A certain Polar Fox Space store Du Ge photographed
Author | Hu Kun
Edit | Wan Jiali
Source | Consulting Finance (teccj6)
Two years ago in January, BAIC BJEV, which has long dominated the throne of China's new energy pure electric vehicles, boasted of Haikou: to build a world-class new energy vehicle company. In 2019, BAIC BJEV sold more than 150,000 vehicles, such as Japan and Zhongtian.
However, in the past two years, BAIC BJEV seems to have lost its way and gradually drifted away.
It is undeniable that BAIC BJEV is very determined, and its new brand Jihu has been moving towards a domestic high-end pure electric new energy brand since its birth. Huawei and magna, a world-renowned auto parts manufacturer, have also become the source of power for Jihu.
However, having powerful allies does not necessarily make you a giant. At the beginning of 2021, Yu Liguo, former president of Jihu Automobile, said in an interview with the media that the delivery target of Jihu Automobile in 2021 is 10,000 units.
This is not a grand goal, after all, the new forces in the head of the current head are targeting more than 10,000 monthly deliveries, and the annual delivery of over 10,000 is really "sincere".
Unfortunately, the small target of 10,000 annual deliveries has not been achieved by The Extreme Fox in 2021. Relevant data show that the delivery volume of the Polar Fox in the whole year last year was 4993 vehicles, far below the target. In 2021, the sales volume of baicchi bJEV as a whole was only 26,100 vehicles, a difference of more than 100,000 vehicles from the peak period.
The goal failed to be achieved, and Yu Liguo also turned around and became the vice president of Xiaomi Automobile after a few months of silence, and was also the first executive from a traditional car company disclosed by Xiaomi Automobile.
Where should the future path of the polar fox go?
Path dependencies
On September 27, 2018, BAIC BJEV was listed on a backdoor listing, and the original listed company was renamed baiqi blue valley (600733. SH）。 This is the first pure electric vehicle company listed on the A-share market in China.
However, on the first day of the resumption of trading, Beiqi Blue Valley closed with a plunge, opening at 14.66 yuan, and the closing price fell by 36.88% to 9.5 yuan.
After having the concept of new energy vehicles, Beiqi Blue Valley once had unlimited scenery. In 2019, Beiqi Blue Valley achieved new energy sales of more than 150,600 vehicles, achieving operating income of 23.589 billion yuan, an increase of 30.39% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 92.0101 million yuan, an increase of 25.54% year-on-year.
However, some data also cast a shadow over Beiqi Blue Valley. In 2019, net profit loss of 874 million yuan after deducting non-recurring gains and losses.
Backdoor listing, the first year to support the face, the second year of performance to change face. This is almost the "convention" of many backdoor-listed companies.
Entering 2020, the performance of Beiqi Blue Valley has changed dramatically.
From the perspective of sales, Beiqi Blue Valley's new energy vehicles achieved sales of 25,914 units in 2020, down 82.79% year-on-year, far from the sales of nearly 160,000 vehicles at the peak.
BAIC BJEV sales statistics
The sharp decline in sales is also really reflected in revenue and net profit. In 2020, the revenue of Beiqi Blue Valley plummeted from more than 20 billion yuan to 5.27 billion yuan, and the decline in revenue also ushered in an unprecedented major loss. In 2020, Beiqi Blue Valley achieved a net profit loss of 6.482 billion yuan.
However, the top management of Beiqi Blue Valley is still very confident. Liu Yu, chairman of the company, said, "We have lost seven consecutive championships, but we have only lost the crown, and the ability we have accumulated in the past 11 years has not been lost." Today is the low, but also the turning point. ”
This statement is also true, and it is indeed a turning point.
Founded in 2009, BAIC BJEV has been exploring the road of new energy vehicles. However, their path to a breakthrough is too dependent on the online ride-hailing car that has risen over the years. A large part of the sales of its own brands is achieved by relying on the B-end sales of online ride-hailing, which has led to a serious shortage of BAIC BJEV in C-end brand building, which has also brought adverse effects to the brand building of Jihu later.
Beiqi Blue Valley also admitted that since 2019, with the sharp decline of the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles, the upgrade of fuel vehicle emission standards has led to a sharp reduction in the price of existing vehicles, which has led to a sharp decline in the sales of the company's new energy best-selling models, falling into a dilemma that the price cannot be increased and the cost cannot be offset, resulting in the weakening of the competitiveness of the largest mid-range model new energy vehicles and fuel vehicles in the passenger car market. At the same time, the sudden and unprecedented epidemic has led to economic and social delays, which has forced the company's advantageous online car-hailing, taxi and other public sales business to stagnate.
Of course, subsidies are only a catalyst, and the root cause behind it is a series of problems brought about by Beiqi Blue Valley's over-reliance on the B-end volume business model.
