On February 25, Ideal Auto released its 2021 financial report
When startups do not have the ability to make blood, it is just as important to learn to "save money" and use money on the cutting edge as it is to constantly open up financing channels.
In the period when the capital threshold for car manufacturing was as high as 20 billion yuan, Ideal Automobile, as one of the leading enterprises in the new car-making forces, became the enterprise that "spends the most money". From the beginning of the establishment of Ideal Automobile, Li Xiang has maintained the tradition of "tightening food" in marketing and management, and investing a lot of money in product research and development and channel layout.
From the perspective of specific development strategies, the initial stage of entrepreneurship focused on the development of a product, but also allowed the ideal car to achieve lower inventory costs, marketing expenses and higher research and development, procurement, production, sales efficiency, for the long-term development of the ideal car to create a healthy "body".
At the beginning of 2022, Li Xiang said in a long article released "The Importance of Rhythm Control for Entrepreneurship" that Ideal Auto has passed the 0-1 verification period and will enter a 1-10 growth period in 2022. The so-called past the verification period, that is, their products have eaten more than 3% of the market share in their segments.
Compared with other head peers, Ideal Cars caught up with the first high-speed train of the industry's development in the case of single-handedness and the latest departure. Behind this, what is the code for the success of the ideal car? Can the ideal car continue to maintain its industry leadership in the future? The answer to everything is hidden in the development strategy of the ideal car.
While saving money while "throwing money" In a number of new car-making forces, the ideal car always shows a distinctive image in some aspects, the two most well-known of which are the choice of the increased range route and the "cutting door" in marketing and management. However, with the monthly sales of ideal cars entering the era of 10,000 vehicles, the overall development of enterprises has passed the verification period of 0-1, and the "alternative" shown by the industry for ideal cars has changed from the original doubt to today's admiration.
On February 25, ideal auto released the 2021 financial report shows that the company achieved revenue of 10.62 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, an increase of 156.1% over the fourth quarter of 2020, and the quarterly revenue exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time; the net profit was 295.5 million yuan, an increase of 175.9% year-on-year; the company's gross profit margin reached 22.4%, an increase of 4.9 percentage points year-on-year.
In particular, it is worth mentioning that under the premise of increasing R&D expenses by 228.7% year-on-year to 1.23 billion yuan and adding 53 retail centers in the quarter, Ideal Automobile also achieved an operating cash flow of 3.84 billion yuan in the fourth quarter, an increase of 110.7% year-on-year. It fully reflects the outstanding operating efficiency of the ideal car.
Stretching the time to the whole year, the performance of Ideal Automobile is even better: the annual revenue of 27.01 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 185.6% year-on-year; the gross profit margin reached 21.3%, an increase of 4.9 percentage points year-on-year; the operating cash flow reached 8.34 billion yuan, an increase of 165.6% year-on-year; and the research and development expenses were 3.29 billion yuan, an increase of 198.8% year-on-year. Both revenue growth and operating cash flow growth rates were higher than in the fourth quarter. Li Tie, Chief Financial Officer of Ideal Automotive, said: "Thanks to the excellent operational efficiency of production and supply chain management, our vehicle gross margin increased to 22.3% in the fourth quarter and reached 20.6% for the whole year. In addition, as we continue to scale up deliveries and focus on execution efficiency, our full-year operating cash flow reached RMB8.3 billion, which strongly supported our R&D investment and business growth. ”
The good performance of business performance is the ideal car with money on the finger. At the beginning of July 2020, Li Xiang posted a message in the circle of friends: "Ideal Auto's team of more than 3200 people has only two VPs, and even few senior directors. Administrative requirements for business trips economy class must buy the lowest discount, economy hotels to live together with two people of the same sex, the ideal ONE listing conference used less than 2 million to get tens of thousands of orders. ”
In some non-core areas, "thriftiness" has always been regarded by entrepreneurs as an important principle for enterprises to survive when they do not yet have hematopoietic ability.
