After the chaos and bubble period of the "princes" in 2017-2018, as well as the cooling off period in 2019 and the rise in 2020, the new energy industry in 2021 began to no longer float in PPT, and the continuous landing of models and supporting facilities allowed users to give more trust to this emerging field. Therefore, the brands that have survived the darkest moment, in 2021, the year of rapid growth of the industry, have handed over good results in terms of sales and operation, such as Xiaopeng Automobile, which has just released its financial report.
Sales won the championship, but Xiaopeng's losses are still expanding
On the evening of March 28, Xiaopeng Automobile officially released its 2021 annual financial report. The report shows that in 2021, the company achieved revenue of 20.99 billion yuan, up 259.1% year-on-year, the annual gross profit margin was 12.5%, up 7.9% year-on-year, and the annual R&D investment, sales and general expenses were 4.114 billion and 5.305 billion, respectively. After the double listing, the company's funds were also guaranteed, and as of the end of the fourth quarter of 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile had a cash reserve of 43.54 billion yuan, up 23.3% year-on-year.
The high-growth revenue is inseparable from Xiaopeng's continuous high delivery volume. Last year, Xiaopeng Automobile achieved 98,115 deliveries, ranking first among new car companies. In fact, from 2018 or 0 delivery to 2021 annual delivery champion, Xiaopeng's counterattack has been premeditated for a long time, and finally officially launched the horn of winning the championship in July last year. In that month, Xiaopeng successfully got rid of the third place with 8,040 units of delivery and came to the second position, and then in October, it won the monthly delivery championship with continuous and stable production capacity. On this basis, the morale of Xiaopeng in the fourth quarter was even higher, and the quarterly delivery volume increase of 222% year-on-year allowed Xiaopeng to set an excellent record of 41,751 vehicles in the fourth quarter of 2021, and finally won the championship of annual delivery.
In contrast to the delivery volume is the loss figure on Xiaopeng's financial data, behind the rising delivery, Xiaopeng Automobile's loss in 2021 is still expanding. According to the report, the company's loss in 2021 reached 4.86 billion yuan, up 78% year-on-year, ranking first among the three head car companies in the new forces. When seeing the loss continue, many netizens may begin to have doubts about Xiaopeng, but in fact, this is just the necessary process for him to grow into a towering tree.
Among the current new power brands, especially the three head brands, from the financial report of 2021, in addition to sales, Xiaopeng has almost no one that can be compared, but a careful analysis of the company structure can find that Xiaopeng Automobile's plan is far greater than what we see. Relative to the ideal car to hit the world, and Weilai's focus on high-end brand tone, Xiaopeng's product camp includes compact Sedan P5, B-Class Sedan P7 and SUV model G3i, coupled with the flagship SUV G9 that will be launched in the third quarter of this year, the brand has gradually completed the coverage of multiple models from mid-range to high-end. In addition to a broader number of products, Xiaopeng's model quality is also very competitive, under the goal of "intelligence", the brand has always insisted on creating safer, more reliable, more "smart" cars.
Standing smart, XiaoPeng's blessing is still ahead
In the earnings release conference call, Xiaopeng Motors founder He Xiaopeng once said: "We are excited about the urban NGP that is being developed and rapidly iterated. The goal of the Urban NGP is to achieve superior safety and the best user experience in complex urban driving scenarios. The upcoming launch of the Urban NGP through OTAs will further strengthen our technological leadership and mark another important milestone in our journey to achieve all-scenario intelligent assisted driving for car owners. ”
In fact, urban NGP is the tip of the iceberg of Xiaopeng's intelligent layout. In 2021, the company has released a number of achievements including NGP automatic driving assisted driving system, parking memory parking VPA and the first 800VsiC high-voltage platform in China, which not only covers a number of technologies in the field of intelligent driving, but also includes the hard power of charging for five minutes and lasting 200km, which is the key to achieving a significant increase in delivery volume in 2021 and occupying the top of the sales of new power car companies.
In 2022, Xiaopeng Automobile will continue to adhere to the direction of "intelligence" and form a unique competitiveness with more industry-leading technologies. According to the plan, this year Xiaopeng will launch five major research and development achievements of VPA-L, CNGP, G9, XPILOT4.0, and Robotaxi, and continue to inject new vitality into its products through OTA upgrades of existing technologies, including the Aforementioned NGP, etc.
If the first half of new energy vehicles is the brand to achieve large-scale mass production, then the competition in the second half will inevitably enter a deeper level, of which the role of "intelligence" will be further aggravated. This concept was also recognized by experts in the China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum held on March 25. On the basis of the current L2 level automatic driving has been applied on a large scale commercially, how to go to a higher level in the next intelligent network connection is the key to how many vehicle manufacturers, especially new energy brands, can survive the next round of reshuffle.
The internal volume of the market has allowed most vehicle manufacturers to continue to expand the accumulation of hardware and computing power to improve product competitiveness, but in fact, in the future new energy industry, the biggest determinant of automobile intelligence is software. Software empowerment is the concept that Xiaopeng has always adhered to, and it is also the biggest contributor to the label of its intelligence. As mentioned earlier, in 2022 and beyond, Xiaopeng Motors will further promote the landing of more intelligent driving assistance technologies. In addition to the five major research and development achievements mentioned above, there is also XPILOT4.0 in 2023, which creates more distinctive brand characteristics with hard power and helps Xiaopeng Automobile achieve the journey of all-scenario intelligent assisted driving.
Write at the end:
Under the background of more mature market, continuous enrichment of brand models and increasing profit content, Xiaopeng Automobile's current high R& D expenses and marketing expenses will be further diluted, which is also the company's way to stop losses in the future. As one of the companies with high self-development on the road of intelligence, when the proportion of intelligent networking occupies more and more market competition in the future, Xiaopeng Automobile's current silence will be broken.