Text / Sansheng
Producer / Node Finance
Unconsciously, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles has exceeded 30%, and more and more new energy vehicle brands have emerged in the market. Among them, the one with the strongest sales growth in recent months should belong to Nezha Automobile. From November last year to January this year, Nezha Automobile stepped on the "Hot Wheel" and sold more than 10,000 for three consecutive months, ranking among the top three sales of new car-making forces.
Entering February, the ideal delivery volume of 8414 vehicles ranked first, while the delivery volume of Nezha Cars reached 7117 vehicles, ranking second. In the first two months of this year, Nezha's cumulative delivery volume increased by 332% year-on-year, and according to this momentum, Nezha may win the sales championship in the near future, and the situation of the three strong forces of ideal, Weilai and Xiaopeng is being broken by Nezha.
However, relying on the "countryside encircling the city" to counterattack Nezha Automobile, there is still a gap between its comprehensive strength and "Wei Xiaoli". Behind the frequent rumors of its listing in Hong Kong, what are the weaknesses of this fast-rising smart car "popular fried chicken"?
Nezha said, "My life is up to me", and who will grasp the "fate" of Nezha's car?
/ 01 /
Sales entered the top three
What does the Hot Wheel rely on to accelerate?
Throughout 2021, the sales volume of Nezha Automobile totaled 69,674 units, an increase of 361.7% over 2020, ranking first among mainstream car-making new power brands. In the first two months of this year, the momentum of high growth continued.
So, let's first look at how Nezha's "counterattack" came about.
First of all, this should mention the completely different market positioning of Nezha Automobile and "Wei Xiaoli", that is, the so-called "rural encirclement of the city". As a new energy vehicle manufacturer that started late, Nezha Automobile chose a path with the least resistance, avoided the fierce competition of high-end cars, and gradually marched from the sinking market to the middle and high-end.
Image source: Autohome
"Don't make toys for the rich, just make cars that the people can afford." This slogan of Nezha, translated as cheap, sex price ratio is high, so there is also a title of "millet in the smart car industry".
How to put the performance down for the time being, Nezha car is indeed cheap enough, such as its earliest NO.1 model, and the current most sold V model, the price range is 60,000 to 130,000 yuan. Even if the price of the U-car has increased, it has not exceeded 200,000 yuan. It can be said that it is basically outside the territory of "Wei Xiaoli".
Secondly, although Nezha Car is inferior to its predecessors such as "Wei Xiaoli" in terms of scientific and technological content, the car experience has not been spat on, but it is not useless, otherwise there will not be so many consumers willing to pay for it.
In addition to the configuration of the large screen, speakers, seats and other hardware can be a fight with the "Wei Xiaoli", Nezha U and Nezha V Pro and other models are also equipped with a full set of L2 level assisted driving system, the latter positioning is the new force A class pure electric SUV.
Although in the eyes of many industry insiders, the "smart" degree of Nezha automobile is still debatable, in the eyes of consumers, Nezha does have the appearance of smart cars, which can meet the needs of a considerable number of mass consumers in smart cars.
Third, Nezha Car starts from the B-end and then penetrates into the C-end, which has a certain guarantee for its sales.
Nezha's first model, no.1, is mainly facing the B-end market, and before the car was listed, it received a strategic purchase agreement for 50,000 vehicles from platforms such as Didi Chuxing. In addition, Tongxiang, Zhejiang, Yichun, Jiangxi, and Nanning, Guangxi, have invested heavily in Nezha, and in terms of automobile procurement, from official vehicles to group purchases of enterprises and institutions, they are indispensable to take care of.
Not only that, at present, in at least 22 government procurements in more than ten provinces and the State Administration of Taxation, Nezha Automobile has been shortlisted.
Finally, the rapid rise of Nezha Automobile is also related to the company's sparing efforts and even its marketing. For example, in the Wu Moufan incident, Nezha Automobile was criticized for rubbing hot spots; when Facebook changed its name to Meta, Zhou Hongyi, one of Nezha's investors, said that this was a tribute to Nezha (Neta) and aroused network attention.
