The author | Sakuragi
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Financial report This big test, Weilai walked unusually thrilling.
In 2021, NIO delivered 91,429 vehicles, ranking third among the new car-making forces. The annual revenue reached 36.14 billion yuan, an increase of 122.3% year-on-year, the gross profit margin of vehicle sales for the whole year was 20.1%, the research and development expenditure was 4.59 billion yuan, an increase of 84.6% year-on-year; the annual net loss was 4.0169 billion yuan, narrowing by 24.3% year-on-year; as of the end of the year, the cash reserve was 55.4 billion yuan.
From the performance point of view, Weilai's report card for the entire 2021 is biased towards positive, with delivery growth, narrowing of the loss curve, stable gross profit margin, and abundant cash flow, which is a happy ending for everyone.
However, if you look at the most recent fourth quarter of 2021, the problem is still more obvious, and the higher the income, the greater the loss.
In the fourth quarter, NIO's net loss reached 2.14 billion, accounting for half of the annual loss, and surprisingly, the quarter's revenue was 9.9007 billion yuan, an increase of 49.1% year-on-year, exceeding analysts' expectations of 9.72 billion yuan.
Li Bin once said in the media to summarize that the key word of Weilai in 2021 is "preparation", which means that Weilai can ignore the short-term poor performance for a slightly long-term layout.
However, by the first two months of 2022, Weilai sales are still at the bottom of the new forces, and even surpassed by latecomers such as Nezha Automobile, and the Hefei Jianghuai Foundry after the upgrade has no problem in producing old models. A number of WEI car buyers told "New Entropy" that the waiting time for new cars has been significantly shortened. However, in the case of production keeping up, sales have not returned to their former glory.
Of course, at the end of the performance report, Li Bin once again opened the pie model: 2024 began to make a profit, 30,000-50,000 US dollars of mass products are being developed, this year will not increase prices, etc. Promises to rise and fall, so that consumers have unlimited expectations.
However, in 2022, as a big year for the sale of new cars, the challenges that Weilai will face have not decreased, how to deal with new high-end competitors, whether the delivery volume can complete the rebound, and how to improve the comprehensive promotion of business models such as power exchange, are all problems in front of Li Bin.
01 Can accelerating losses outperform the time window?
Weilai's report card seems to have only seen the end, and the deficiencies were fully exposed.
Weilai in the fourth quarter of 2021 really experienced a big test, and this test did not end because of the upgrade of jianghuai foundry, but has continued to this day.
Specifically looking at the financial data, NIO's net loss in the quarter was 2.1434 billion yuan, a loss of 54.4% year-on-year, and an increase of 156.6% from the third quarter, far higher than the 1.51 billion yuan expected by analysts. Revenue in the fourth quarter was RMB9.9007 billion, an increase of 49.1% year-on-year, of which automobile sales revenue was RMB9.2154 billion, an increase of 49.3% year-on-year, and the gross profit margin of automobile sales in the quarter was 20.9%, higher than 17.2% in the same period of 2020 and 18% in the third quarter of last year.
WEILAI delivered 25,034 vehicles in the fourth quarter, an increase of 44.3% year-on-year, and R&D expenditure in the fourth quarter was 1.8285 billion yuan, an increase of 120.5% year-on-year and 53.3% sequentially, mainly due to the increase in labor costs and the incremental cost of design and research and development of new products and technologies.
The explanation of losses by enterprises mainly focuses on two aspects.
The first is the acceleration of the construction of substations. The company made a corresponding explanation in the conference call after the release of the results. The company accelerated the construction of power Source Stations to serve end users in 2021, resulting in increased costs for other revenues. In 2022, the company will continue to deploy facilities such as battery charging, so depreciation and operating expenses are expected to continue to rise.
The second is the acceleration of R&D investment. In 2021, its R&D expenditure was 4.59 billion yuan, an increase of 84.6% year-on-year; in the fourth quarter, its R&D expenditure was 1.83 billion yuan, an increase of 120.5% year-on-year. Li Bin said that in the next few years, WEILAI will continue to increase investment in research and development of key technologies, especially in key areas related to full-stack autonomous driving technology and power batteries.
At the expense of profits, accelerate the construction of the replacement power station, it is obvious that under the model of BaaS car and electricity separation, the price of a car is 7-10 million, which not only greatly reduces the consumer's car purchase threshold, but also further increases the advantage of terminal sales promotion and product price.
But there are also industry insiders commented that the innovation of this "business model", its core is not confident in the product, under the BaaS model, it is easy to cover up the biggest disadvantage of Weilai, that is, lack of battery life, especially for the high-end flagship product of ES8, the endurance is less than 500 kilometers, which has been ashamed of Weilai's main high-end positioning.
On the other hand, in terms of performance guidance, NIO announced that the delivery guidance for the first quarter of this year was 25,000 to 26,000 units, an increase of 24.6% to 29.6% year-on-year, lower than the 27,958 deliveries expected by analysts. NIO expects revenue of 9.63 billion to 9.99 billion yuan in the first quarter, also below analysts' expectations of 10.5 billion yuan. And this number of deliveries, and the fourth quarter of 2021 is basically the same, to some extent, even 0 growth from the previous quarter, it can be seen that Weilai has little confidence in the old models before the new car is listed.
And also can confirm this view, there is also Weilai's rising marketing expenses. Sales, general and administrative expenses for the fourth quarter of 2021 were RMB2,358.2 million (US$370.1 million), an increase of 95.4% from the fourth quarter of 2020 and an increase of 29.2% from the third quarter of 2021. For Weilai, maintaining the activity of the community and marketing expenditure, to some extent, is also to win time for the slow upgrading of its own products.
