Text | Travel by wire, author | Zhou Xiongfei, Editor | midnight
Shortly after the Start of the Spring Festival in the Year of the Tiger, Skyworth Automobile put forward its New Year's plan.
According to its introduction, in 2022, it will achieve the goal of total sales of 30,000 vehicles at home and abroad and a cumulative sales of more than 4.5 billion. At the same time, Skyworth Automobile also proposed a plan for the delivery of new models.
Compared with the new domestic car-making forces such as "Wei Xiaoli", the brand of Skyworth Automobile was officially established in April last year, although it seems to have entered the market late, but for Huang Hongsheng, the founder of Skyworth, his "car-making dream" has already begun.
Huang Hongsheng, the founder of Skyworth, announced the establishment of Skyworth Automobile, and the source of Skyworth Automobile was officially micro
As early as 2011, Huang Hongsheng founded Kaiwo New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Kaiwo Automobile"), and officially entered the new energy passenger car market 6 years later, and established the "Tianmei Automobile" new energy vehicle brand. After that, Tianmei Automobile developed with Skyworth Group under the leadership of Huang Hongsheng.
Until April last year, Skyworth officially integrated Tianmei Automobile into its own brand, and Tianmei Automobile was renamed Skyworth Automobile. At the same time, Skyworth Automobile also put forward a plan at that time - to land on the science and technology innovation board this year.
From the establishment of Skyworth Automobile to the announcement of the listing plan, in the eyes of the industry at that time, all these actions were too aggressive, after all, the three car companies of "Wei Xiaoli" took 4 years from the establishment to the listing of the US stock market.
It is not surprising that Skyworth will be so anxious to enter the game to build a car.
In the early 1990s, Skyworth Group was established, and soon stood at the forefront of the domestic color TV industry with its color TV business, which also became the main "cash cow" after Skyworth. However, as the color TV industry began to decline in 2014, Skyworth's revenue also began to fall into decline in those years.
In order to save such a downward trend, Skyworth has put forward a diversified development strategy since 2018, transforming into a family intelligent and digital business. However, in terms of the development performance of Skyworth's related businesses in the past two years, Skyworth's transformation has not achieved significant results.
Wired Travel has believed in many articles that "new energy vehicles are the intelligent terminals of the future". Because of this, Skyworth sees the opportunity to combine new energy vehicles and intelligent system business. In this regard, in the industry's view, Skyworth's entry into the car may be to solve the dilemma of its own business development.
Now that Skyworth has sounded the "charge" to the field of new energy vehicle manufacturing, can Skyworth Automobile really achieve the goal of 30,000 vehicles per year this year? Can Skyworth get out of trouble by entering the game?
01 From Buddhism to radical car-making
For Skyworth Auto, this year should be very busy.
According to its plan, this year, it will achieve annual sales of 30,000 vehicles and cumulative sales of more than 4.5 billion yuan by relying on the two major domestic and overseas markets.
In addition to the sales target, Skyworth Automobile also announced the delivery schedule of this year's new models: the batch delivery of 600km models in the first quarter of this year, the batch delivery of 1200km Skyworth intelligent hybrid system models in the third quarter, and the completion of the styling development of the CE11 project for future high-end models.
Skyworth Automobile also said that this year will be a tough year to impact the listing of the science and technology innovation board. Just last year, Skyworth Automobile put forward a listing plan for the first time, "planning to declare within this year, hoping to be listed on the science and technology innovation board next year." Huang Hongsheng said publicly last year.
Skyworth Automobile plans this year, screenshot from skyworth automobile official public account
Shouting slogans like this is not new for Skyworth Automobile.
Last year, at the launch of the "Skyworth Automobile" brand, Huang Hongsheng has set a development goal for this brand: by 2025, skyworth automobile annual sales will reach 250,000 vehicles, and in 2030 skyworth automobile annual sales will reach 500,000 vehicles, "in the next decade, Skyworth will enter the first camp in the global electric vehicle field."
For the development goal of Skyworth Automobile, at that time, the industry was more skeptical, because Skyworth Automobile was a late player compared to Tesla, "Wei Xiaoli" and other new energy vehicle brands.
The reason why Huang Hongsheng has the confidence to shout such a slogan may be because he knows that he is not a novice.
