The past 2021 has been quite a dream for Chinese car brands. On the one hand, due to the insufficient supply of automotive chips and the sharp rise in the price of upstream raw materials, the development of the automotive industry has been tested.
On the other hand, the annual increase of the automobile sector in the domestic A-share market is close to 30%, which has become a fragrant feast in the eyes of investors, and the rise of domestic automobile brands is unstoppable.
Among them, Great Wall Motors exceeded the expected sales volume, exceeding one million sales for 6 consecutive years, officially entering the year of Dangda.
The password that Great Wall Motors has frequently exploded in recent years has also become the direction of the industry's exploration.
01
Breaking through one million for six consecutive years, the explosions are frequent, and Great Wall Motors ushered in the year of the hit
Unlike 2020, which was simply affected by the outbreak of the epidemic, "lack of core" has become the keyword of the automotive industry for most of 2021. Whether it is a traditional big brand or an emerging brand, no car production and no car to sell once turned car sales into a seller's market. Behind the queue to buy a car is a part of the false prosperity created by the serious shortage of production capacity supply.
Compared with the prosperity of the auto sector in the capital market, in 2021, China's overall auto sales are somewhat top-heavy.
On January 12, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released data at the press conference on the development of the automobile industry in 2021 showed that in 2021, mainland automobile sales reached 26.275 million units, an increase of 3.8% year-on-year. However, due to the low base in the first two years, it has only achieved a slight recovery growth to a certain extent, temporarily reversing the three consecutive annual declines in sales.
(Chart source: China Association of Automobile Manufacturers)
For the real industry, not to be dragged by the apparent prosperity, it is necessary to have enough determination and confidence to walk in front of the tide.
On January 6, Great Wall Motor released its production and sales data for December 2021, showing that it sold 162,369 new vehicles, an increase of 8.2% year-on-year and 32.5% month-on-month. For the full year of 2021, Great Wall Motor sold 1,280,993 new vehicles, an increase of 15.2% year-on-year, a new high and exceeding one million sales for six consecutive years.
Great Wall Motors, which has always been a solid image, is difficult to keep a low profile this time, how did the 15.2% growth do it?
According to public information, the Great Wall's Haval brand sold 770,008 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 2.6% year-on-year; the Euler brand sold 135,028 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 140% year-on-year; Weipai sold 58,363 vehicles in 2021, with a cumulative user exceeding 450,000; the tank brand China's off-road vehicle market accounted for more than 50% of the market share, ranking first in The Chinese hardcore off-road vehicle market, of which tank 300 delivered 84,588 vehicles throughout the year Great Wall pickup trucks sold 233,006 units in 2021, up 3.6% year-on-year, and overseas sales of 43,599 units, up 119% year-on-year.
(3rd Generation Haval H6)
The front-end sales are remarkable, and behind it is the precise layout of the product matrix of Great Wall Motors. Now, Great Wall Motor's product matrix building capabilities have become the short-term ceiling of the industry.
At present, Great Wall Motors includes Haval, Great Wall pickup truck, Wei brand, Euler, tank and salon car, the positioning of each brand is also different, Haval is facing the popular SUV market, great wall pickup truck is constantly expanding the boundaries of the pickup truck market, Wei brand to intelligent car experience to explore the height of Chinese car brands, Euler focuses on the female user needs in the field of new energy vehicles, tank to "iron Han tenderness" to create the world's first off-road brand, salon to "mecha technology", to the global luxury market to launch a challenge.
Deep mining of market segments, targeted innovation of personalized needs, and finally achieving full coverage of consumer groups are the fists that Great Wall Motors has carefully accumulated for many years, and now it has achieved remarkable results.
2021 is the explosive year of the growth of the matrix branches of Great Wall Motors, and in just one year, more than 30 replacement and new models such as Haval Red Rabbit, Haval Divine Beast, Wei brand Maqiduo, Wei brand latte, Wei brand mocha, Tank 300 City Edition, Tank 500, Euler Black Cat, Euler White Cat, Euler Good Cat GT and so on have been launched, and the action is eye-catching.
In addition to the fast frequency of product innovation, the frequent explosions have also made Great Wall Motors earn enough eyeballs.
