On March 30, the A-share vehicle sector ushered in a long-lost strong rise, of which Beiqi Blue Valley rose by 7.67%, Great Wall, Geely rose nearly 5%, and car companies such as Changan and BYD also followed suit.
"I feel like I haven't seen such a big increase in the auto sector in a long time, is the confidence of the market finally coming back?" Some investors can't help but ask.
In fact, what has allowed capital to regain confidence and sweep away the previous haze is undoubtedly the bright financial reports handed over by several leading Chinese car companies recently.
In 2021, plagued by a variety of complex factors such as lack of cores and rising raw material prices, a number of listed car companies have demonstrated the strong resilience of Chinese brands in the face of crisis.
Below, we try to take a good look at the various performances and "intentions" of Geely, Great Wall and BYD through the 2021 financial reports of the three independent leaders of Geely, Great Wall and BYD.
Sell more
Don't necessarily earn more?
Last year, although Geely Automobile won the top spot in China with 1.328 million units, its 87.697 billion yuan of auto business revenue was less than that of Its 40,000-unit Great Wall Motors.
Great Wall Motor sold a total of 1.28 million vehicles last year, and the total revenue of the automobile business was 121.307 billion yuan; moreover, its net profit of 6.726 billion yuan was also higher than Geely's 4.353 billion yuan and BYD's 3.045 billion yuan.
However, the gross profit margin of Great Wall Motor in the automobile business is not high, at 14.89%, while Geely and BYD are 17.14% and 17.39% respectively.
Compared with Geely and Great Wall, two Chinese brands that have already entered the "million club", BYD's performance of 720,000 vehicles last year seems to be slightly inferior. However, its bicycle price of 155,900 yuan is obviously called Geely and the Great Wall.
According to the data, in 2021, the price of Great Wall Motors' bicycles will be 94,700 yuan, while Geely's will be 89,000 yuan.
BYD's bicycle price has now broken through the "100,000 ceiling" of Chinese brands, and the reason behind it is undoubtedly the hot sales of high-end new energy models such as Han EV, Song PLUS DM-i, Tang DM-i and other DM-i super hybrid models.
With the launch of BYD's high-end brand this year and the further contraction of fuel vehicle sales, it is believed that BYD's bicycle price and profit this year will be further improved.
Today, BYD's new energy vehicle sales have accounted for as much as 78%, compared with Geely's 6.19% and Great Wall Motor's 10.62%, which has a significant lead.
Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, boldly predicted at the performance conference that the penetration rate of domestic new energy vehicles this year will exceed 35%, and may reach 40%. At the same time, BYD's overall sales this year are expected to reach 2 million vehicles, becoming the top Chinese brand sales.
In fact, 2022 is also a strong year for the Great Wall and Geely's new car offensive.
For example, Great Wall's Euler will bring three new cars this year, Lightning Cat, Ballet Cat and Punk Cat, and the first model of The Salon will also be launched, believing that great Wall's sales of new energy vehicles this year will be further improved; and Geely will also accelerate the expansion of its new energy vehicle sales with the launch of the Xingyue L Raytheon Hi.X oil-electric hybrid version and the new car in Extreme Kr.
Earn more at the same time
Still want to learn to "manage money"?
In the face of this crisis-ridden environment, more and more car companies are aware of the principle of "having grain in their hands and not panicking in their hearts". In terms of cash flow, Geely, Great Wall and BYD have seen significant growth in 2021.
Among them, Great Wall Motor's net cash flow surged by 581.61% year-on-year compared with 2020, which is the most eye-catching.
According to the financial report, Great Wall Motor's net cash flow in 2021 is 35.316 billion yuan, plus 27.908 billion yuan of cash and cash equivalents, in other words, Great Wall Motors now has a cash flow of 63,224 billion yuan, and the bullet is very sufficient.
Compared with the Great Wall, BYD is more "rich and powerful". Its operating net cash flow has reached 65.47 billion yuan, and cash and cash equivalents have also reached 49.82 billion yuan, and the cash flow of nearly 100 billion yuan can be said to make BYD more comfortable to cope with the next challenges.