As early as 2010, the domestic auto market was in a golden period of development, and the Chinese market ranked first in global auto sales for the second consecutive year. Perhaps seeing the favorable trend of this development, Huang Hongsheng, who had led Skyworth Group on the right track in December of that year, founded Kaiwo Automobile in Nanjing and officially entered the car manufacturing industry.
To build a cross-border car, it is necessary to have a car-making qualification. As a result, Huang Hongsheng took a fancy to Nanjing Golden Dragon Bus Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Nanjing Golden Dragon") and quickly acquired and reorganized it. Unlike many founders of cross-border car manufacturing, Huang Hongsheng did not directly advance to the passenger car field at the beginning of car manufacturing, but first started with the bus.
The reason behind this is also because Nanjing Golden Dragon's previous business was focused on the research and development of buses, and Kaiwo Automobile can use this technology to open up the market and quickly enter the market, but Skyworth's research and development of buses is aimed at the new energy field, rather than traditional fuel vehicles.
After that, under the leadership of Huang Hongsheng, Kaiwo Automobile and Skyworth Group, which focused on home appliance business, developed on two different tracks. Although Kaiwo's new energy bus has made some reputation in the new energy bus market in those years, in the industry's view, Huang Hongsheng's progress in making cars is a bit slow, or it is more "Buddhist".
Since 2000, from the field of home appliances cross-border car players, not only Huang Hongsheng, but also Midea and Gree, although these two players are also started by the bus business, but with the development of the domestic new energy automobile industry, both quickly put forward plans to develop into the field of new energy passenger cars. This is described in detail in the article.
But for Huang Hongsheng, in those years, he has been pacing in the field of new energy buses, without the slightest intention of stepping towards a broader new energy passenger car track.
Until 2019, Huang Hongsheng suddenly began to accelerate into the field of new energy passenger cars.
That year, Kaiwo Automobile announced the transformation from new energy commercial vehicles to new energy passenger vehicles, and launched the new energy vehicle brand "Tianmei Automobile" in a high profile, "Tianmei Automobile invested 10 billion yuan at the beginning, if not enough, it will invest another 10 billion yuan." Huang Hongsheng said this to the media at that time.
Under the injection of a large amount of funds, Tianmei Automobile's first model, Tianmei ET5, was officially launched in 2020, which is positioned as a pure electric medium-sized SUV, and a total of 4 mass-produced models have been launched, namely Mingxin Health Edition (Customized Edition), Pure Heart Smart Edition, Pure Heart Smart Edition and Zhijian Integrated Edition, and the price range of the four models after subsidies is 152,800-19.88 million yuan.
Tianmei ET5, picture source Auto Home
Just when the public thought that Tianmei Automobile would further develop, a year after the establishment of the Tianmei Automobile brand, Skyworth Group announced the transfer of Skyworth's trademark to Kaiwo Automobile for 28 million yuan, which led to the birth of "Skyworth Automobile".
In April last year, Kaiwo Automobile held a skyworth automobile brand meeting in Beijing, and Huang Hongsheng officially launched the "Skyworth Automobile" new energy vehicle brand and released its first model, Skyworth EV6, according to him, this new brand comes from the previous Tianmei automobile brand.
It was also at this press conference that Huang Hongsheng high-profile put forward the grand goal of "becoming the world's top ten automobile brands in ten years" mentioned above. As a result, it not only marks the formal binding of Kaiwo Automobile and Skyworth Group, but also shows that Skyworth, which focuses on the field of home appliances, is fully engaged in the car manufacturing business.
From the transformation of the new energy passenger car field, to the upgrading of Tianmei Automobile to Skyworth Automobile, to the proposal of the listing plan and grand goals, this series of actions was almost completed in just two years. In the industry's view, compared with Huang Hongsheng's layout in the field of car manufacturing in previous years, the layout of the past two years can be described as extremely fast.
Huang Hongsheng seems to be urgently laid out in the field of car manufacturing, and behind it may be hidden the hidden worries of Skyworth Group.
02 Skyworth's hidden worries
"One day I will create an electronic company like Sony and Panasonic."
At the end of the 1980s, Huang Hongsheng held this ideal that had been established in the university years, resolutely resigned from the South China Electronics Import and Export Company, came to Hong Kong alone to start a business, and founded an electronic remote control factory called "Skyworth" in 1990.
But his start-up didn't go well. At first, the remote control business, because this business is on the edge of electronic products, so that it is difficult to enter the market, resulting in Skyworth debt; subsequently, Huang Hongsheng has set his sights on the field of color TV export, color TV was quickly manufactured, but because the product does not meet international standards, it cannot be exported.