In the early stage of the development of the new energy vehicle market, due to the lack of infrastructure and consumption habits, under the strong promotion of the government, the B-end market started rapidly and naturally became the main sales force.
However, the ceiling of the B-end market of new energy vehicles is small after all, and after several years of development, the market is close to saturation, and the proportion of B-end and C-end is rapidly changing. According to the data jointly released by the Intelligent Electric Vehicle Special Committee of the China Electronic Chamber of Commerce and the New Energy Vehicle Committee of the Automobile Dealers Chamber of Commerce of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce, since the second quarter of last year, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in the mainland has accounted for more than 80%. In 2019, the B-end market accounted for 70% of passenger car sales.
In this context, car companies that have relied too much on B-end sales in the past and ignored C-end brand building seem to be more like fate in the past two years. BAIC, which once earned "full pots and pans" on the B-end, has also suffered from failing to make a breakthrough in C-end products in the past two years.
When he was helpless to wake up, the light boat had already passed through the Ten Thousand Heavy Mountains. Entering 2021, Beiqi Blue Valley has still failed to reverse the decline, and its annual sales of new energy vehicles are only 26,127. The loss situation of Beiqi Blue Valley continued, and the loss in the first three quarters of 2021 still did not end the loss, and the net profit after deduction of non-attributable to the mother was -2.949 billion yuan.
Try to break through
What should be the way forward?
Beiqi Blue Valley has lowered its chips to the layout of high-end products. The Jihu brand that BAIC BJEV focuses on building has become a top priority.
For BAIC, Polar Fox can be said to be the last bottom card in the field of new energy C-end, which is of great significance.
BAIC Blue Valley and its subsidiary BAIC BJEV do take the brand building of Jihu very seriously, and use the combination of Magna + Huawei to endorse the brand building of Jihu.
In the field of automobile manufacturing, the level of Magna, the world's third largest parts supplier, naturally does not need to be mentioned, Mercedes-Benz G-Class, the new BMW 5 Series, Jaguar E-PACE, i-PACE and many other international first-line high-end brand high-end models are from Magna's vehicle manufacturing plant.
In a show on "Understanding the Car Test Ground", the Alpha S of the Polar Fox, which was manufactured by Magna, performed well in the crash test. Under the 50% overlap collision test at 65 km/h, the Alpha S crew compartment was only slightly deformed, the doors could be easily opened after the collision, and the battery did not fail.
At the same time, Huawei's services in car software do not need to be said. It is reported that the upcoming HI version of Alpha S will reach 400TOPs computing power, of which the standard version can achieve highway automatic driving, and the top version of 429,900 yuan with Huawei HI high-end version can achieve high-level automatic driving and valet parking capabilities in urban areas.
However, even with the blessing of Magna in hardware and Huawei in software, The sales of Jihu are still far lower than the performance of similar cars.
The latest sales volume shows that the delivery volume of the Polar Fox in 2021 is 4993 units. What is the level of this number? If compared with the new forces of head car manufacturing, the delivery volume of WEILAI ES6 in December last year was 4939 vehicles, the delivery volume of Xiaopeng P7 in the month was 7459 vehicles, the ideal ONE was 14087 vehicles, and the delivery volume of Jihu throughout the year was lower than the delivery volume of any one of "Wei Xiaoli" in 1 month.
Of course, if there is no comparison with the new car-making forces at the head, then compared with the newly established car companies at the same level, the sales volume of The Extreme Fox is still in the ascendant.
According to the statistics of Zheng tanjun, even compared with Dongfeng Motor's Lantu and Geely Automobile's Extreme Kr, which only began to be delivered in August and October last year, the sales volume of Jihu delivered throughout the year was obviously "insufficient staying power".
Polar Fox / Lan Tu / Extreme Kr 2021 deliveries
As can be seen from the table, Lantu and Extreme Kr have surpassed the monthly delivery volume of Pole Fox in just a few months after the start of market delivery. As we all know, the fourth quarter is the peak season of automobile sales in the middle of the year, and the monthly delivery volume of Lantu in the fourth quarter of last year was 1006, 1139 and 3330, the extreme krypton was 100, 2012 and 3796, and the polar fox was 550, 672 and 1186 respectively, and the growth rate was significantly weaker than the first two. In December last year, the monthly deliveries of Lantu and Extreme Kr both exceeded 3,000 vehicles, while the monthly deliveries of Jihu were only about one-third of that of Lantu and Extreme Krypton, which were helplessly overtaken by latecomers.
The biggest reason behind this is probably the lack of C-end brand recognition mentioned earlier. Since the requirements of online ride-hailing for scientific and technological intelligence are not high, the BAIC BJEV brand has always given people a "low" experience. At the same time, due to the lack of quality control of BAIC BJEV in the past, the frequent occurrence of quality problems, coupled with the amplification of unfavorable factors on social media, baic bjev's reputation is naturally not going up. This has caused a lot of trouble for the polar fox who is trying to build a brand. The change at the top also makes people question the future of the extreme fox.
