After experiencing the capital winter of the industry in 2020, Xiaopeng Automobile finally ushered in a highlight moment in 2021 - the annual delivery volume of 98,155 vehicles, an increase of 275%, ranking first among the new domestic car-making forces. Just a year ago, its sales were still at the bottom of the three new forces of "Wei Xiaoli".
In the face of hard-won achievements, He Xiaopeng, founder and chairman of Xiaopeng Automobile, was excited, in addition to thanking all the "Peng friends", partners and employee families who supported and accompanied him, he also vowed that there is nothing we can do, only to continue to work hard, be down-to-earth, and move forward firmly with every explorer who has a dream and dares to break through.
From the establishment of the company to the top of the sales list of new car-making forces, Xiaopeng Automobile took 7 years. In the course of these 7 years of growth, Xiaopeng Automobile has not only witnessed the bankruptcy of car companies such as Sailin and Byton, but also ushered in the strong entry of new giants such as Xiaomi and Baidu. As a "veteran" new car-making force, even though it has gained a firm foothold in the domestic market, Xiaopeng still has a long way ahead.
01, grab those young friends
On December 31, 2021, the day before Xiaopeng Motors announced its annual sales for that year, 27-year-old Wang Ming finally waited for his Xiaopeng P7. From order to delivery, he waited for more than two months.
As a young enthusiast of science and technology products, Wang Ming attaches great importance to the intelligent technology and interactive functions of automobiles. After comparing the Xiaopeng P7, Tesla Model 3 and other models, he ordered a Xiaopeng P7 (670E version) in October. "I didn't have any plans to buy a new energy car before, but after trying the P7 at the Xiaopeng Experience Center, I thought it was not bad."
Xiaopeng Automobile's achievements in 2021 are inseparable from many young consumers like Wang Ming. A relevant person in charge of Xiaopeng Automobile revealed to the city that as of October 2021, among the 96,000 Xiaopeng car owners, young and middle-aged car owners aged 18-39 accounted for 68.81%.
Young car owners have become the main force of the "Pengyou Circle". However, Xiaopeng Automobile is not the only choice for young people to buy cars at present.
According to a research report by Guosheng Securities, compared with other new car-making brands, although the user portraits of Xiaopeng Motors are younger, more social and try new things, its post-90s users account for up to 43%, accounting for the highest proportion of new forces and Tesla owners, but in the owner group of Weilai Automobile and ideal car, the post-90s account for more than 30%.
Not only that, in 2021, the annual sales of Weilai Automobile and Ideal Automobile also reached 91429 and 90491 vehicles respectively, and the gap between sales and Xiaopeng Automobile was only a few thousand. The "status" of Xiaopeng Motors is actually not solid.
Some people believe that the entry of young consumers and the transformation of automobile functions are important reasons for the increase in sales of new car-making forces. According to a report released in March 2021 by J.D. Power, an international market research institute, the post-95 generation has become an important purchasing power for global automotive products. Among the potential auto consumer groups after 95 in China, more than 60% and nearly 25% of people tend to buy independent brands and new energy vehicles.
In this context, superimposed on the advantages of the cost of new energy vehicles, the sales of products such as Xiaopeng P7, which are "smart" and "sports" as the selling points, naturally rise.
Li Pengcheng, vice president of Xiaopeng Automobile, told the city that consumers attach great importance to Xiaopeng Automobile's "easy-to-use intelligent functions". Whether it is a smart cockpit or an intelligent navigation assist function, it has enough appeal for the "Z generation" that has grown up with the Internet.
When He Xiaopeng released his first car, the G3 in 2018, he excitedly said that it was "safe enough, high quality, really beautiful, very smart, not too expensive, and the first smart car for young people."
In the view of Ji Xuehong, director of the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, the founders of independent brands such as Xiaopeng Automobile are mostly from the Internet industry, and the car companies they founded can better integrate with the Internet environment. Whether it is a variety of smart technologies or new media marketing, it is easy to attract young consumers and establish a closer connection with the latter. This is a major change in the industry for emerging independent brands.