The Haval H6 has become the 2021 SUV sales champion model again after 2020, and the "National God Car" is worthy of the name. Haval big dog, Euler good cat, Euler black cat, Wei brand tank 300 and other models, have become the annual hot products in various fields, whether it is the Internet search discussion heat, or the frequency of store consultation test drive, are in the forefront of the same level.
Whether it is the chassis foundation or the terminal staying power, Great Wall Motors has officially ushered in the year of playing.
02
R&D investment of 100 billion yuan, Great Wall Motors began to accelerate development
The whole system of product layout and high-frequency new product research and development, behind the solid investment increase.
The data shows that in the five years from 2014 to 2018, Great Wall Motors spent more than 13.6 billion yuan on research and development, and invested 5.15 billion yuan in research and development in 2020, compared with 2019, the investment in research and development increased by 21.22% year-on-year. In the first three quarters of 2021 alone, Great Wall Motor's R&D expenses reached 2.856 billion yuan, an increase of 50.7% year-on-year.
Even so, Great Wall Motors still feels that it is far from enough. On June 28, 2021, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, officially released the "2025 Strategy" at the opening ceremony of the "8th Great Wall Motor Science and Technology Festival", announcing that in the next five years, the cumulative R&D investment will reach 100 billion yuan.
If so, in the next few years, the product layout and technological innovation of Great Wall Motors will usher in a blowout, and the lion will be the eye-catching, and the era of Great Wall Motors will come.
In addition, by 2023, Great Wall Motor's global R&D personnel will reach 30,000, including 10,000 software development talents.
And these are all solid foundations for Great Wall Motors to achieve its goals.
Wei Jianjun, who is immersed in car building, put Great Wall Motors at the intersection as he did more than 30 years ago, only this time, Great Wall Motors has a broad enough jumping platform and a clear direction, and also has a grander blueprint.
In the "2025 strategy" of Great Wall Motors, "Great Wall Motors plans to sell 4 million vehicles a year in 2025" was once widely questioned by industry insiders, on the grounds that the overall sales of Great Wall Motors in 2021 was 1.28 million, even if it can maintain the current growth rate of 15.2%, by 2025, sales can only exceed 2 million, compared with the target of 4 million, there is still a double gap. But the view of only looking at the proportions and not looking at the expansion potential of the market is easy to be blinding.
According to the "Energy-saving and New Energy Vehicle Technology Roadmap 2.0", by 2025/2030/2035, the total proportion of hybrid vehicles (including energy-saving vehicles, PHEV and EREV) will reach 42.0%/47.8%/52.5% respectively. Domestic automobile sales in 2021 will be 26.275 million, and by 2025, domestic hybrid vehicle sales will be 11 million. In 2020, the sales of hybrid passenger cars will be less than 420,000 units.
This means that in the four years from 2021 to 2025, the domestic hybrid market will achieve 26 times expansion, and the market space is beyond imagination.
Now, Great Wall Motors has begun to lay out in advance. Joint venture hybrid has formed a high recognition in the domestic market, and in the past two years, the hybrid technology of domestic brands has mushroomed, and the domestic hybrid automobile market pattern is being broken.
Among them, Great Wall Motors has launched lemon hybrid DHT with three years of research and development, breaking through the technical barriers of hybrid technology. Judging from the technical elements of the lemon hybrid DHT of Great Wall Motors, it has been the successor to the top.
Lemon Hybrid DHT is a set of highly integrated oil-electric hybrid system that truly realizes "oil" and "electricity" mixing; it has both HEV and PHEV architectures to meet the individual needs of different consumers on the basis of "hybridization"; it has three different specifications of "1.5L DH + DHT100", "1.5T + DHT130" and "1.5T + DHT130 + P4", which can realize the A/B/C multi-level models, as well as "performance", "performance" and "performance +" Full coverage of product orientation.
In addition, on the basis of the advantages of Japanese hybrid technology and independent brand hybrid technology, Great Wall Motor Lemon Hybrid DHT has made great improvements and enhancements to various pain points of consumers in daily car use scenarios, which is another killer skill of Great Wall Motors different from other brands.
It is understood that in the face of traditional hybrid models of consumers with high-speed cruise fuel consumption, and high-speed climbing or high-speed overtaking power and other pain points.