Once kings, they did not fall gracefully. The road up for the Polar Fox brand is obstructive and long.
Huawei concept
Can Huawei be the savior of the Polar Fox?
Having the concept of Huawei is not only a mysterious force for some car companies to rise, but also a magic weapon for speculating on stock prices. Beiqi Blue Valley, which hitched a ride on Huawei's chariot, naturally also rose violently from time to time under the Huawei concept.
Putting aside the illusion of a stock market surge, Polar Fox has indeed benefited from Huawei technology.
Autonomous driving technology is a hot concept of new energy vehicles in recent years.
Generally speaking, the high-end brands of traditional car companies tend to adopt a progressive layout from advanced assisted driving to L3+ automatic driving in the direction of intelligent driving, including most new car-making forces that start layout according to this path.
Companies represented by technology giants such as Baidu and Google have chosen the development path of directly developing L4/L5 level autonomous driving.
BAIC BJEV has also formulated technical plans for intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, and intelligent networking, and has cooperated with Huawei to develop and coordinate the development and transformation of products such as on-board high-precision sensors, vehicle-grade chips, intelligent operating systems, on-board intelligent terminals, and intelligent computing platforms.
Polar Fox, which has been blessed by Huawei's technology, has naturally been shaped into one of the big selling points.
However, the cost of this selling point is a bit large.
It is reported that the HI version of the Polar Fox Alpha S, which was originally scheduled to start small-batch delivery on December 25 last year, was changed to hold an internal delivery activity at the Beiqi Blue Valley Magna intelligent manufacturing production base on December 20. For a time, the news that the HI version of the Polar Fox Alpha S could not be delivered was frequently exposed.
According to the staff of Beiqi Blue Valley, the HI version of the Polar Fox Alpha S has been assembled, but due to insufficient supply of Huawei's vehicle and machine system (Hongmeng intelligent cockpit system), it cannot be delivered on time.
This situation seems to confirm a sentence said by Beiqi Blue Valley employees in an interview with external media before: "Huawei is a strong supplier, and they do not let us participate too deeply in the software technology level." ”
This is not just the price of the extreme fox "selling out its soul". Xiaokang, which also cooperates with Huawei, has encountered similar problems.
Just a few months after the release of the Xilix SF5, which Huawei cooperated with Xiaokang, Huawei broke away from the Xilis system of Xiaokang and launched a new brand - AITO. At present, in Huawei's physical stores and online sales channels, M5 has completely replaced Cyrus SF5, and in Huawei's physical stores and online can not buy Cyrus SF5, had to go to the well-off channel to buy, enough to see Huawei's strength. In other words, Huawei doesn't want to see the Cyrus SF5, it needs a brand that is more in line with its own tastes.
It's just that one is willing to fight and one is willing to be beaten. Relying on Huawei's blessing, Polar Fox must also give up in many aspects.
However, in order to gain a foothold in the field of new energy vehicles and become a real high-end brand, Jihu has come to a critical moment: looking for the soul.
People without souls will be like kites that have lost their threads. With the blessing of Huawei's technology and concepts, Polar Fox needs to form its own core product strength and brand image. Otherwise, how can Beiqi Blue Valley, which supports the development of new energy vehicles with billions of losses every year, be worthy of the sad shareholders?
At the end of 2021, an investor who was cut leeks asked Beiqi Blue Valley: If the company continues to lose money in 2021, will it be subject to risk warning ST treatment? Beiqi Blue Valley's answer is also very sincere, and the loss for two consecutive years is not a measure for listed companies to be implemented as a risk warning. Obviously, continuous losses are also difficult to delist Beiqi Blue Valley.
Beiqi Blue Valley raised more than RMB1 billion and RMB5.5 billion in January 2019 and May 2021 through fixed increases, respectively. Among them, in may 2021, the fixed increase can be called a luxurious super team boost. Well-known companies and institutions such as CATL, Ping An Assets, and UBS have enthusiastically subscribed.
These companies are undoubtedly also based on optimism about the future development of Beiqi Blue Valley. Beiqi Blue Valley also vowed in the issuance report: With the completion and operation of the fundraising projects, the company will further enhance the scale of the existing new energy vehicle business, enhance and consolidate the company's market position in new energy vehicles, which is conducive to achieving the long-term sustainable development of the company and safeguarding the long-term interests of shareholders.
However, investors need to see that Beiqi Blue Valley is really performing. Waiting too long will eventually make investors lose patience.
In order to realize the dream of a world-class new energy vehicle company, BAIC BJEV and Jihu need to calm down and think about it.
Can Yu Liguo's baton takers find a breakthrough?
END