02, the seventh year of climbing mountains and mountains
As an emerging independent car brand, Xiaopeng Automobile has a strong Internet gene. Its chairman and CEO He Xiaopeng was the co-founder of UC UVIS before the establishment of Xiaopeng Motors, and served as the president of Alibaba's mobile business group. Among the core shareholders of Xiaopeng Automobile, there are many important investors in the field of Internet technology such as Alibaba, Shunwei Capital, and Hillhouse.
(Pengyimen version of Xiaopeng P7, filmed by the city boundary)
In the context of such a team, the design style and functional positioning of Xiaopeng's automotive products are quite similar to those of Internet intelligent terminals. The industry is also accustomed to regarding Xiaopeng Automobile as a representative car company of the Internet enterprise car manufacturing model.
Another similarity with Internet companies is the growth rate of Xiaopeng Motors.
In the fourth year of its establishment, Xiaopeng's first model, the Xiaopeng SUV G3, was mass-produced and listed; then, in 2020 and 2021, Xiaopeng P7 and P5 sedans were sold successively. Compared with the ideal current only one SUV model Ideal ONE, Weilai Automobile ET7, ET5 two cars have not yet been delivered, Xiaopeng completed the layout of SUVs and sedan models significantly faster.
With the launch of Xiaopeng's new model P5, Xiaopeng Automobile has also become the first and only new car manufacturer with monthly sales of more than 15,000 vehicles in December 2021. Among them, the Xiaopeng P7 sold 7459 vehicles and the G3 sales of 3511 vehicles in the month, and the sales of the Xiaopeng P5 listed in the second half of the year have exceeded 5000 vehicles.
Not only that, Xiaopeng Motors is also accelerating the expansion of its production capacity.
In July 2021, Xiaopeng announced that its Wuhan factory project was officially launched in the Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone, with a planned production capacity of 100,000 vehicles, and an annual output value of more than 30 billion yuan after reaching production. Its new plant in Guangzhou is also expected to be put into operation this year.
He Xiaopeng optimistically expects that after the Wuhan plant is put into operation, the design capacity of Xiaopeng Automobile's three plants in Zhaoqing, Guangzhou and Wuhan will reach a total of 300,000 units, and if moderately modified and increased shifts, the peak production capacity of nearly 500,000 vehicles can be achieved.
In addition to the rapid growth of products, sales and production capacity, the speed of Xiaopeng Automobile's "taking money" in the capital market is also amazing.
Prior to landing on the New York Stock Exchange on August 28, 2020, Xiaopeng Motors completed 10 financings in more than five years, with a total financing of nearly 18 billion yuan. After the U.S. IPO, Xiaopeng Automobile received nearly 14 billion yuan in financing from the open market and investors.
However, the 6-year financing of more than 30 billion yuan did not meet Xiaopeng's ambitions. In July 2021, Xiaopeng Motors was listed for the second time through the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising more than 10 billion yuan.
The speed of Xiaopeng Automobile's financing is not difficult for the industry to understand - although Xiaopeng Automobile's sales and revenue have increased significantly. However, as of the third quarter of 2021, it is still in a state of loss, and the loss is still increasing.
According to Xiaopeng Automobile's financial report for the third quarter of 2021, its revenue for the quarter was 5.72 billion yuan, up 187.7% from the same period in 2020. However, Xiaopeng's net loss in the same period was 1.59 billion yuan, compared with a net loss of 1.15 billion yuan in the same period of 2020, and the net loss also increased by 38.4%.
In a public occasion, Li Bin, the head of Weilai Automobile, once expressed the view that "20 billion yuan is the threshold for building a car, and you don't want to come in without 20 billion yuan of funds." Many people believe that Li Bin's remarks are bluffing people, trying to suppress the pursuing soldiers behind them thousands of miles away. But He Xiaopeng does not see it this way, as a "person in the bureau", in this regard, he and Li Bin can be described as sympathetic - it is obvious that like other "new car-making forces", Xiaopeng Automobile is still struggling on the hillside of "burning money" for growth.
