(Text/Zhang Jiadong Editor/Lou Bing) On the evening of March 29, BYD released its 2021 annual performance report. According to the financial report, BYD achieved operating income of 216.142 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 38.02% year-on-year.
Among them, the largest contribution is the automobile business revenue, with revenue of 112.489 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 33.93% year-on-year, accounting for 52.04% of the total operating income. For the first time, the operating income of more than 100 billion yuan also made BYD a first-line group in the same camp as Great Wall and Geely and other automobile groups. It is worth mentioning that in the second half of 2021, with the strong play of DM-i series products in the market, BYD achieved revenue of 73.33 billion yuan, nearly double that of the first half of the year.
In addition, the revenue of mobile phone parts, assembly and other products business was about 86.454 billion yuan, an increase of 43.99% year-on-year, and the revenue of rechargeable battery and photovoltaic business was about 16.471 billion yuan, an increase of 36.27% year-on-year.
New energy drives speed-up
In terms of automobile sales, according to BYD's official data, in 2021, BYD's cumulative sales of passenger cars reached 730,000 units, up 75.4% year-on-year. Among them, the sales volume of new energy vehicles accounted for more than 80% of total sales, reaching 593745. Cumulative sales of EV (all-electric) models and DM (hybrid) models reached 320,000 units and 270,000 units, respectively, up 144.9% and 467.6% year-on-year. Under the strong performance, BYD's share in the new energy vehicle market soared to 17.1%, an increase of nearly 8% during the year.
In addition to the soaring sales, the average price of BYD bicycles has also continued to rise, according to previous Wilson data, the average price of BYD passenger cars has exceeded 150,000 yuan. In 2022, BYD will continue to enter the high-end market and launch high-end brands, after news showed that its high-end brand price range is expected to be more than 50-1 million yuan.
In terms of product planning, BYD officially stepped into a new stage of the multi-network strategy in 2021, and from the current sales point of view, Dynasty.com is still the main source of BYD's sales. The marine network, which was officially launched in the second half of last year, was divided into pure electric series named after marine animals and hybrid series products named "warships". In terms of product positioning, it shows greater differentiation from the Dynasty network model.
In the second half of last year, BYD achieved two-way improvement of pure electric and hybrid products with the two-way blessing of the new e-platform 3.0 and DM-i super hybrid technology, and occupied a place in the market. Bydie Dolphin, the first model of Ocean.com and also the birth of e-platform 3.0, sold a total of 29,598 vehicles in the four months from August to December, and successfully exceeded 10,016 units in December, further consolidating BYD's position in the new energy market.
In addition, BYD is also expected to rely on two brands to enter the high-end market in 2022. One is the Denza Automobile Sales Service Co., Ltd., which officially obtained the business license on February 14, according to the plan, the Denza brand will be positioned in the range of 300,000-500,000 yuan, and from 2022 to 2023, it will successively launch 3 new models of pure electric multi-purpose vehicles, including MPV and SUVs. Another new high-end brand of BYD is also in full preparation, after li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's brand and public relations business department, said that it will launch a high-end brand with a price range of more than 500,000-1 million yuan in the second half of 2022, and the new brand will be completely independent of other BYD brands in terms of brand, product, sales service, operation, etc., and the first model will be positioned as a hardcore off-road vehicle.
With the improvement of BYD's high-end brands in Dynasty.com, Ocean.com, Denza and high-end brands, as well as the continuous improvement of product value, BYD's revenue capacity is also expected to go further on the basis of the continuous development of new energy vehicle products.
From the perspective of annual operating income and sales of new energy products, BYD has been sitting in the first place in the field of domestic independent brands, because in terms of product structure, BYD currently holds the "pure electricity" and "hybrid" two major areas of technology leadership and rich accumulation, at the same time, as a small number of independent mastery of the core technology of power batteries and IGBT self-developed manufacturing capabilities of new energy vehicle companies, BYD's advantages in the new energy market are extremely obvious.
Energy-related businesses are improving simultaneously
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the vehicle business, BYD has also maintained rapid growth in other business segments. Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD, once said: "Subsidiaries only earn BYD's money is not called the skill, dismantling the money to earn the market is called the skill, we have a market-oriented 1.0 strategy, that is, the separation of the parts business." Motors, batteries, powertrains, and other businesses are sold in the form of business units. ”
Power battery is undoubtedly BYD's most priority in the new energy era of the business sector, after the blade battery gradually meets its own supply needs, BYD has begun to undertake the role of power battery market suppliers.
