than 300,000 yuan of extreme krypton can have.
After the delivery, some car owners complained that the car machine system was stuck, the logic was problematic, etc., and some people rose to "traditional car companies are not as good as the new forces in terms of service awareness and software research and development capabilities".
The new forces did get started earlier than traditional car companies in the organization of software research and development, but when the first batch of cars were delivered, the bugs of the car machine system were also widely criticized, and a series of subsequent OTAs patched up the defects, and the human-computer interaction experience gradually improved.
The hardware base of Extreme Kr is good, and the software can also be improved by OTAs.
The question is simply whether consumers are willing to give traditional car brands time to improve their software experience. Since we can tolerate the frizziness of some new forces' early products and rough details, we should have a greater tolerance for problems that can be continuously improved after delivery.
In any case, Geely's attitude to expand the new energy business is very resolute.
At the same time, Geely's fuel vehicle business is still the most robust of the three. Not only did it enter the monthly top three again in November, but also boyue and binyue in SUVs, and Emgrand in cars, all of which entered the top 20 explosive ranks.
With the support of traditional business, Geely's transformation has won time. Geely has many new energy brands, what is missing is time. As long as one or two brands are successful, Geely's new energy strategy will fall.
2
BYD
New energy is bigger, and capital is running wild
AMONG THE THREE PRIVATE COMPANIES, BYD HAS THE LOWEST SALES VOLUME, BUT ITS A-SHARE PRICE IS AS HIGH AS 246.5 YUAN (as of 2022.01.07), the highest of the three (Geely is only listed on Hong Kong stocks).
The reason is obvious, in 2021, BYD's new energy business is doing well, the limelight overshadows SAIC-GM-Wuling and Tesla, with the new energy product matrix, in advance of the 2021 new energy vehicle sales crown.
In the first 11 months of 2021, BYD's PHEV products Qin PLUS (15th in the car category), EV products BYD Han (29th in the sedan category), BYD e2 (70th in the sedan category), BYD F3 (78th in the sedan category), BYD Dolphin (92nd in the sedan category), BYD Qin EV (98th in the sedan category), as well as BYD Song (27th and 28th in the fuel version, PHEV version SUV category), BYD Tang DM-i (SUV category 65th), Form a group advantage.
It is worth mentioning that BYD does not have an enterprise-level new energy strategy, only a product strategy. It is more obvious that THE PHEV and EV have received good results, but there is no too good product below the A0 level.
ASD has therefore developed the Dolphin series, which will continue to grow after its launch at the end of August 2021, reaching 8,809 units in November, with the potential to explode. Dolphin is just the beginning, and the Ocean series will become a large product array on par with the Dynasty series. The richness of BYD's products has reached a new level.
Before new energy became a national policy, BYD began to cultivate new energy. Transferred from battery enterprises to vehicle manufacturing, it is the only enterprise in China that combines first-tier suppliers, second-tier suppliers and OEMs.
Now the saying "full stack self-research" is very popular, focusing on the intellectual property left in their own hands. But only BYD puts the supply chain of "three electrics and one core" and LGBT chips under its control.
When the transnational supply chain and the local supply chain are complete, the main engine factory will minimize the cost of logistics and material storage, that is, dump it to the supplier, and more importantly, let the supplier bear the risk.
Unexpectedly, for well-known reasons, the transnational supply chain has been destroyed as never before, and it cannot be completely alleviated in a short period of time. Not only can the "punctuality system" not be guaranteed, even the annual orders that have been determined long ago cannot be delivered, at this time, the investment in upstream technology and production, the ability to resist risks has become very strong.
This seems to be the effect of a special period, but in fact, the upstream production is left in its own hands, that is, it has mastered the key technology and no longer blindly relies on the solutions of the first-tier supplier.
The biggest difference between new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles in the industrial chain is that the main engine factory penetrates the supply chain to deal directly with secondary and tertiary suppliers, and even directly grasps the production capacity. The smaller number of new energy suppliers and the shorter chain provide possibilities for this approach.
BYD has created a unique operational strategy, but it is difficult to emulate because it takes a long time to invest upstream.
BYD is splitting the upstream parts production capacity and listing it separately. There are BYD shares (listed in Shenzhen and Hong Kong) and BYD Electronics (Hong Kong stocks) that have been successfully listed, and BYD Semiconductor has suspended its listing due to "technical reasons", but it is only a matter of time before it is restarted.
Heavyweight subsidiaries Fordy parts companies, including Fordy batteries, Fordy vision, Fordi technology, Fordi power, Fordi mold, the current fordy battery listing prospects are relatively clear, other subsidiaries are expected to seek the same capital route.
BYD's "all-format" industrial chain has been called out, and the leader of the traction is the new energy vehicle business.
In fact, the hidden worries are also here. BYD's current vehicle business is certainly smooth, but the median price of most of its products is still relatively low (about 135,000 yuan, the algorithm is controversial), although there is a product like BYD Han that breaks through the ceiling of 200,000 yuan, but compared with the new forces, it is still slightly lower. This makes BYD's bicycle profit low.
The capital value of the BYD brand has been reflected, but the market value impression of the product is still inclined to be "cheap and big", which is unfavorable to the brand value and needs to be improved.
In addition, many listed and pending subsidiaries have a huge momentum, but they all rely on the vehicle business. Once the vehicle business is not smooth, it will lose everything. It should be diversified and cannot be tied to a chain. BYD is developing other businesses, such as masks, but the weight is still much lower than that of the automotive business.
3
Great Wall
From product series to new energy layout
Double release
In a sense, great wall brand strategy and Geely have many similarities, and are very different from BYD.
First of all, the number of brands, after the establishment of WEY, the Great Wall brand has experienced a major expansion.
