Abstract: The luxury car market is still dominated by BBA, but in the electric luxury car market, less than 100,000 sales can not be taken. No one can escape the electrification transformation
▲ Image source network
Wen | Guo Yu
Edited | Shi Zhiliang
Operating profits reached a new high, and all-electric models sold nearly 60% more, which is Audi's achievement in the past year.
On March 17, Audi announced its fiscal 2021 results. According to the data, Audi's sales revenue in fiscal 2021 was 53.068 billion euros, and the operating profit was about 5.5 billion euros, with an operating margin of 10.4%. In terms of deliveries, the Audi brand delivered 1.6805 million units in 2021, a decrease of 0.7% year-on-year, which was basically the same as in 2020. Among them, 81,900 pure electric vehicles were delivered, an increase of 57.5% year-on-year.
Looking back over the past year, Markus Duesmann, chairman of Audi's board of directors, said that the tight supply of semiconductors has brought great challenges to Audi, "which has led to a lot of cars that have not been completed." ”
▲ Markus Duesmann, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Audi
Image source: Screenshot of live broadcast
For 2022, Audi Chief Financial Officer Jürgen Rittersberger said that the semiconductor situation has improved at a time when orders are full. But the Russo-Ukrainian war is difficult to predict, and the impact of the russo-Ukrainian war is being assessed among the various departments and brands of the Volkswagen Group to which Audi belongs.
In addition, the Audi A6 avant e-tron concept car was unveiled at the press conference, with a range of 700 kilometers, and the subsequent mass production version will be the first low-chassis model based on the new high-end electrification platform PPE.
After earning 5.5 billion euros
Audi is going to sell more than 1.8 million cars this year
In 2021, when there was a lack of cores, the epidemic and the rise in raw materials, Audi's operating profit and net cash flow set a new record.
In fiscal 2021, Audi generated sales of EUR 53,068 million (FY2020: EUR 49,973 million), operating profit of EUR 5,498 million (FY2020: EUR 2,569 million) and an operating profit margin of 10.4% (FY2020: 5.1%). The Audi Group's net cash flow was €7,757 million (FY2020: €4,589 million).
Rittersberg said that the achievements of the past year are inseparable from the active management of semiconductor supply shortages, the improvement of fixed costs, and the adjustment of product pricing strategies.
Specific to the audi brands, the Audi brand is responsible for sales. In 2021, the Audi brand delivered a total of 1680512 vehicles (2020: 1692773 units), which is basically the same as last year. Specifically, the most popular models are the Audi Q5 (293069), Audi Q3 (258616) and Audi A6 (244191). Among them, Audi brand pure electric vehicle models delivered 81,894 vehicles in the past year, an increase of 57.5% year-on-year.
In addition, the motorcycle brand Ducati delivered 59,447 units, an increase of 23.7% year-on-year; Lamborghini delivered 8,405 units, an increase of 13.1% year-on-year, a record high. It is worth mentioning that the Bentley brand will become an Audi brand from 2023, no longer directly under the Volkswagen Group, and the operating conditions will be taken over by Audi.
China is an important market for Audi. According to the data, in 2021, Audi's sales revenue in China reached 1.14 billion euros (1.009 billion euros in fiscal year 2020) and sales of 727,000 vehicles, continuing to become the world's largest single market. Audi revealed that Audi and its two partners, FAW Group and SAIC Motor, will further strengthen cooperation in the future.
For FY2022, Audi expects to deliver between 1.8 and 1.9 million vehicles, with sales revenue expected to be between €62 billion and €65 billion and maintain a strong pricing level; operating margins are expected to be between 9% and 11%,000; and group net cash flow is expected to reach between €4.5 billion and €5.5 billion due to a slight increase in corporate costs due to increasing operational normalization and increased investment activities.
"This year, we will focus more on sustainability, electrification, digitalization and other areas, and continue to promote the implementation of the 2030 transformation strategy." This means that we will gradually fade away from internal combustion engine technology, develop a complete roadmap for electrification transformation, and actively work with CARIAD, the software division of the Volkswagen Group, to create new digital business models and services. Dusman said.
Electrification transformation
Can the Chinese market do a good job as a top student?
Electrification is one of the words Audi mentioned most at this launch.
This is an important part of Audi Vorsprung's 2030 strategy. In August 2021, Dusman announced that from 2026, Audi's new models for the global market will be fully switched to pure electric products, and by 2033, Audi will gradually stop the production of internal combustion engines. In addition, the Vorsprung 2030 strategy also involves digitalization and carbon neutrality.
According to the plan, by 2025, Audi will have more than 20 pure electric models and significantly expand the product range of plug-in hybrids. Audi expects that by 2025, about one-third of its deliveries worldwide will be pure electric or hybrid models.
Audi, which is transitioning to electrification, cannot ignore the Chinese market. Of the nearly 1.7 million Audi brand's global sales in the past year, the Chinese market contributed nearly half, to 727,000 units. Specific to new energy vehicles, China is also the world's largest single market. According to the China Automobile Association, China's annual sales of new energy vehicles increased from 507,000 units in 2016 to 3.521 million units in 2021, ranking first in the world for seven consecutive years.
FAW Group and SAIC Motor are two important partners of Audi in China, and Audi has been deepening cooperation from different angles in the past two years.
In cooperation with FAW Group, Audi and FAW Group established a new energy vehicle joint venture in 2020 to localize the production of pure electric vehicle models on PPE platforms in China. In February this year, the project was officially launched, and is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2024, with a planned annual production capacity of 150,000 units, and the completed plant will be Audi's first new energy vehicle plant in China. In addition, the FAW-Volkswagen Audi Sales Division will be upgraded to FAW Audi Sales Co., Ltd. in 2021. In the future, the new company will be responsible for FAW-Volkswagen Audi domestic models, Audi imported models, and Audi domestic PPE models that will be launched in 2024.
There has also been new progress in cooperation with SAIC Motor, and SAIC Audi's first product will be launched this year. Audi Group revealed that by 2026, Audi plans to offer more than ten pure electric models in the Chinese market.
In addition to building a factory to produce electric vehicles, expanding the lineup of electric vehicle models, and optimizing the sales system, Audi is also laying out new energy infrastructure such as charging piles. Audi's partner, Kaimeis, will deploy more than 6,000 charging terminals in eight key electric vehicle consumption cities in China, achieving the density coverage of 1 charging station within 5 kilometers of the main urban area. By 2025, the number of Kemyss charging terminals is planned to reach 17,000.
But this is only the beginning of Audi's transformation, and how to increase the sales of new energy vehicles is a problem at hand. Traditional car companies are saying that they are transforming to electrification, what are the results? Audi, one of the "BBA", delivered 81,000 electric vehicles worldwide last year, while Mercedes-Benz and BMW achieved 99,000 and 320,000 respectively. Bigger enemies come from new car-making forces. Tesla alone delivered nearly 1 million new energy vehicles in 2021. Gradually replacing millions of fuel vehicles with millions of new energy vehicles, leaving little time for traditional car companies like Audi.