China Fund News reporter Yao Bo
This morning, WEILAI announced its 2021 annual report, with full-year revenue of 36.1 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 122% year-on-year; a net loss of 4.02 billion yuan, a net loss attributable to the mother of 10.57 billion yuan, and an adjusted net loss attributable to the mother of 2.98 billion yuan.
Net profit in 2021 was weaker than analysts expected
Revenue was better than expected
After the results were announced, the stock price of the second listing in Hong Kong in March fell by 7.45% and closed down 4.7% in midday.
As the first new force in China to develop new energy vehicles, as of February 2022, WEIO's cumulative delivery volume reached 183,000 units, ranking first among the new domestic car manufacturing forces. Among them, the delivery volume in 2021 totaled 92,000 units, an increase of 109% year-on-year. However, the delivery capacity of the three new forces has recently been different: Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 12,922 units in January, ideally delivered 12,268 units, and Weilai delivered 9,652 units. Vehicle deliveries in February also roughly continued this pattern, with 6225 units of Xiaopeng, 8414 units of ideal, and 6131 units of Weilai. The total number of deliveries in Weilai is relatively backward.
For the question of whether it is necessary to maintain monthly sales of about 10,000 units, on the conference call, Li Bin, chairman and CEO of Weilai, pointed out that the orders in March this year meet expectations, the demand can be maintained at a reasonable level, and the existing products and oil vehicles at the same price still have a very large competitive advantage compared with the same price.
For the current state of continuous loss, Li Bin pointed out that the strategy of covering sales and management expenses covered by gross profit is currently implemented, and its losses are mainly from long-term research and development and investment in the European market. He expects to break even in the fourth quarter of 2023 and hopes to be profitable in 2024.
Two new cars are on the market this year
Li Bin said that he would not consider raising prices for the time being
Since its inception, NIO has successively released five mass-produced models of ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 and ET5, of which the new ET7 and ET5 are NIO's first sedan products, and are scheduled to start delivery in March and September this year.
Compared with other new car-making forces in China, WEILAI is one of the few high-end car companies in China, and all models (vehicles) of NIO are priced at more than 300,000 yuan. The price of the new car ET7 up to 420,000 has been benchmarked against foreign luxury brands, and the price of the ET5 that went on sale in September is relatively close to the people, but it is also higher than the price of Tesla's current hot Model 3 standard model of less than 300,000 yuan.
Affected by the upstream battery industry, a number of new energy vehicles have recently begun to raise prices. Li Bin pointed out that there is no current idea of price increases, but combined with smart hardware upgrades and changes in battery costs in the future, the pricing policy will be adjusted according to market conditions. The full-year gross margin target is still set at 18-20%.
As a new energy vehicle force, NIO is one of the few car companies that develop the power exchange business, and through the rapid expansion of the energy replenishment network and the battery rental service based on the separation of vehicle and electricity, NIO has built a "rechargeable, replaceable and upgradable" energy service system. Li Bin said that now there will be about 30,000 times a day to change electricity, the replacement power station will be laid out one to two years in advance, and a replacement power station can serve about 1,000 units.
Competition is intensifying
Hillhouse cut more than half of its positions in the fourth quarter
As a high-end positioning electric vehicle, WEILAI is facing technological upgrading and increasingly fierce competition pressure. Some analysts believe that Weilai's pricing determines that the technology must be ahead of other domestic manufacturers, similar brands are also constantly exerting efforts, Tesla domestic price fell again and again, plus the German luxury brand of pure electric platform is also on the road, now the competition will only become more and more fierce.
Hillhouse Capital, one of China's most well-known asset management institutions, released its latest US stock holding report, showing that Hillhouse significantly increased its holdings in Ideal Automobile in the fourth quarter of last year, from 1.08 million ADS at the end of September last year to 5.007 million at the end of December, Ideal Automobile not only entered the list of top ten heavy stocks held by Hillhouse U.S. stocks for the first time, but also ranked third in the list of stocks. Nio's U.S. stocks were cut, and Hillhouse's holdings in it fell from 859,000 ADS to 350,000.
Judging from the performance of the three small generals of new energy vehicles in the United States stock market, the recent decline channel, this year Weilai fell 30%, better than Xiaopeng Automobile's 42% decline, but not as good as the ideal car fell 13% performance.
Edit: Joey