At present, Great Wall Motor's passenger car brands include haval, WEY, tank, Euler, salon five brands.
Sharon is the latest one and has not yet been officially delivered.
The tank series is independent from WEY, giving people the feeling that the Great Wall did not plan to make the tank independent, but the market response was very enthusiastic, and the tank flew alone, giving people the feeling that it was a marketing-based strategy, rather than a pre-determined idea. But for consumers, it doesn't matter.
The Great Wall Haval series is still the main sales force, in November 2021, the Haval brand sold a total of 69,000 new cars, accounting for nearly 70% of the sales of Great Wall's passenger car products.
Tanks contribute more than 10,000 vehicles per month with only one model tank 300. In the future, with the addition of tank 500, the sales contribution rate of tanks in the Great Wall Automobile system will be further improved.
As a pure electric brand under the Great Wall, Euler's monthly sales are basically stable at more than 10,000 vehicles today, with sales of 16,000 vehicles in November 2021, of which the sales of Euler Good Cats are as high as 8855 vehicles. However, the "core changing door" incident of Euler good cat has a certain negative impact on the Euler brand.
The WEY brand itself is in the stage of alternating between new and old products, and sales are not ideal.
As we all know, the Great Wall relies heavily on SUV products, more than the other two, which is a bit of a "one-legged walking" meaning. To this day, not much has changed.
In the first 11 months of 2021, only Euler Good Cat (61st) and Euler White Cat (96th) entered the top 100 under the Great Wall; in terms of SUVs, Haval H6 is still at the top of the list, and the Haval M6 (25th), Haval Big Dog (30th), Tank 300 (43rd), and Haval First Love (46th) are also in the top 100.
In the same period, WEY's Mocha (102nd, 23700) and Macchido (217th, 2632) were not satisfactory.
Pickup trucks, which are not counted as passenger cars, are still strong, with sales of more than 200,000 units from January to November 2021 (including 39,721 overseas), and the sales of the Great Wall Gun exceeded 10,000 for 17 consecutive months.
After the electrification of the Great Wall has been "accelerated", the sales volume of pure electric products in November 2021 reached 14.6%, surpassing the market. But as far as the whole year is concerned, it is still behind the mainstream, but the growth rate is good, and it is expected to stand above the market in 2022. The prestige of Great Wall's current new energy products, PHEV and EV products is not as good as BYD's similar products, but the speed of Great Wall's products in place is still considerable.
Also on the market at about the same time as the Latte DHT (fuel vehicle) is the Macchiato DHT-PHEV, which is also available at the end of December 2021. Great Wall concentrates its efforts on the WEY brand's PHEV, and the overall transformation of the WEY brand to PHEV is also obvious.
However, since the Great Wall coffee series, product names have begun to collectively "release themselves". Euler Ballet Cat, Punk Cat, Lightning Cat, Tank 500 Black Samurai Limited Edition, Salon Mech Dragon, Great Wall Pickup King Kong Cannon, more is a bit of aesthetic fatigue, unknown so.
In 2021, the Great Wall product name has never looked back on the road of cuteness and animation, which makes people a little worried. Because the target customer is rapidly maturing, is this set still fun?
Among the three, Great Wall's overseas business is the best. Promoting business in Europe, Thailand, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, Russia, and South America, and deploying overseas production capacity in the "Belt and Road", it is very enterprising to deepen overseas markets.
In November 2021, the Great Wall held the "Third Global After-sales Service Festival", which showed that the products were sold to so many countries, but many countries without local production capacity, especially in the place of agency system, the after-sales service is relatively weak.
When the sales accumulation is small, the after-sales outlets are very uneconomical, but at least it should be solved by agreement or agency after-sales, and the way of "sports-style" after-sales festivals is not much helpful. After-sales necessarily requires continuous service, not annually.
BYD's battery business has achieved the second place in China, second only to the Ningde era. Geely's battery business is in the initial layout stage, while the battery business of the Great Wall is not as deep as BYD' foundation, but it is growing by leaps and bounds.
Great Wall's Hive Energy became independent in 2018 and grew rapidly. From January to November 2021, the installed capacity of hive energy was 2.61GWh, accounting for 2% of the market, ranking 6th, of which the installed capacity in November was 0.56GWh, and the market accounted for 2.7%, ranking 5th.
On December 8, 2021, Hive Energy released the "Lead Bee 600" strategy on Battery Day - challenging 600GWh production capacity, 450GWh shipments, and targeting 1/4 of the global share in 2025. The number of customers, production capacity layout, and overseas production capacity planning of Hive Energy are growing rapidly, which is the most proud point of the Great Wall New Energy business in 2021, and the market noise is not even under the Great Wall vehicle business.
Although among the three major private enterprises, Great Wall and Geely are very dependent on the fuel vehicle business, the new energy transformation is very positive, everyone has seen the trend, and BYD has begun to cash in on the layout advantages of many years. They are all classified as traditional car companies.
At present, it is believed that new forces may overwhelm traditional car companies in the future, and a very important reason is to have Internet genes and better user thinking, software experience and technology application awareness. This hints at some stereotypes of traditional car companies.
However, "Auto man" sees that the layout of traditional car companies in new business is no less than that of new forces. And because of the advantages of capital and manufacturing scale, the absolute strength of the layout is actually greater, and the determination to transform has practical actions as evidence.
The gap in software capabilities and scientific and technological awareness can be learned and made up. Just like the learning curve of the new forces in mechanical quality, they can all be improved through investment and time.
The founders' values and thinking profoundly influence the style of the product and only play a role when the business is small. From this point of view, although Tesla is not small, the behavior model is still a startup, because Musk's role is too large. The dilution of the influence of the traces of leaders' behavior on enterprises is inevitable.
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