Skyworth, which had suffered successive blows, was momentarily caught in a situation of high debt, and it was at this time that Huang Hongsheng saw an opportunity - in 1991, the Hong Kong Xunke Group was auctioned off due to high-level infighting. At that time, Skyworth naturally did not have the ability to eat this cake, but Huang Hongsheng gradually recruited technical personnel from Xunke by selling Skyworth's shares, which well supplemented Skyworth's technical strength in color TVs.
With the support of technology, Skyworth soon developed a new generation of color TV products and successfully obtained a large order from Germany. With this order, Skyworth not only repaid the previous arrears of debts, but also gained the reputation of the industry.
"Skyworth has a long history, but the first crucial step was taken in Germany, without that turnaround, maybe there would be no Skyworth today." For that experience that year, Huang Hongsheng once described it this way.
After the color TV export business went through, Huang Hongsheng's appetite also began to grow, and the domestic color TV market was taken as the next target. To this end, Skyworth spent 300 million Hong Kong dollars in 1994 to establish "Shenzhen Skyworth - RGB Electronics Co., Ltd." in Shenzhen and began to enter the domestic market.
Image source Skyworth SKYWORTH official micro
With its technical advantages, Skyworth soon opened the domestic market. According to public data, in 1994, Skyworth achieved an annual output of 400,000 color TVs, with sales reaching 550 million yuan that year, and two years later, Skyworth's sales went further, reaching 780 million yuan.
Although the development momentum is very strong, but at that time Skyworth was not the first echelon in the domestic color TV industry, for this reason, Huang Hongsheng invited Lu Qianghua, who was then the vice president of Shanghai Radio and Television, to serve as the deputy general manager and sales general manager of Skyworth Group in 1996.
After Lu Qianghua took office, the sales rights within Skyworth were further delegated to the hands of front-line sales personnel, regardless of profit and loss, the larger the sales, the more wages were obtained. Under such a strategy, Skyworth color TV has indeed achieved a substantial increase in sales, and in 2000, Skyworth color TV ranked fourth in the industry and entered the first echelon.
Under such favorable circumstances, Huang Hongsheng and Skyworth also ushered in a highlight moment in that year - in April 2000, Skyworth was successfully listed on the main board of Hong Kong, becoming one of the three leading color TV companies in China.
But such highlights did not last long.
In 2004, Wong was arrested by the Independent Commission Against Corruption in Hong Kong on suspicion of falsifying accounting records and of bribing the company's chief financial officer for misappropriating the company's funds. Affected by this, Skyworth's net profit fell sharply in 2005, only 256 million yuan, down 23.4% year-on-year.
By 2006, this decline persisted. Skyworth's revenue in that year was 8.723 billion yuan, up only 2.2% year-on-year; net profit was 210 million yuan, down 10.8% year-on-year. In the face of such a downward trend, Skyworth put forward a new strategy of "the core industry is bigger and the related industry is stronger" that year, and began to move towards related industries such as mobile phones, semiconductors, automotive electronics, and set-top boxes.
In those years, Skyworth first entered the computer field, but due to lack of relevant technical support, it quickly withdrew from the track; subsequently, Skyworth set its sights on the field of mobile phones and automotive electronics, and founded Skyworth Mobile Business Department and Skyworth Digital Business Department.
With the blessing of these "side businesses" and the performance of the main color TV business, Skyworth's revenue performance began to improve, and in 2013, the year-on-year growth rate of revenue and net profit returned to the double-digit development track. But what I didn't expect was that in 2014, Skyworth was once again in trouble.
In that year, with the impact of the rapid development of the mobile Internet industry, the profits of the color TV industry were further squeezed. According to the data released by Aowei Cloud Network, the total sales volume of China's color TV market in 2014 was 44.61 million units, down 6.6% year-on-year; the total sales were 146.2 billion yuan, down 14.5% year-on-year.
The decline in the overall development of the color TV industry has also affected the growth of Skyworth. According to Skyworth's public data, in 2014, its revenue was 32.191 billion yuan, an increase of only 4.4% year-on-year, but its net profit was only 1.168 billion yuan, down 10.1% year-on-year.
