Wen\Wei WuXian
Although BAIC BJEV was not late in launching in China, its sales performance has been unsatisfactory. According to the recent announcement released by BAIC Blue Valley, a company listed by BAIC New Energy, it expects net profit in 2021 to be -4.8 billion yuan to -5.3 billion yuan. This is also another decline in performance after a huge loss of 6.48 billion yuan in 2020. If the performance in 2022 still cannot be warmed, then Beiqi Blue Valley may face a delisting warning.
The leak in the house coincided with overnight rain, and recently there was news that Xu Feng, former assistant director of the marketing communication department of BAIC BJEV, had been sentenced after being investigated for suspected corruption. According to the "Criminal Judgment of the First Instance of Xu Mou Accepting Bribes" published by the Beijing Court Trial Information Network, Xu Feng of BAIC BJEV Marketing Company, as a state functionary, took advantage of his position to seek benefits for others, colluded with his wife Li Mou to illegally accept property from others, and also colluded with others to give property to state workers, and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment in the first instance for constituting the crime of accepting bribes and paying bribes, and the money in the case was confiscated and fined 300,000 yuan. In addition, Cao Bin, then director of the company's marketing communication department, was also dealt with in a separate case.
Image source: Beijing Court Trial Information Network
After the corruption-related incident was exposed, it not only aroused widespread concern in the industry, but also pulled BAIC BJEV into the spotlight of the media again.
In 2018, Beiqi Blue Valley achieved a backdoor listing, and at the same time, wearing the aura of "China's first new energy vehicle stock", its sales can also occupy the top ten positions in the global new energy vehicle sales. However, with the advent of the new four modernizations of automobiles, BAIC BJEV not only failed to go further, but its performance fell sharply, contrary to the upward trend of new energy.
According to the production and sales express report of Baiqi Blue Valley, the cumulative output of BAIC BJEV in 2021 was only 6,369 units, a sharp drop of 51.84% over the previous year, and the cumulative sales volume of the whole year was 26,127 units, a slight increase of 0.82% year-on-year, which was not as good as the sales volume of BYD and other independent car companies in one month.
In fact, in 2019, BAIC BJEV can also maintain sales above 150,000 vehicles, and today, when the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is rapidly increasing, its annual sales will not rise to 30,000 vehicles, which not only surprises people in the industry, but also makes BAIC BJEV's reputation and performance decline sharply, and has caused investor dissatisfaction.
One of the most noteworthy is the ARCFOX Jihu brand built by BAIC BJEV, which only achieved sales of 4993 vehicles in 2021, which is not only far from the annual sales target of 12,000 vehicles set at the beginning of the year, but also has become a major constraint on the decline in BAIC BJEV's performance.
The Jihu brand claims to have blessed magna, Huawei and other world's top resources, not only undertaking the heavy responsibility of BAIC BJEV's product transformation to high-end, but also its life-saving straw. However, even though there are many giants to bless, whether it is sales or word of mouth, BEIQI Polar Fox has not seen much improvement, and even reduced to "unsupportable Adou".
Image source: Polar Fox Cars
The dismal sales volume has caused many questions, and some investors have questioned why there is no publicity as the current Jihu Alpha S HI version exhibition car that has attracted much attention as early as January 26 this year in Beijing Yintai in01 Huawei store. Where are the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on advertising and operating expenses every year? Some netizens also bluntly said, "In addition to the public account posting, boasting in an interview, where is the actual action?" Similar doubts are not uncommon on platforms such as stock bars.
However, despite the dismal sales, Zhang Xiyong, general manager of BAIC Group, seems to be quite optimistic about the prospects of BAIC BJEV, and he publicly proposed the goal of "100,000 BAIC BJEV vehicles in 2022, including 40,000 Jihu vehicles, and strive to impact 300,000 vehicles in the future", but according to the current sales volume of BAIC BJEV, it is very difficult to achieve this goal.
Write at the end:
The difficulties faced by BAIC BJEV are more prominent because of the judgment of internal personnel involved in corruption, lackluster sales, and performance losses of more than 10 billion yuan in two years. At present, the new energy vehicle market is in the process of incremental development, how to sort out the internal relationship and seize the favorable opportunity to boost sales will become the first problem facing BAIC BJEV this year.
(This article is originally produced by the editorial department of [Auto Industry] New Media, the author of this article is Wei Wuxian, and the reprint should indicate the source)