Compared with the decent marketing of many smart car brands, as a latecomer, the road of Nezha Car is indeed a bit "wild".
In short, the sales of Nezha cars have rushed up. But behind the appearance of wind and fire, its anti-phagocytic effect is also threatening the future of Nezha's car. For example, "rural encirclement of the city" can quickly increase sales, but once the low-end brand positioning is formed, it may be difficult to increase the brand premium in the future. Xiaomi's continuous struggle from low to high can be seen, and the car is more sensitive to the brand than the mobile phone, which is undoubtedly a major challenge for Nezha to advance in the future.
Of course, for the current intelligent automotive industry, technology is still the core competitiveness, and the ability to make money is also a hard lever. If Nezha is "my fate is up to me", then how much of a real ability does it have?
/ 02 /
Nezha's real ability, how many dry goods?
In July last year, there was a hot topic in the smart car circle: "Can 150,000 people build smart cars?" ”
At that time, He Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng Automobile, said on a forum, "In the field of intelligence (automobile), if there is no 150,000, it is impossible to really do a good job of intelligence." Shen Hui, founder of WM Motor, also said: "Less than 100,000 can only be called electric vehicles, not intelligent electric vehicles."
In Nezha's view, he was obviously targeted, and Zhou Hongyi, who had just invested in Nezha at that time, personally went down to the scene: "They built high-priced smart cars, they want to be the second car for consumers, but I am not, I want to build a national intelligent car." ”
The controversy between the two sides mainly revolves around the word "smart". In the view of He Xiaopeng and Shen Hui, the battery cost of smart cars remains high, and the user's demand for intelligent technology is rising, and the cost of this aspect will not drop significantly in the short term, and even the cost of high-level automatic assisted driving will increase.
In this regard, Zhou Hongyi's response is more focused on the imagination under the slogan of "equal rights in science and technology", that is, "let everyone enjoy the improvement and improvement of life experience brought by science and technology".
In fact, the argument between the two sides is not on the same channel at all. One is talking about technology and cost, and the other is talking about equal rights and talking about the future, all of which are playing to their strengths and avoiding weaknesses. Zhou Hongyi, who is the "old cannon" of the Internet, chose this angle, to some extent, because there is indeed a certain gap between Nezha and the new car-making forces such as "Wei Xiaoli".
From the perspective of shareholder background, almost every new car-making force has an Internet giant platform behind it, Tencent behind Weilai, Ali behind Xiaopeng, Meituan behind the ideal, and Baidu behind Weima. In contrast, the 360 entry time behind Nezha car is a bit late.
From the perspective of the main models of Nezha Automobile, in 2021, the sales of Nezha V with a price range of 60,000-120,000 will reach 49,646 vehicles, accounting for more than 70% of the overall sales. This model mainly promotes full-touch 14.6-inch large screen + AI intelligent voice interaction, such a selling point has been seen in many traditional cars, if you compete with other smart car competitors, it is probably only cheap this advantage.
Of course, at present, Nezha also has its own high-end model Nezha S, which is said to be listed in the fourth quarter of 2022, known as a self-developed "Shanhai platform", which can achieve L4 level automatic driving in some road conditions with the assistance of Huawei's MDC computing platform.
Regardless of this level of models, the current domestic policies and regulations do not yet support the road, only from the perspective of the "Shanhai platform", although the idea is very good, but it still needs time and capital to improve this platform. In terms of actual projects, there are not many cooperation between Nezha and 360 in smart cars, such as "intelligent driving, in-vehicle operating system, and drive system".
After all, 360 is only a leader in network security, and there is not much technology accumulation in the money-burning track of smart cars.
On the other hand, perhaps all kinds of fresh technical terms can fool people, but the real money and silver investment in research and development is more intuitive, because there is not enough capital investment, and smart cars will certainly not be able to play.
According to the financial data disclosed by 360, for the whole year of 2020, Nezha's revenue was 1.297 billion yuan and a net loss of 1.321 billion yuan; in the first half of 2021, the revenue was 1.632 billion yuan and a net loss of 693 million yuan.