After that, Skyworth bid farewell to the era of high growth. Looking at Skyworth's financial reports over the years, the revenue from 2015 to 2018 was 32.725 billion yuan, 34.832 billion yuan, 34.954 billion yuan and 37.740 billion yuan, with year-on-year increases of 1.7%, 6.4%, 0.4% and 8.0% respectively.
In terms of net profit, from 2015 to 2018, it achieved 2.711 billion yuan, 2.061 billion yuan, 1.247 billion yuan and 480 million yuan respectively, and the profit decreased year by year.
Skyworth Group's revenue and net profit in the calendar year of 2015-2018, the data comes from Skyworth's public financial report, and the mapping of wired travel
Faced with this situation, Skyworth once again launched a new strategy to try to break the situation.
In 2018, Skyworth put forward a new overall strategy for transformation and upgrading, referred to as the "one-three-three-four" strategy, of which "one" refers to the realization of hundreds of billions of revenue after five years; and "four" refers to the creation of multimedia, intelligent electrical appliances, intelligent system technology and modern services four major business sectors.
Among the four major businesses, the multimedia business sector is mainly smart TV, coupled with Internet value-added services; smart appliances are electrical appliances represented by smart homes; intelligent system technology is composed of ultra-high-definition video boxes, intelligent networking, IoT pan-intelligent terminals and other equipment businesses; modern service business mainly includes core businesses such as park development and operation, logistics and maintenance services.
After the implementation of the new strategy, Skyworth did not return to a state of high growth. In 2020, Skyworth's revenue reached 40.093 billion yuan, an increase of only 7.6% year-on-year.
Skyworth Group's 2019 and 2020 financial situation, screenshot from Skyworth's public financial report
From the perspective of Skyworth's subdivision business in 2020, the revenue of multimedia business as the core business reached 24.571 billion yuan, an increase of 14.3% year-on-year. As the second and third businesses of Skyworth, the intelligent system technology business and the intelligent electrical appliance business are both in the decline in revenue, 5.181 billion yuan and 2.868 billion yuan respectively, down 9.1% and 6.8% year-on-year, respectively; among them, the intelligent system technology business revenue has been the second consecutive year-on-year decline.
This also means that in addition to Skyworth's multimedia business as the core business, the new business developed by Skyworth has not become the "second curve" of Skyworth's revenue growth.
Seeing the development trend of Skyworth, Huang Hongsheng thought of the car-making business he has been laying out, and used it as the "Skyworth" brand to face the market. In the industry's view, Huang Hongsheng's move may be to introduce the car-making business to move Skyworth's intelligent business to the car, realize business integration, and seek new development opportunities.
03 Building a car, can you save Skyworth?
To answer this question, we must first look at the performance of Skyworth Automobile.
According to the official introduction of Skyworth Automobile, its first model, Skyworth EV6, was released in April last year and officially launched in July last year. According to the time, although this model has been on sale for nearly half a year, it turns out that this car has not achieved much good sales performance.
According to the data of the Association, Skyworth EV6 sold 461 units last month after its launch, ranking only thirteenth in the sales ranking of the domestic new energy medium-sized SUV subdivision track in the same month. In front of it, there are not only BYD Tang New Energy, BMW iX3 and other models, but also Model Y, Weilai ES6 and so on.
Among them, the Model Y ranked first in the sales ranking of the month with 17198 vehicles, almost 37 times the sales of Skyworth EV6.
It should be noted that after August last year, although Skyworth EV6 has increased in monthly sales, the decline in the domestic new energy medium-sized SUV subdivision track has not changed much. Through the statistics of The Connection Travel, it can be seen that skyworth EV6 in the middle of September and December last year, the monthly sales volume basically remained at about 500-1200 vehicles, and the monthly sales ranking of its subdivision tracks also failed to reach the top ten.
Skyworth EV6 sales from August to December 2021, the data comes from the ride association, and the connection travel mapping
As of December last year, skyworth EV6 total domestic sales of only 4088 units, compared with the same new energy medium-sizeD SUV Model Y total sales of 143597 last August-December, the gap between the two can be described as a world of difference.
According to Skyworth Automobile, at the end of September last year, 30 new energy vehicles have been delivered to the German market, and since then, no overseas sales data has been released, and it seems that the overseas sales last year may not be more than a thousand in the industry. This means that skyworth EV6 global sales are likely to be only about 5,000 vehicles last year.