02 Five models of cars are mass-produced in the same factory, can it be done?
The cyclical changes in the supply chain have tormented the new energy OEMs for almost two years.
At this morning's performance conference, in response to the recent market's more concerned about the soaring price of lithium carbonate led to rising costs, Weilai said that after market research, it believes that the price speculation of lithium carbonate is greater, and there is not much gap between supply and demand. Weilai calls on upstream raw material manufacturers not to make personal speculative price increases from long-term interests, which is not a good thing for the industry.
In fact, from another dimension, the supply chain of new energy vehicles in 2022 may suffer a harsher test. Referring to the smartphone industry, from 2009 to 2013, the penetration rate accelerated, and the excess income of the electronics industry increased significantly for 2 years from 2009 to 2010, and then there was a sharp drawdown in 2011. It was also in that year that smartphone penetration increased from 15% to 20% on the mainland.
According to media estimates, the reason is that in the initial stage of the penetration rate began to accelerate, the capacity reserve will be insufficient in the short term, resulting in a revenue growth rate much greater than the capacity growth rate, but in the following 2 years, most companies will quickly adjust the production capacity construction for the future penetration rate. The phased concentration of production capacity has led to a decline in the gross profit margin of the industry, which in turn has led to a phased break in excess revenue.
And this year's actual situation is a perfect reflection of this logic. First of all, the rising prices of upstream raw materials have raised the cost of the whole vehicle. At the same time, this year is also a big year for the release of new cars, from traditional car manufacturers, to Internet companies to new forces, all players have new cars on the scene this year. The cyclical mismatch of the supply chain has occurred in all aspects of the industrial chain, and how to effectively deploy has become the most important place for major OEMs this year.
Specific to Weilai, the 7-year itch of the Ningde era is the biggest anxiety of Weilai at this stage.
Once upon a time, in the prospectus, Ningde was almost the same as Jianghuai Foundry, which was a cornerstone-like existence for Weilai, but when the time came to 2021, after Ningde Era invested in Nezha Automobile, the fate between the giants was suddenly consumed a lot. Subsequently, there were rumors of unfair treatment of the son and the son. Among the new forces, Xiaopeng Automobile directly overturned the table with Ningde. But for Weilai, it still maintains the apparent tranquility with Ningde through the cooperation of the substation.
However, the new car-making forces are also secretly moving, and the three companies have simultaneously invested in Xinwanda, a second-tier battery factory that previously did OEM work for Apple, which is an obvious sign. But li bin after all to do is a high-end brand, in China, the power battery pattern is very clear situation, high-end players in addition to the Ningde era only left BYD. As a result, the news of Li Bin and Wang Chuanfu's eyebrows has become the most concerned thing for the paparazzi in the technology circle. Some time ago, a photo of WEILAI CEO Li Bin accompanying BYD Chairman Wang Chuanfu to visit THE HEFEI factory on social media caused people to have unlimited reverie. As of press time, there have been media announcements in an unofficial form that Weilai and Xiaomi will use BYD batteries. It also shows Li Bin's desire and anxiety for the battery link.
Looking at the essence through the phenomenon, the most serious problem that plagues Li Bin is the problem of supply chain stability. Community marketing coupled with the hundreds of shopping mall stores with a first-mover advantage has proved that Weilai does not need to improve anything in sales, but the rising cost of raw materials in the upstream and the production and manufacturing problems of battery factories have made Weilai involuntary in many cases.
Of course, the problem of capacity climbing also needs to be solved. According to the latest announcement, NIO new car ET7 will be produced in Jianghuai foundry, while and other existing products ES8, ES6, EC6 collinear production, according to the call of Weilai's statement, the company introduced a new process, the company last year continued to carry out production line transformation to support ET7 mass production. The JAC foundry will also produce ES7, which is currently scheduled to be delivered in the third quarter. The JAC foundry is currently in a slightly complicated situation, because it needs to ensure the production capacity of three existing models, as well as the production of new ET7 cars and preparations for ES7 mass production, so the ET7 production capacity climbing process will be slower than that of ET5 in the future.
To sum up, NIO's Hefei Jianghuai foundry will realize the "grand event" of simultaneous production of five models of NIO ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 and ES7. You know, in the current situation, even the industry-leading Tesla Gigafactory only produces up to three models, and even so, tesla's Shanghai factory workmanship and other issues are still being complained about today.
However, this time, Weilai will achieve mass production of five models in a factory, for the pressure of the company's flexible production line, it can be said that it is unprecedented, whether the situation of suspension of production and upgrading last year will occur again, whether it can continue to maintain stable production efficiency, and whether the mass output products will have defects and other issues, are now the focus of external concern.
After all, WEILAI has not had a new car on the market for a long time.
Of course, Li Bin still exerted his appeal ability in Peking University sociology, and has announced a series of good news, from Weilai will create affordable mass products, to Weilai will not increase prices this year, and then to 2024 can be profitable, etc., almost all the doubts in the hearts of investors have been answered one by one.
Not to mention how chaotic the sinking market is, how complex the competitive landscape is, and whether this year's supply chain crisis will ease in the coming months, not to mention whether the Internet giants that have fallen one after another, and whether traditional car manufacturers will squeeze the space of Weilai. However, at this time of financial reporting, Li Bin must let everyone eat enough.
Starting on March 28, another big test of Weilai began, the new car ET7 was listed, and at the same time, in the next 3 days, the number of deliveries in March should be updated, and the more transparent information squeezed the space for Weilai to draw cakes, and the new energy vehicle market in 2022 will also begin a new round of fierce fighting.