Just past the Spring Festival, Jingdong had a "protagonist" addiction at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and Liu Qiangdong was also on the hot search because of his donation of nearly 15 billion screens.
On the other hand, Li Bin, who is the same age as Liu Qiangdong, needs to face more and more questions about Weilai's fall, and also ushers in the fourth life year, but the situation of the two is like ice and fire.
On the first day of the Chinese New Year, the new car-making forces are still conscientiously announcing their "monthly examination" report card - monthly delivery, weilai, which has repeatedly fallen behind last year, was once again squeezed out of the top three positions, and failed to usher in its own opening.
Xiaopeng, Ideal and Nezha Automobile all delivered more than 10,000 units in January, while Weilai hovered unobtrusively below the "passing line" at 9,652 units.
At the end of last year, Li Bin was called the most "floating" person in 2021 by the media for saying "I don't understand why people still buy fuel vehicles", and looking further ahead, when Weilai was in crisis in 2019, Li Bin was once labeled as the "most miserable in 2019".
Now that Weilai, which has experienced the loss of delivery, the cultural reaction of the rice circle and the limited production capacity, has lacked some continuous motivation to compete with similar players.
Just over a month after the New Year, Li Bin has already booked the title of "the worst in 2022"?
NIO's 2021 is hard
At the end of 2019, an article titled "Weilai Li Bin, the most miserable person in 2019" brushed up the circle of friends of people in the automotive industry, reviewing Li Bin's entrepreneurial history in the field of Internet and travel, analyzing the background and advantages and disadvantages of Weilai's birth, and also pointing out the crisis faced by Weilai.
At that time, Weilai was deeply involved in the dilemma of stock price plunge after huge losses, financing obstacles, executive departures, and word of mouth collapse, and was even on the verge of delisting.
Although some of the content of the article expresses support for Weilai, it is not the whole process of decline, but the "worst in 2019" has still become Li Bin's label for a long time.
The next year, after obtaining financing, Weilai gradually stepped out of the ICU, the delivery volume was ahead of other new car-making forces for many consecutive months, and was regarded by people inside and outside the industry as the "big brother" of the new force car companies, and the average selling price of 430,000 yuan and the operating model of the user enterprise also allowed Weilai to gain a group of loyal and purchasing power car owners.
According to the normal plot trend, it is not impossible for Weilai to maintain the leader position.
Life is uncertain, and so is the race-ahead. In August last year, the infighting among car owners after an autonomous driving accident exposed the deformed side of Weilai's fan culture, and the strategy of user companies was equated with "pyramid schemes" and "brainwashing" overnight, and the reputation was seriously damaged.
Coincidentally, it was in this month that Weilai's delivery volume was squeezed out of the top three for the first time, and in the following months, it was basically left behind by Xiaopeng and Ideal, and Nezha Automobile, which was originally in the second echelon, also surpassed Weilai three times.
Delivery is the final result of mass production + sales, and the decline in this number is inseparable from the impact of word-of-mouth collapse on sales and the impact of capacity constraints on production.
In the past two years, the dark cloud of chip shortage has been hanging over the entire automotive industry, and many car companies have had to reduce production or even stop production, on the other hand, this has also tested the ability of new car companies to control the supply chain.
In this test, Weilai obviously did not achieve excellent results. In October last year, due to the upgrading of the production line, WEILAI delivered less than half of Xiaopeng and Ideal, although it was announced that the foundry Jianghuai had expanded its annual production capacity to more than 200,000 vehicles, but according to media reports, due to the shortage of chips and other components and raw materials, its real production capacity has long been greatly reduced.
From a more intuitive sales data, the data shows that Weilai, which was originally ahead of Xiaopeng, was surpassed in November last year, and the gap was pulled to more than 4,000 vehicles.
In addition, the information released by the financial report also implies that Weilai lacks the motivation to move forward. In the third quarter of last year, WEILAI's net loss more than tripled from the previous quarter to 2.86 billion yuan, far higher than the market expectation level, and the gross profit margin of the whole vehicle also fell significantly, which was getting farther and farther away from Li Bin's target of 25%.
The capital market also poured cold water on Weilai. Since the beginning of last year, the stock price of NIO's US stocks has fallen by more than 50%, much higher than the single-digit decline of Xiaopeng and Ideal. And after Xiaopeng and Ideal returned to Hong Kong for the second listing, Weilai's secondary listing plan failed to advance smoothly due to issues such as user trust shareholding, and the search for "blood transfusion" was blocked.