In contrast, in the first half of 2021, Weilai's revenue reached 16.432 billion yuan, almost ten times that of Nezha. In terms of R&D investment, Weilai's R&D investment in 2020 is close to 2.5 billion yuan, almost twice the total revenue of Nezha, and the R&D investment in 2021 is more than 5 billion yuan.
Not only Weilai, Xiaopeng, ideal and other new car-making forces have spared no effort in burning money, and the purpose is very simple, that is, to maintain competitiveness in core technology.
Although the unlisted Nezha Automobile has continuous financing, and just completed a new round of financing of 2 billion yuan in February this year, it still cannot be compared with "Wei Xiaoli" in research and development investment, and the strength gap still exists.
As Weilai founder Li Bin said, "The capital threshold that needs to be reserved for car manufacturing, a few years ago I said 20 billion, and now there is no 40 billion that may not be able to do it."
Nezha Automobile wants to go further, and listing has become the only way.
/ 03 /
Valuations have multiplied tenfold, and time is not waiting for anyone
There is a lot of news about the listing of Nezha Automobile brand main body United Automobile in Hong Kong, and the company's attitude towards this is not to comment. In fact, as early as July 2020, Nezha had said that he planned to land on the science and technology innovation board in 2021, but then he died without a problem.
Although it is still undecided when to list, the pace of Nezha financing has been very compact.
In October 2021, Nezha officially announced the completion of the D1 round of financing of 4 billion yuan, led by 360 Group to invest 2 billion yuan, followed by a number of well-known investment institutions. Immediately after November, lithium battery giant CATL and Nezha formally signed a strategic agreement to participate in the D2 round of financing. On February 21 this year, Nezha completed another round of financing of more than 2 billion yuan, including CRRC Fund and Shenzhen Venture Capital.
Image source: Sky Eye Check
At that time, it was reported that after the completion of the D round of financing, the valuation of Nezha exceeded 25 billion yuan, and at present, Nezha has opened a Pre-IPO round of financing with an estimated scale of about 3 billion yuan, with a target valuation of about 45 billion yuan. In short, Nezha's financing is round after round, and the listing seems to be not far away.
Daniel Zhang, the founder of Nezha, once said that before 360 entered the market, many investors had the impression of Nezha Automobile as "weak product, thin foundation, and lack of Internet genes." At the end of 2020, when the C round of financing was completed, its valuation was only 3.5 billion yuan, and the face of the capital was indeed not good-looking.
Overall, as of now, the total amount of Nezha's 9 rounds of financing is about 13 billion yuan, which is not outstanding, and the same as the second echelon of WM Motors in 2020 alone has a D round of financing of 10 billion.
However, from February 2020 to February this year, the valuation of Nezha Automobile has increased by more than ten times in two years, and it has indeed ushered in an explosive period.
However, although the sales volume of Nezha Automobile has counterattacked, there is still a gap between the revenue level and comprehensive strength and "Wei Xiaoli".
As of the close of trading on March 30, NIO's market value was about HK$300 billion, the ideal market value was about HK$220 billion, and Xiaopeng's market value was about HK$200 billion, while according to the current news of Nezha's Pre-IPO round of financing, its valuation of 45 billion yuan was still far behind.
Overall, Nezha Automobile has successfully attracted the attention of various capitals by relying on soaring sales volume, and there is still room for further increase in valuation. However, for Nezha, who has already stood on the threshold of listing, the real test may still be ahead.
Once listed, the brand problems, marketing problems and quality problems mentioned above may be magnified in the fermentation of the capital market. With the global inflation, the cost of building a car is increasing, and a few days ago, Nezha just announced a price increase, which may become the norm in the coming period. For Nezha Automobile, which wins at a low price and the main customers are more sensitive to price, the continuous price increase is not a good phenomenon.
More importantly, the future of the intelligent car track needs the accumulation of technology and the large investment of capital, and Nezha still has a long way to go.
In front of and behind it, WM, Skyrim, Singularity, etc. have all come out of the news of the IPO, and the time is not waiting for anyone.
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