BAIC BJEV "load" to touch the high

Text/Leju Finance Jin Wenyu

For BAIC BJEV, the past few years have not been very peaceful, and now it is an "eventful autumn".

Recently, an anti-corruption news broke on the Internet about BAIC BJEV, and Xu Feng, assistant director of BAIC BJEV Marketing Company, was sentenced to 7 years for accepting a bribe of 1.43 million yuan.

According to Leju Finance, Xu Feng served as the assistant director of the marketing communication department, was responsible for marketing communication in BAIC BJEV, and held the power of tens of thousands of capital transactions in his hands, and the responsibilities of the post were important. Along with Xu Feng, Cao Bin, then director of the marketing and communication department of BAIC New Energy, in order to seek improper benefits, Xu Feng and Bai gave Cao Bin a benefit fee of 100,000 yuan in cash.

It is worth noting that Xu Feng and Cao Bin are not the first employees in BAIC BJEV to be taken away by the Disciplinary Inspection Committee.

At the end of August 2021, Lu Hao, who had worked for BAIC BJEV and Ford China, was appointed chief experience officer of Nezha Automobile. After 21 days in office, Lu Hao reported that he was being investigated by the police. Some insiders speculate that Lu Hao's investigation by the Shanghai police seems to be related to his work experience in BAIC BJEV.

In addition to the lack of strict governance and the frequent occurrence of "internal troubles", the capital market also has signs of cooling.

Since the beginning of this year, the stock price of Baiqi Blue Valley (the parent company of BAIC BJEV, 600733.SH) has fluctuated downward, hitting a new low of 8.31 yuan per share in the past year on January 28. In mid-December last year, beiqi blue valley's stock price was still more than 12 yuan, and in two months, its stock price fell by more than 20%.

Two years of loss of 10 billion

The weakening of Beiqi Blue Valley's stock price has a lot to do with its unfavorable operation in the past year.

BAIC BJEV started earlier, relying on the government's strong subsidies and the industry's first-mover advantage, its sales increased from 20,000 in 2015 to 150,000 in 2019, becoming the first place in the domestic pure electricity market for 7 consecutive years. In September 2018, BAIC BJEV successfully listed on the backdoor BAIC Blue Valley, becoming the "first A-share new energy vehicle stock".

However, in 2020, the situation of BAIC BJEV took a sharp turn for the worse, with annual sales of 25,900 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 82.8%, and the annual loss in 2020 reached 6.482 billion yuan. In 2021, sales did not rebound significantly, and only 26,217 vehicles were sold.

On January 28 this year, Beiqi Blue Valley released the announcement of the pre-loss of 2021 annual results, and it is expected that the net profit in 2021 will be -4.8 billion yuan to -5.3 billion yuan, and the maximum may be a loss of 5.3 billion yuan, which means that its loss in two years has exceeded 10 billion yuan. This amount is somewhat shocking.

For the main reason for the pre-loss of 2021 annual performance, Beiqi Blue Valley explained that in the past year, Beiqi Blue Valley was affected by the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the supply of raw materials, and the existing gross profit could not cover the inherent costs and expenses, and the impact on the company's performance was about 2-2.5 billion yuan, accounting for about half of the loss.

At the same time, Beiqi Blue Valley said that in order to achieve the transformation of products to high-end, fully promote the ARCFOX Jihu brand promotion and channel construction, the company increased brand communication, advertising and operation and other sales expenses increased, the impact on the company's performance of about 1.7 billion yuan.

Although BAIC has placed all its "heavy bets" on the high-end brand Jihu, the Jihu brand has not improved since its release in 2018, and its performance in 2021 is even more disappointing. In 2021, the cumulative sales volume of The Extreme Fox is only 4993 vehicles, which is not even half of the monthly delivery volume of the current new car-making forces.

In terms of influence, the only thing that can make people shine is the Polar Fox Alpha S Huawei HI Version that uses Huawei's automatic technology. However, it is a pity that this version has been launched for more than half a year, and it is still in the pre-sale state, and the official listing seems to be far away.

The huge loss coupled with the dismal sales volume, it is not surprising that investors have lost confidence in Beiqi Blue Valley.

The Fading "Dividend"

For a long time, BAIC BJEV has always had a high proportion in the B-end market. According to people familiar with the matter, 70% of BAIC's cars are sold to the B-end market.

Relying on taxi and ride-hailing routes, BAIC BJEV has indeed achieved remarkable results in the past few years. Coupled with the high amount of subsidies for new energy at that time, the subsidies for a new energy vehicle (national subsidy + land subsidy) often range from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands, and BAIC can also earn higher profits.

However, due to the impact of the new crown epidemic, the demand for the online ride-hailing market and the taxi market has stagnated in recent years, and the sales of BAIC Classic's EU5, EU7 and other models have also begun to decline significantly.

In addition, after entering 2019, subsidies have begun to dive, and this year is the last year of subsidies, and it is also the most "shabby" year of subsidies. BAIC BJEV can no longer rely on huge subsidies to eat "dividends" like in the past.

In terms of core technology, BAIC's pure electric model has not shown any unique product highlights, only the Polar Fox Alpha s Huawei hi version equipped with Huawei's automatic driving technology can barely get its hands on, but it has not yet been delivered.

In contrast, other brands, BYD has core technologies such as blade batteries and e-platform 3.0, Weilai focuses on technology and service quality, and Xiaopeng's autonomous driving technology experience is excellent, and has been mass-produced and listed. BAIC BJEV, which has an earlier layout in the field of new energy, seems to lack core technical advantages.

In the face of BYD, the Great Wall, Chery and a number of strong opponents of new car-making forces, BAIC is being swallowed up by the problem of insufficient product support by virtue of its early start and the outbreak of the online ride-hailing market, and BAIC New Energy, which starts early and catches up late, has become more difficult in its survival situation.

The target annual sales increase by 2.8 times

As a traditional state-owned enterprise, BAIC BJEV's management system is rigid, it lacks flexible coping strategies for the rapidly developing new energy vehicle market, and it ignores the broader C-end market, which greatly restricts its development. BAIC BJEV can be said to be "a good hand of cards to play a mess".

However, it is worth noting that at the end of January this year, that is, before the Spring Festival, Zhang Xiyong, general manager of BAIC Group, publicly proposed: "BAIC BJEV's sales target this year is 100,000 vehicles, including 40,000 Jihu vehicles, and strive to impact 300,000 vehicles in the future." ”

The reason why Haikou has such confidence may stem from BAIC BJEV's good delivery data in January.

According to the recent baic new energy release of the January 2022 production and sales report, BAIC BJEV production in January 1031 vehicles, an increase of 73.57%; sales of 2122 vehicles, an increase of 97.95% year-on-year, coupled with the BAIC Extreme Fox S HI version will be delivered at the end of February, many people have jumped out to say that BAIC has great potential and is ready to bottom out.

In addition, the dare to set the target of 40,000 vehicles sold by Jihu is because Huawei is behind it. Huawei Yu Chengdong has said that in 2022, Huawei has set a sales target of 300,000 vehicles, and the target of 300,000 vehicles is jointly completed by the four brands of Qingjie, Xilis, Jihu and Avita. Obviously, the Polar Fox has been assigned 40,000 missions, and the proportion of 300,000 vehicles is still small.

But it is unavoidable that the annual sales of BAIC BJEV in 2021 will only be 26,127 vehicles. According to its sales performance last year, if it wants to achieve this annual sales target, BAIC BJEV needs to increase by more than 280% over the same period last year, and the Jihu brand needs to increase by 701%.