Word of mouth collapsed, losses widened, stock prices plummeted, deliveries fell behind, this plot is not somewhat familiar, yes, it is very similar to 2019.
Weilai is a bit "stubborn"
In addition to the problems of production capacity and word of mouth mentioned above, Weilai also has an internal cause that can be called "hidden dangers" - high-end positioning.
Before founding WEILAI, Li Bin was already an "old cannon" of continuous entrepreneurship, and he knew the importance of clear brand positioning, so Weilai's goal has always been very clear - to insist on manufacturing high-end intelligent electric vehicles and benchmarking BBA.
Li Bin believes that doing high-end smart cars can be far away from the most competitive low-end market. Not only that, Li Bin also promised not to reduce prices resolutely, because price reductions will harm the interests of existing car owners. Therefore, the benchmark version of NIO's first car, the ES8, is priced at 448,000 yuan.
In the short term, such a strategy has indeed attracted a group of high-quality, high-spending power users, and through the establishment of user communities, regular activities have also made its user-first operating philosophy deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. When Weilai was in trouble, many car owners paid for it out of their own pockets to advertise for it, or directly became non-editorial sales staff, and strongly recommended the purchase of Weilai to people around them to help increase sales.
In the long run, focusing on a single high-end market also means that it will be separated from the mass market with more consumer groups, and it is difficult to ensure stable sales growth.
Here we have to mention the Tesla that used the 734,000 yuan Model S to enter the Chinese market, when Tesla and Weilai were the same, they chose high-end positioning, and the first batch of owners of the former were well-known entrepreneurs similar to Yu Yongfu and Li Xiang.
However, only adhering to the high-end can not improve the market penetration rate, and it cannot support the company's revenue level, which is undoubtedly fatal to a new force car company that needs to continue to invest heavily in research and development and marketing.
Therefore, after establishing a brand image, Tesla adjusted its playing style, successively launched models with more affordable prices, and repeatedly reduced prices after localization, which is regarded as the industry's "catfish". In fact, the workmanship and materials of Tesla's main sales models are not "high-end luxury", but it is undeniable that the strategy from high-end to low-end has successfully made consumers have a high tolerance for it.
"Volume is king" was finally confirmed in Tesla's financial report data, and after the sales volume was opened, Tesla's net profit repeatedly reached a new high, reaching $5.5 billion last year, an increase of more than 650% year-on-year.
With such a precedent as a reference, Weilai still adheres to the route set by Li Bin in the early days, and is regarded by people inside and outside the industry as its new car ET5 vehicle starting price "stubbornly" set above 300,000 yuan, which is 328,000 yuan.
Based on the pricing of ET5, it can be judged that Weilai has some entanglements in its heart. On the one hand, I want to insist on the high-end without forgetting the original intention, on the other hand, I also want to create a "blockbuster" by reducing the price to increase sales and revenue, and break into the mass market, and both sides do not want to let go.
According to media reports, when asked why the price of ET5 is not set in the Tesla Model 3 range, Li Bin's response is that it is not impossible to drop below 250,000, and its premise is "if you don't engage in so many user rights." In other words, the premium of WEILAI vehicles is more based on user services, not on the design, technology or performance of the vehicle itself.
Such a strategy is reasonable, but it is also easy to lose users who pay more attention to product quality and cost performance.
Judging from the weak delivery volume at this stage, ET5 seems to be the key bet for Weilai to return to the peak moment, but this car can only be delivered in September this year, the real effect may not be revealed until the end of the year or even the beginning of next year, and the ET7 that will be delivered first is not very loud, that is to say, during this time, Weilai may always face the question of "falling behind".
epilogue
Behind the Liu Qiangdong, Lei Jun, Li Xiang and many other Internet bigwigs stand, it is not too much to say that Weilai was born with a "golden spoon", coupled with Li Bin's successful entrepreneurship many times before, Weilai's genes naturally have a bit of stubbornness and high profile.
But when more and more powerful competitors appear and their results are not as good as before, WEILai may need to change its thinking and attitude.
In the middle of last year, there were multiple media reports that Weilai will launch an independent low-end brand, and the vehicle price is expected to be between 150,000 and 250,000 yuan, but there has been no public progress so far, and if it can launch a sub-brand after that, it may bring some possibilities to Weilai.
In the darkest moment of 2019, Weilai survived, ushering in a downward start in the more competitive 2022, and Weilai needs to play a beautiful turnaround battle in the voice of doubt.
Produced by ZAKER News
Text / Bao Xingwa
Editor / Zeng Xiantian