As the first new car manufacturer to announce the 2021 annual financial report in "Wei Xiaoli", the most eye-catching financial data of Ideal Automobile in the past year is that the gross profit margin of new cars in 2021 will reach 20.6%, and the data in 2020 will be 16.4%.
In addition, for the full year of 2021, Ideal Automobile's operating cash flow reached RMB8.34 billion, an increase of 165.6% from RMB3.14 billion in 2020.
In the view of Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Ideal Automobile, the company's performance in operating cash flow can better reflect the operating efficiency of Ideal Automobile.
Profit margins and stable cash flow also ensure the ideal continuous investment in research and development.
For the whole year of 2021, the total revenue of Ideal Automobile was 27.01 billion yuan, an increase of 185.6% year-on-year; the sales revenue of vehicles was 26.13 billion yuan, an increase of 181.5% year-on-year.
Ideal Auto's Q4 and full year 2021 revenue
Ideal Auto had a net loss of 322 million yuan last year, compared with a net loss of 152 million yuan in the same period last year.
Ideal Auto's 2021 quarterly net profit performance
For the whole year of 2021, the R&D expenses of Ideal Automobile were 3.29 billion yuan, an increase of 198.8% from 1.10 billion yuan in 2020. Ideal Auto has also been insisting on increasing investment in research and development.
In the earnings call, Li Xiang has always stressed that the ideal car has completed the 0-1 verification. Relying on the only car, the ideal ONE completed the delivery of 90,491 vehicles last year, and still ensured smooth delivery and continuous improvement in profit margins under the premise of tight chip supply and rising raw material costs in the entire industry.
At the same time, recently, the Hang Seng Index company announced that ideal cars have been included in the Hang Seng Technology Index and are expected to enter Shenzhen-Hong Kong Stock Connect around mid-March, which will further enrich the financing channels for ideals.
On the earnings call, the industry is most concerned about how ideal cars will consolidate their capabilities and diversified layouts in business.
Xiaopeng Automobile's flying car project has begun to openly recruit people, and the news that Weilai Automobile wants to build mobile phones does not seem to be empty, in contrast, Ideal is not in a hurry to expand the product line, nor is it in a hurry to expand the circle.
Li Xiang emphasized the strategic determination of the ideal car in the conference call. In his view, whether it is from the product to the application, to the technology and system layer, the ideal car still has too much work to do, the ideal still insists on the field of intelligent electric vehicles to achieve products, applications, technologies, systems thoroughly.
In addition to not expanding the circle, in the round of new energy vehicle companies going to sea, Ideal Automobile is still focusing on the Chinese market in the short term. However, Li Xiang also said that he has set up a professional globalization strategy team and has always been cautious about overseas markets.
All along, Apple's ability in its field and the potential pressure released in the field of car manufacturing have invisibly become the benchmarking object of many car manufacturers, and the ideal goal is to align with Apple.
"Ten years later, I will look at my own ability and hope to be able to do the same level as Apple."
In the face of the continuous rise in battery costs and raw materials, Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Ideal Automobile, also said that first of all, more suitable suppliers will be found, and secondly, the production plan will be informed in advance to improve production flexibility, so that production can be started immediately after the supply is in place, and finally delivered to customers.
From the performance of different brands last year, it will also be found that mercedes-benz sales have declined, but profits have risen; Euler claims to sell cars at a loss. The lack of cores and the rising cost of batteries have promoted the sales of high-end models with higher profits, while low-end models cannot withstand the pressure of high costs.
The average selling price of ideal cars exceeded 300,000, and in the fourth quarter of last year, ideal also achieved the first positive operating profit for the first time, which also shows that ideals are increasing in the management level of supply chain management and operational efficiency, and the ability to resist risks is increasing.
In fact, whether it is to stabilize the scale of monthly sales of a single model of more than 10,000, or intelligent driving to self-development, the ideal car has formed its own "methodology", in this conference call, Li Xiang also summarized several capabilities:
More products will be available in the range of 200,000-500,000;
Consolidate technical capabilities and improve efficiency through self-developed teams of intelligent driving, software and AI capabilities, domain controllers, and next-generation e-telecom architectures;
The ability to build an operating system.
These three capabilities determine the combined strength of the final product, the user experience, and the long-term user stickiness and purchase attractiveness.
Image source: Ideal Car Weibo
In the second quarter of this year, Ideal will release its second new car, the X01, positioned higher than ideal ONE, launch a pure electric vehicle model that supports ultra-fast charging next year, and plans to reach 400 retail centers by the end of 2022.
In the past period of time, new car manufacturers have been deeply cultivating market segments while building their own moats, which is not only the attraction of users, but also the impressment of the capital market.
In more and more competition, whether the experience of smart cars is more complicated, or the user experience is better, and what kind of polishing space there is, how to make it subvert the car experience, and create a new user experience, has always been considered to be the real space worth exploring for latecomers.
In the process of the gradual evolution of the car to the intelligent product, Li Xiang also mentioned that in his eyes, the intelligent car and the intelligent-related software have shown three obvious characteristics in the past: the user experience is tasteless; the product performance is weak; the third is contrary to the first two, the performance is excellent, and the high viscosity formed with the user. Li wants to believe that this is the biggest difference between smart products and the past.
For the ideal of deeply cultivating product experience, occupying a larger market share and achieving a high gross profit margin has always been the primary goal.