Lemon hybrid DHT through accurate electronic control means, the use of two engines with a larger efficient working range, in the middle and high speed of more scenarios to achieve the highest overall efficiency of the engine direct drive, with the drive / power generation motor together to form a "three engine / four engine", to achieve a comprehensive improvement in performance and energy efficiency in the high-speed driving state, coupled with the hybrid model in low speed energy saving, power response and other traditional advantages, lemon hybrid DHT finally achieved high efficiency and high performance in the full speed domain, all scenarios. Bring users a more perfect driving experience.
In addition to the maturity and advanced nature of technology, Great Wall Motor's own complete product matrix has also effectively fed back the technical application and future terminal space.
There is no doubt that when the Great Wall Motor Hybrid DHT is popularized in the Haval H6 and other extremely well-sold models, when Great Wall Motors can launch off-road vehicles and pickup trucks such as tank 300, tank 500, and Great Wall Gun based on the DHT system, the domestic automotive industry at that time will be a world of upheaval, and under the impetus of 100 billion research and development investment, this day will not be too far.
03
Globalization, leading the track, Great Wall Motors' goal is the sea of stars
In Wei Jianjun's view, Great Wall Motors should have a higher level.
At the 2025 strategy conference, Wei Jianjun said with a sense of urgency that If Chinese auto brands want to achieve real transcendence, only in these three to five years, rapidly enlarge their advantages, and it is possible to lead the new track of new energy and intelligence. Moreover, the opportunity for Chinese car brands is only once.
To this end, Great Wall Motors has launched four new strategic positioning, namely "global layout", "R&D investment", "enterprise change" and "user operation", to carry out comprehensive and thorough innovation and change, continue to build competitiveness, lead the new track, and promote the transformation of Great Wall Motors into a global intelligent technology company.
In fact, technology and globalization, Great Wall Motors has gone a long way.
In 2021, chips have become a huge problem for the development of China's automotive industry, and what Great Wall Motors wants to do is to start from the "core". Since 2021, Great Wall Motors has invested in Chip Semiconductor Companies such as Beijing Horizon Robot Technology Research and Development Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Horizon"), Beijing Tongguang Semiconductor Co., Ltd., and has also carried out independent research and development work in automotive chips.
In addition to the inward layout of the industrial chain, in terms of the outward "global layout", Great Wall Motors has also become a model for Chinese car companies to go global. In 2021, Great Wall Motor's overseas sales of 142793 vehicles, an increase of 103.7% year-on-year, accounting for 11.1% of sales, has maintained the first domestic and export sales for 24 consecutive years, and the global cumulative sales exceeded 2 million.
In the process of domestic brands going out, Great Wall Motors has completed the first round of difficult "playing the country" stage because of its early layout of overseas markets.
In the past few decades, Great Wall Motors has continued to consolidate its leading position in Russia, Australia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Chile and other markets, and actively explored new markets such as Egypt, Nepal, Brunei, Pakistan and Laos.
In addition, Great Wall Motor has established a global sales network with the acquisition of Daimler's Plant in Brazil, the opening of a German subsidiary in Munich, and the establishment of a European headquarters, forming a market radiation that leverages the surrounding areas with key markets as the fulcrum.
At present, Great Wall Motors has laid out a number of factories in Russia and Thailand, among which the Rayong plant in Thailand, which completed the delivery at the end of 2020, created the "Great Wall Speed" that took 7 months to achieve the first Haval H6 HEV off the production line.
In addition to the layout of the factory, Great Wall Motor has always "adhered to accurate investment and pursued industry leadership", and has set up overseas R&D centers in Germany, Japan, the United States, India, Austria and South Korea, and built a R&D layout with Baoding headquarters as the core, covering Europe, Asia and North America. On this basis, Great Wall Motors has more solid overseas market potential.
The capital market is also favored by Great Wall Motors. In 2021, The stock price of Great Wall Motors rose by 30.26%, and the current market value is more than 410 billion yuan, ranking 2/24 in the market value of the automobile sector. A number of financial institutions have given "buy" and "overweight" ratings, and the future appreciation space is worth looking forward to.
All indications are that Great Wall Motors' new journey has just begun.
(Source: Niu Dao Finance)