Financial Associated Press (Shanghai, editor Hu Jiarong) news, NIO-SW (09866.HK) released the fourth quarter and full year results of 2021 in early trading this morning, of which the annual revenue was about 36.14 billion yuan, an increase of 122.3% year-on-year; the net loss was 4.02 billion yuan, narrowing by 24.3% year-on-year. Among them, in the fourth quarter of 2021, the revenue was about 9.9 billion yuan, and the operating loss was 2.4 billion yuan, an increase of 163% year-on-year.
It is worth noting that the net loss of Weilai Automobile has narrowed significantly, which has benefited from the doubling of its car delivery data for two consecutive years, which has also led to a sharp recovery in profits and revenues.
In terms of vehicle delivery data, in 2021, NIO delivered a total of 91,429 vehicles, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year. The delivery volume of Ideal and Xiaopeng in the same period was 90491 and 98155 vehicles respectively, which shows that Weilai's sales volume ranked behind Xiaopeng and was higher than ideal. In addition, NIO expects its revenue to reach 96.3-99 in Q1 2022. $900 million, vehicles delivered in the first quarter of 2022 will be between 25,000 and 26,000 units, an increase of about 24.6% to 29.6% over the same period in 2021.
Although Weilai's sales volume is still in the forefront in 2021, it may face difficulties in starting in 2022. When NIO's sales in January and February this year were flat, while other new car-making forces achieved triple-digit year-on-year growth, NIO's year-on-year growth rate was only 9.91%.
Competition for high-end new energy vehicles has intensified
In addition, as mentioned in the financial report, Weilai CEO Li Bin said that it will accelerate growth again, will launch three new cars based on the new generation of intelligent car platform NIO Technology Platform 2.0, will start ET7 shipments on March 28 this year, ET5 released in December last year will be delivered from September this year, and this year also plans to launch products and services in more overseas countries and regions.
Previously, CITIC Securities pointed out that with the gradual launch of New Models of Weilai, the above three models will drive the company's sales to be expected to increase by about double year-on-year.
In fact, Weilai has always been the main "high price" strategy, its models are higher than the price of other new energy vehicle companies, most of the current price of most models are around 300,000, and Weilai's ES6 price is close to 360,000, which allows Weilai to have a moat.
However, with a number of car companies have announced to enter the high-end market, which undoubtedly intensified the competition in the new energy vehicle market, taking the recent launch of L9 as an example, the price of the ideal one was close to about 330,000 yuan, but the price of the launch was 450,000 yuan, which undoubtedly gave consumers more choices. Therefore, whether Weilai's new models can drive sales to a new high is still unknown.
When will NIO raise prices?
Since the beginning of 2022, the prices of lithium, nickel, and power batteries have continued to rise, and the supply of superimposed chips has been insufficient, which has become the main operational pressure of car companies and the main driving factor of two consecutive waves of price increases. The price of lithium carbonate, the core raw material of batteries, has risen by nearly 70% from the beginning of the year and hit a new high this month. The relevant person in charge of a new energy vehicle company said that since the second half of last year, the price of the power battery in the Ningde era has increased twice.
A number of new energy vehicle companies have opened the second round of price increases this year, Tesla, BYD, Ideal, Xiaopeng, Weima, Zero Run and other brands to join the March price increase army, raising thousands of yuan to tens of thousands of yuan.
However, only Weilai did not announce a price increase, Weilai Automobile said that price stability is good for the interests of users and the market, and there is no intention of price increase in the short term. At present, the international raw material price, including chip supply and demand, has made the cost of the entire supply chain change greatly compared with before. We will also make flexible decisions based on changes in the objective environment.
In addition, in response to the recent soaring price of lithium carbonate, Li Bin said at the fourth quarter and annual financial report meeting: "We have done in-depth research on the upstream links, and believe that the current speculative factors of lithium carbonate price increases are more, and there is not such a big gap between supply and demand. We call on upstream lithium ore, lithium salt and other manufacturers to start from long-term interests and not artificially create price increases, which is not a good thing for the industry. ”
As of press time, NIO-SW was down 6.65% at HK$162.8.