"Skyworth EV6's total sales last year were basically the monthly sales of mainstream models in the new energy automobile industry, and it has to be said that this sales performance is difficult to come up with in the current new energy vehicle market." Zhang Xiang, a researcher at the Automotive Industry Innovation Research Center of North China University of Technology, said this to wired travel.
It is not surprising that Skyworth EV6 will be in such a situation.
According to Wired Travel, Skyworth EV6 is actually renamed from the Tianmei ET5 model. First from the appearance point of view, the former basically follows the design idea of the latter, and has not done much optimization or change. In the interior, the same has not changed, but the logo on the steering wheel has been changed from Tianmei to Skyworth, and the overall design is decent, and there are not too many highlights.
In terms of cruising range, Skyworth EV6 can meet the needs of 410 km and 520 km versions, and this indicator is the same as Tianmei ET5, according to Tianmei Automobile at that time, Tianmei ET5 has three versions of the mileage, which are 404 km, 410 km and 520 km.
It can be seen that although Skyworth EV6 has abandoned the lowest version, it has followed the latter two high-endurance versions. However, it is undeniable that in the current 600 km new energy vehicle market with a cruising range of 600 km passing line, its maximum cruising range of 520 km has no advantage.
In terms of design and mileage, although there is no difference between the two models, it does not mean that Skyworth EV6 has not been upgraded compared to Tianmei ET5.
Skyworth EV6 (left) and Tianmei ET5, image source Autohome
According to Skyworth Automobile, Skyworth EV6 is equipped with Skyworth Skylink intelligent network system developed by Skyworth in terms of vehicle-machine system, which can realize the linkage of car home scenes and build a car home interconnection ecology. Users can remotely control the temperature, seats, windows, charging, etc. in the car.
In addition, skyworth EV6's health intelligent management system is regarded as a major highlight by Skyworth Automobile. According to the official introduction, through non-contact sensing technology, it is possible to monitor life and health indicators such as blood pressure and heart rate according to photographs, and rely on artificial intelligence spectral scientific algorithms to evaluate user life characteristics; introduce brain-computer interface technology to measure brain waves and deep sleep quality.
Speaking of sleep quality, Skyworth Auto also said that Skyworth EV6 has the industry's only active sleep promotion technology, based on equipped with ergonomic space 0 gravity seats and HEPA level air conditioning filters, to provide owners with a comfortable and clean driving environment. According to the understanding of wired travel, this function is simply to make the seat of the main driver's seat flat and become a "bed" that can rest for consumers to rest for a short time.
Although Skyworth Automobile has blown the sky for these upgrade functions, it should be noted that the vehicle-machine interconnection function declared by Skyworth EV6 can now be realized in mainstream new energy models on the market; in addition, the active sleep promotion function, Xiaopeng P5 has also been realized, and it is more perfect than it.
In Zhang Xiang's view, the features that are regarded as highlights on Skyworth EV6 are not bright spots in the current new energy vehicle market, and even lag behind in functions. After the launch of the health management function of Skyworth EV6, it is also regarded by the industry as a gimmick to avoid the heavy and light, after all, for the vehicle, safety is the first; and the brain-computer interface technology, which can really be commercialized, also needs time and market verification.
The reason why Skyworth Automobile will do this also reflects its embarrassment of not accumulating technology.
According to a person familiar with the matter quoted by The Yueguan Automobile Market, the backbone employees of Skyworth Automobile not only do not have the experience and experience of large OEMs, but also have strong internal infighting after the brand formation. In addition, Skyworth Automobile's funds have also reached the point of being stretched last year, and there is a risk of breaking the capital chain.
In the face of financial risks, a person familiar with the matter revealed to Lianhui that Skyworth Automobile had planned to carry out a financing last year, but according to Lianhui's inspection of information platforms such as Tianyancha, it did not see public information on financing, which shows that the financing mentioned may be shelved. According to the Yuguan Car Market, Huang Hongsheng did not pay money to improve this dilemma, but has always relied on the government to give money and resources to support car manufacturing.
Because of this, there are also voices in the industry that Huang Hongsheng has not really invested in car manufacturing in an all-round way.
Based on the above analysis, skyworth automobile may be difficult to form a "1+1>2" effect with skyworth group's intelligent business, and it is even more difficult to help skyworth group alleviate the decline of its business development.
Even if this is the case, for Skyworth, the gimmick of car building is needed, after all, home appliance companies have become a trend in car manufacturing, in order to win an advantage in the industry later, Skyworth must also keep up.