As Li Xiang said himself: "If you have a penny in your pocket and you can have one more person in your recruitment, put this money and people into the company's strengths and corresponding experts." "And this is one of the correct development strategies that Ideal Auto has been able to successfully achieve from 0 to 1 in the more than 7 years since its establishment."
Another piece of data confirms this. In the fourth quarter of 2021, Ideal Auto's sales, general and administrative expenses were $1.13 billion, accounting for only 10.6% of the company's revenue, and in 2021, sales, general and administrative expenses were $3.49 billion, accounting for about 12.9%. This data is much lower than that of listed companies in the same industry. More expenses have been invested by Ideal Car in technology research and development and channel expansion.
Ideal Auto said it will continue to maintain more than 10% of its research and development expenses for a long time to improve its car-making technology. At the same time, we continue to expand our sales channels. According to the data, as of December 31, 2021, Ideal Has 206 retail centers covering 102 cities, compared with 52 and 41 respectively a year ago.
In the 0-1 verification period, ideal car with a deep understanding of the needs of home user groups, starting from the full dimensions of safety, space, intelligence, endurance, etc., has been highly recognized by the market for its ability to build products that concentrate all its strength on ideal ONE.
As a model positioned as a medium-sized and large-sized SUV for home use, the Ideal ONE always puts safety first. It is understood that in the recent third-party AEB (Automotive Active Safety Technology) test, ideal ONE won the annual championship. At the same time, the ideal ONE is also the model of the test model that has the ability to accurately identify lateral vehicles and two-wheeled vehicles, which fully reflects the strong research and development capabilities of the ideal car in intelligent driving.
The ideal ONE's "286" strategy also perfectly interprets the comprehensive strength of the ideal car in power, endurance, intelligence and space. The "286" refers to two power modes, a 4+4 interactive mode and a 6-seat layout of the model. Ideal Auto has created a new electric mode of "urban electricity consumption, long-distance power generation" in the world, which effectively solves the problem of home user mileage anxiety; in the 4+4 interactive mode, ideal ONE all-car 4-tone area intelligent voice control and the industry's first batch of 4-screen design, so that children down to kindergartens, up to parents of seventy or eighty years old can easily interact with ideal ONE. In addition, the ideal ONE has also turned the electric 6-seat model into the industry standard, carrying three generations of the same house, and has been unanimously recognized by home users.
In terms of OTA software upgrades that are more concerned by the industry, ideal ONE has carried out a total of 6 OTA upgrades in 2021, with more than 100 upgrade functions and a 15% improvement in energy efficiency of the range-extended system.
In December 2021, Ideal Auto pushed the OTA 3.0 vehicle software to all Ideal ONE users, and the two key features of the upgrade are the 2021 Ideal ONE Navigation Assisted Driving (NOA) and Visual Fusion Automatic Emergency Braking (AEB). The OTA 3.0 upgrade also optimizes Ideal ONE's intelligent car voice assistant, Ideal Student, to support more advanced software and vehicle voice control functions. As a result, Ideal Auto has also become the third brand in the world with complete NOA and AEB full-stack self-research capabilities.
In the continuous iterative upgrading of the product, the ideal ONE has also ushered in its own glory moment. From November 2021 to January 2022, Ideal ONE has delivered more than 10,000 yuan for three consecutive months, setting a new delivery record for a Chinese brand luxury model with a starting price of more than 300,000. Judging from the most recognized insurance volume data in the industry, in the medium and large SUV market regardless of the price range and regardless of the power source, the ideal ONE ranked the forefront of sales in 2021 with a delivery volume of 90419 vehicles. At the same time, the ideal ONE has also become the first model in China's new car-making forces to sell more than 10,000 per month.
Looking ahead to 2022, Ideal Said expects vehicle deliveries of 30,000 to 32,000 units in the first quarter, up 138.5% from the first quarter of 2021 to 154.4%, and revenue from $8.84 billion to $9.43 billion, up 147.2% from the first quarter of 2021 to 163.7%.
In terms of the pace of new product launches, in the second quarter of 2022, Ideal Motors plans to launch a flagship SUV model with an estimated price of about 500,000. The new model will be delivered in the third quarter of 2022.
Xue Zhi / Text