In recent years, BYD has successively established 6 Fordy battery companies, including Chongqing Fordi Battery Research Institute, Wuwei Fordi, Yancheng Fordi, Jinan Fordi, Shaoxing Fordi, Chuzhou Fordi. After the completion of the Jinan Fudi Industrial Park, BYD will have 9 battery production bases in the country, and the production capacity is expected to reach 91GWh.
In addition to the FAW and Fordy new energy power battery projects that have been knocked out, in March this year, according to industry insiders, "the fixed-point cooperation between Weilai and Fordi Battery has been finalized before the Spring Festival, using BYD's lithium iron phosphate battery." Rumors also revealed that Xiaomi's car is also within the scope of cooperation with Foday Battery.
In addition to batteries, BYD's semiconductor business segment was also decided to split at an extraordinary shareholders' meeting in 2021. Although ASD Semiconductor has not yet achieved an IPO due to the impact of the market, from the perspective of technical strength, BYD Semiconductor still has the potential to help BYD expand its revenue capabilities.
At the end of 2020, BYD showed off its self-developed new automotive grade product, IGBT 4.0, and the high-density TrenchFS IGBT5.0 technology was mass-produced last year. At present, BYD Semiconductor has a market share of up to 19%, second only to Infineon and ranking first among domestic manufacturers. However, the problem that restricts BYD's split semiconductor business is that in the first half of 2021, BYD Semiconductor's power semiconductor module production capacity was 1.3 million, the output was 1.1052 million, the capacity utilization rate was 85.02%, and the production and marketing rate was 99.88%, which was almost self-sufficient in the market. With the further improvement of BYD's vehicle production capacity and the release of orders in 2022, BYD Semiconductor may still need to give priority to meeting its own product needs at the capacity end before it can supply externally like the battery business.
Profits decline or are mitigated in the future
Contrary to the growth of revenue of the whole line of business, in the 2021 financial report, BYD's net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 3.045 billion yuan, down 28.08% year-on-year; net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 1.255 billion yuan, down 57.53% year-on-year.
Due to the triple pressure of China's economy facing contraction in demand, supply shock and expected weakening, coupled with uncertainties such as the spread of the epidemic, high fluctuations in international commodity prices, and geopolitical conflicts, the soaring prices of raw materials and commodities have become the main factors affecting BYD's profits.
Since 2021, the key metal resources of power batteries, nickel and cobalt, have shown a sharp increase in prices, from the beginning of January 2020 to the middle of January 2022, the increase in battery-grade cobalt has reached 119%; the market quotation for battery-grade lithium carbonate has risen from 50,000 / ton in early 2021 to the current 500,000 / ton, an increase of nearly 10 times year-on-year; the price of nickel has also risen from less than 150,000 yuan / ton to more than 300,000 yuan / ton.
However, the above problems are common problems faced by car companies focusing on new energy products in the current market. For BYD, the continuous investment in technology research and development required for the transformation to intelligent electrification is also the main reason for BYD's profit decline. According to the financial report data, in 2021, BYD's R&D investment was 10.627 billion yuan, an increase of 24.20% year-on-year; the number of R&D personnel was about 40,400, an increase of 31.52% year-on-year.
At the same time, BYD's investment in 2021 is not limited to the technical side, at the beginning of last year, BYD increased the total capital of the automobile industry, BYD automobiles and BYD supply chain by 6.85 billion yuan to help the subsidiary better develop its business and improve the company's core competitiveness.
With BYD's rapid growth in DM-i model sales, since the second half of last year, BYD has also invested in new bases to increase DM-i production capacity, and it is reported that BYD's investment in Hefei in June last year alone reached 6 billion yuan. As of this year, BYD has also realized new factories in Jinan and Zhengzhou, and acquired the Fuzhou plant of Mahayana Automobile, and the hidden production line expansion income has shown BYD's all-round attack.
With the continuous improvement of BYD's market size and the promotion of high-end brand, coupled with the first-mover advantage of independent business segments in the industry, profitability will be greatly improved.
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