Geely's cash flow in 2021 also reached its all-time high, with cash and cash equivalents of $28.014 billion and operating cash flow of $15.38 billion. Compared with the other two, although the ammunition reserves are slightly insufficient, fortunately, Geely's diversified income will continue to replenish it.
Geely's financial report shows that in 2021, Geely Automobile's other revenues such as technical services and licensing profits continued to grow, and has achieved revenue of 4.5 billion yuan, an increase of 245.3% year-on-year. Among them, the licensing revenue was 1.275 billion, an increase of 125% year-on-year, which has become a new profit growth point of Geely, which is a proper net profit.
On the other hand, Great Wall Motors plans to spend no more than RMB12.4 billion (basically equal to two years' net profit) to purchase wealth management products to improve the efficiency of the use of funds. In the view of Kung Fu Automobile, Great Wall Motors' move is undoubtedly to make the income channels more diversified and create a healthier cash flow.
At the 2021 performance briefing of Great Wall Motor, Chairman Wei Jianjun repeatedly stressed that the company will give priority to ensuring profits in the future, and market share is not so important.
When expansion is in progress
What will we win in the future?
In the financial reports of these three companies, Kung Fu Automobile also found a similarity, that is, the management expenses of all three companies have soared. This also means that the three leading car companies have spent a lot of effort to recruit in 2021.
Let's start with BYD.
According to the financial report, BYD's total assets increased by 94.763 billion yuan over last year, up 47.14% year-on-year, indicating that the company is in the process of rapid expansion.
This can be confirmed by the crazy increase in the number of EMPLOYEES at BYD last year. BYD has more than 40,000 R&D personnel in 2021, an increase of 10,000 over 2020, while its total staff has increased from 224,000 in 2020 to nearly 290,000 at the end of 2021.
The surge in the number of employees has also led to a sharp increase in BYD's overhead expenses. In 2012, BYD's labor costs alone reached 5.85 billion yuan, 1 billion yuan more than in 2020.
Great Wall Motor's management expenses last year also reached 4.043 billion yuan, an increase of 58.39% year-on-year, exceeding the sales and research and development expenses.
In 2021, the number of employees of Great Wall Motors also soared from 63,174 in 2020 to 77,934. Among them, the number of production, sales, technology and administrative personnel expansion is relatively large, indicating that Great Wall Motors is also in a new round of expansion.
On the other hand, Great Wall Motors' R&D investment last year has also increased. According to the data, Great Wall Motor invested a total of 9.07 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 76.1% year-on-year.
It is worth mentioning that BYD's R&D investment in 2021 is as high as 10.627 billion yuan, of which the capitalization investment is 2.636 billion yuan, accounting for 24.8% of the total R&D investment.
In contrast, the proportion of Great Wall Motor's R&D investment capitalization is 63.95%. In other words, if BYD appropriately increases the proportion of capitalized R&D investment, BYD's profit will also be further improved. Nowadays, we see byBYD's phenomenon of "increasing revenue without increasing profits", and the reason behind this is actually this.
Geely's total R&D investment in 2021 was 5.518 billion yuan, an increase of 48% year-on-year. At the same time, the number of employees increased by about 6,000, from 38,000 in 2020 to 44,000 in 2021.
Although geely's employee scale has been surpassed by the Great Wall in terms of the growth of the number of employees, it has not slowed down the pace of investment in research and development.
According to Geely's financial report, the company's capital expenditure pre-sale in 2022 (excluding acquisitions through business mergers) was approximately $9.2 billion, mainly for the development of new car platforms and models, as well as the expansion and upgrading of existing plant production facilities.
In fact, Geely's previous investment in intelligence and new energy has also been produced this year, such as new cars in Extreme Kr and Raytheon Power, which will be put on the market this year and next year.
In general, whether it is BYD, or the Great Wall, Geely, in 2021, which is full of various uncertainties, they are constantly cultivating their internal strength and accumulating the momentum of the outbreak.
Kung Fu shoots
Through the financial reports of BYD, Great Wall and Geely, we have glimpsed the strong sense of crisis of Chinese brand leaders in the period of change.
Sometimes, "squatting down is to jump higher". And in 2022, we will undoubtedly see who can jump higher and jump farther.