Recently, a wave of layoffs by large factories has occupied the headlines of major websites, and has soon been removed from the hot search, including many large factories such as Ali, Tencent, and JD.com. People can't help but sigh that this year's environment seems to be even more difficult than last year.
So today's young people are full of only two words: make money.
It is not only us who want to "make money", but also Li Bin, CEO of Weilai.
In the 2021Q4 earnings conference call that Weilai just ended, in just two hours, it actually mentioned more than forty gross profit margins, thirty prices, thirty costs and more than a dozen price increases, and the "money content" was extremely high!
And when we don't talk about money, we talk about how to make money.
Although the financial report talks about these things is not reprehensible, but Weilai in 2020 is not like this, then the star sea and now why sentence two people? What does Weilai's 2021 financial report say?
01. What does the earnings report say?
Before talking about Li Bin and Weilai, let's first take a look at the financial highlights of Weilai 2021:
The new car delivered 91,429 units in the whole year, compared with 43,728 units in the previous year, which directly doubled;
The annual revenue was 36.14 billion yuan, an increase of 122.3% year-on-year, and the increase was basically the same as that of new car deliveries;
The gross profit margin of the whole year was 20.1%, which was significantly higher than the previous year's 11.5%;
The net loss for the whole year was 4.02 billion yuan, from selling four units to losing one to selling ten units with a loss;
The total investment in R&D nearly doubled to 4.59 billion yuan in the whole year, and began to increase investment in full-stack autonomous driving and other core technology areas;
Sales and management expenses for the full year were RMB6.9 billion, up 74.9% year-on-year. Although the increase is lower than the increase in sales, it means that NIO's spending is shrinking;
Cash reserves of 55.4 billion yuan, an increase of nearly 10 billion yuan compared with the beginning of the year, Weilai may not really go out of business.
02. Li Bin who wants to earn money
At the earnings report, Li Bin said this:
"We have made Q4 2023 our goal of breaking even and hope to be profitable in 2024."
Moreover, 2022 is also defined as a year of full acceleration for NIO.
Figure poor dagger see.
Two years ago, when Weilai only had 2.4 billion yuan in cash left on its account and could not last half a year with saving flowers, almost no one believed that Weilai could get to where it is today.
One of the underpinnings that supported Li Bin to say this sentence was the key information point in the financial report: a gross profit margin of 20.1%.
Perhaps for Internet companies, 50% or even 100% gross profit margin is not uncommon. But for manufacturing, especially automobile manufacturing, 20% is already the life and death line of a car company.
In contrast, Tesla, which has achieved profitability, has a gross profit margin of 30.5%;
The gross profit margin disclosed by BYD in the 2021 semi-annual report is only 19.53%.
The annual gross profit margin can reach 20%, which means that NIO already has a basic healthy hematopoietic capacity, which is still on the basis of the new car delivered on the second-generation platform.
The data such as revenue growth and expenditure reduction in the financial report also confirm this from the side.
In order to achieve this gross profit margin, WEILAI did two things:
First, it is to develop a ternary iron lithium battery pack with 75 kWh electricity.
We know that the cost of lithium iron phosphate batteries is almost half that of ternary lithium batteries.
In this rough calculation, although the power is 5 degrees more, the overall cost can be reduced by several thousand yuan, and several small goals can be saved a year. Reflected in the gross profit margin, that is, 1-2 percentage points.
Second, it is to use the advantage of scale to share the cost.
In October last year, NIO upgraded its production line and pushed its annual production capacity from 120,000 units per year to 240,000 units per year, which stopped production for more than half a month.
Last year's sales volume of Weilai was 91429 units. Remove the impact of the Spring Festival holiday and the upgrading of production lines, and almost use the production capacity to a full time.
As for the cost of apportionment, Li Bin's original words are "a relatively large positive impact on the improvement of gross profit".
However, the money saved through technological upgrading was instantly returned to its original shape by a wave of raw material price increases.
To find out why the price increases, please poke:
"Oil prices have risen sharply, but can you make money by buying electric vehicles?" Take you to understand why new energy is following the trend and rising prices! 》
In view of the fact that this wave of price increases is indeed strange, Li Bin also expressed his dissatisfaction in a cryptic way.
"Recently, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology has also participated in the coordination of the price mechanism, and we feel that the price increase of lithium carbonate is more speculative than the change in supply and demand." It is hoped that upstream manufacturers can start from long-term interests and not artificially create price increases. ”
Precisely because of the uncertainty of raw material prices, Li Bin gave an open answer at the end of the conference call, retaining the possibility of following the market and raw material prices in the future.
Li Bin wants to make money.
03. Niolai, who is not in a hurry to make money
@ NetEase News Auto Channel counted the increase in new energy vehicles, as of March 24, a total of 12 brands, more than 30 models have adopted a price increase strategy.