03, he does not believe that it is within reach
As the saying goes: All people like you until you become their competitor. Although it won the annual "new car-making force" sales championship, what reflected in front of Xiaopeng was the highlight, and it was mu XiuYulin's crisis.
The first thing to bear the brunt of this is that we have to face the encirclement and blockade of a number of "new car-making forces".
In the third quarter of 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile ranked behind Weilai Automobile and Ideal Automobile with a revenue of 5.72 billion yuan; in terms of losses, it ranked ahead of the other two with a data of 1.559 billion yuan. Not only that, the gross profit margin of Xiaopeng Automobile in the current quarter also ranked at the bottom of the three, and it is the only company in the three that is still increasing its losses.
Although "Wei Xiaoli" has not yet reached the critical point of profitability and is still in a state of loss, the losses of Weilai Automobile and Ideal Automobile continue to shrink. In the third quarter of last year, Xiaopeng Automobile lost about 61,000 yuan for every car sold.
Xiaopeng Automobile's loss increased significantly, mainly related to the increase in research and development costs. According to the financial report data, the research and development cost of NIO in the third quarter of 2021 was 1.193 billion yuan, the ideal car was 889 million yuan, and Xiaopeng Automobile was as high as 1.264 billion yuan. In response, Xiaopeng Motors said that it was due to increased expenditures related to the development of new models G9 and P5 and software technology development related to future growth.
In order to advance and break through, all the new car-making forces have bet heavily on future technology, and Xiaopeng, who is running in the first place, naturally cannot slacken off.
"This also objectively increases the cost pressure of Xiaopeng." An industry researcher at Beijing Fanjin Cai Data Company believes that although Xiaopeng currently has the highest sales volume, it is difficult to surpass the other two in terms of profitability because the average price of major models such as Xiaopeng G3 and Xiaopeng P7 is much lower than that of Weilai Automobile and Ideal Automobile. Therefore, Xiaopeng's flagship SUV G9, which is to be listed, has become a hope to raise its average selling price.
In addition to the enemy and friend of Weilai and the ideal, Xiaopeng Automobile is also facing the competition of the previous second-tier new power brand Nezha Automobile, as well as the traditional car company Geely's Extreme Kr and Dongfeng Motor's Lantu; not only that, Baidu, Xiaomi, Huawei and other technology companies have also been involved in the field of car manufacturing, the domestic intelligent electric vehicle market has changed from "Spring and Autumn Five" to "the crowd of deer", the protagonist is no longer just "Wei Xiaoli" and Tesla.
However, for now, Xiaopeng Automobile still has advantages in intelligent driving technology, product strength and production capacity. The continuous increase in monthly sales in 2021 is proof of this.
According to the analysis of the above-mentioned industry researchers of Beijing PanjinjinCai Data Company, at present, the "new forces of car manufacturing" have been at the forefront of the development of automatic driving systems, and Xiaopeng's high-speed navigation assisted driving has initially achieved catch-up with Tesla. As one of the full-stack self-developed car companies, Xiaopeng Automobile is leading in localization research and development and closed-loop data, and is expected to gradually open up the gap with other car companies and take the lead in entering the era of advanced intelligent vehicles with the current layout and progress of the company.
Guosheng Securities said in a research report on January 24 that Xiaopeng's intelligent exploration is expected to bring more technology and commercial value to the company, and gave Xiaopeng Automobile-W (09868) a "buy" rating with a target price of HK$259. It is estimated that from 2022 to 2025, Xiaopeng Automobile will sell about 19/29/39/550,000 units, and the total revenue in 2021-25 will reach 211/399/641/935/1218 billion yuan.
This Spring Festival in 2022, He Xiaopeng and his team may briefly enjoy the joy of "applause ringing", "but a new journey has begun." An industry insider familiar with He Xiaopeng told the city, "He is a super pragmatic person and has never been superstitious about what is at his fingertips."
(Wang Ming is a pseudonym in the text)
(Author |.) Wu Kai, Editor 丨Chu Xing)
(Except for the separately marked source, the above picture is from Visual China)