Simply put, it is four words: can't hold back.
If Weilai really wants to make money, in fact, it only needs to take advantage of this wave of price increases and officially announce price increases with everyone. A car only needs to rise by 20,000 yuan, which is a gross profit margin of 5%!
But Weilai did not.
Not only is there no price increase, Weilai is still burning money like crazy:
Service alone, 2021Q4's Weilai because of the large-scale construction of charging and replacing power replenishment system, the gross profit margin is only a pitiful negative thirty percent.
If you count the net profit, it is estimated that the loss is even more.
And in 2022, WEILAI will further lay 1,300 substations, 6,000 supercharge piles and 10,000 destination charging piles, whether it is operating costs or depreciation costs, it will be a huge expense.
And Shen Fei, vice president of energy management of WEILAI, and the small partners in his team are also busy day by day.
You know, the busier the replenishment team, the faster the money will be spent. ——In order to improve the service level of Weilai, the short-term profit and loss has become unimportant.
On the other hand, by the end of 2021, the total number of R&D personnel in NIO is 4809, accounting for about 1/3 of the total number of employees, an increase of 95.9% compared with last year, and the expansion has nearly doubled.
Nio's new goal is to expand the R&D team to 9,000 people by the end of 2022. That's the equivalent of nearly doubling the 2021 base!
With that, R&D investment will more than double. According to the level of 4.59 billion yuan, WEILAI's research and development budget this year is at least 9 billion yuan, which is comparable to the size of BYD, the second place in 2020.
In the words of Li Bin, "Investment in research and development of core technologies can not only enhance the sustainable competitiveness of our technologies and products, but also improve the level of gross profit and profitability in the long run." ”
"And as deliveries increase and service efficiency increases, service-related negative gross margins such as energy and maintenance will gradually improve, and new models such as BaaS, NIO Life, ADaaS will also bring other revenue."
Weilai doesn't really want to make money, it's just that the time has not yet come.
04. Thick and thin
Interestingly, the gross profit margin target set by Li Bin for 2022 is 18-20%, which is not as good as 2021.
On the surface, Weilai seems to have not made money, but this year's Weilai is like a set of combination punches, and has completely formed its own system. It is only a matter of time before sales double and gross margins increase.
Let's start with the product.
After expanding production capacity last year, this year's NIO will deliver ET7, ET5 and ES7 in March, September and the third quarter respectively – medium and large five-seat SUVs, all of which are second-generation platform models with relatively strong product strength.
The earliest delivery of ET7, there are currently more than 15,000 orders waiting to be delivered. The president has several friends who were supposed to see the BBA and have already subscribed to ET7.
As for the old ES8, ES6 and EC6, WEILAI also plans to upgrade its intelligent hardware this year, and will also open up the aftermarket upgrade service to old car owners - it is indeed a user enterprise.
Blind guess a wave, this time will still be the same as the previous 70 degree battery upgrade 100 degrees, can be exchanged for points for new hardware.
With the demand for the product, the pressure is passed to the front end, which is the production department.
In order to deliver the six vehicles on time, NIO will increase the production capacity of its entire production line to 60JPH (about 250,000 units per year) in the next year, and the second plant, which mainly produces ET5, will also start operations in the third quarter.
The pressure is transmitted to the back end, that is, sales and after-sales.
In the face of a large influx of new car owners, NIO will add 100 sales stores and more than 50 service centers, an increase of about 1/4.
With sales, Weilai still lacks some domestic and foreign influence.
Therefore, this year, WEILAI will promote its products and system-wide services to Europe, officially going to Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark.
In addition, the Clean Parks ecological co-construction plan has been implemented in six national parks and nature reserves around the world, promoting the use of electric vehicles and clean energy in nature reserves to protect the environment.
Finally, there is a "new brand for the mass market", it is said that the core team has been built, the strategic direction and development strategy have been clarified, and the first batch of products has entered the key research and development stage.
As for whether the competitor of this new brand is Tesla's rumored Model 2, or Volkswagen Toyota...
A year later, we'll see.
05. Write at the end
After listening to Weilai's financial report, the commune's friends began to discuss, what would be If Weilai in recent years could be summarized in one word?
I didn't think about it, and blurted out - "bamboo shoots".
There is a bamboo forest next to the pond of my grandmother's house, and when I was a child, I would always dig bamboo shoots here with my cousin to eat.
Later, my grandmother told me that bamboo was the most interesting plant she had ever seen in her life, growing a few centimeters in 3 or 4 years, and once it was out of the ground, it only took a few weeks to grow a few meters high. What's even more interesting is that how thick the bamboo can grow depends on the thickness of the bamboo shoot when it is still a bamboo shoot.
I think it is most appropriate to use "bamboo shoots" to describe The Weilai of these years.
At this moment, Weilai is just in the moment of accumulating good energy and waiting to break through the ground.