In the camp of independent brands, the 2021 financial report data of the Great Wall can be said to be a rare bright color.
On March 30, Great Wall Motor announced its 2021 financial report. According to the financial report data, Great Wall Motor's operating income in 2021 totaled 136.4 billion yuan, an increase of 32.04% year-on-year; and the net profit in 2021 totaled 6.725 billion yuan, an increase of 25.41% year-on-year.
The rise in performance is not unrelated to the frequent push of new and the acceleration of overseas expansion of this independent car company. When the direction of the automobile market is reversed, the torrent of the era of electrification and intelligent change will involve every car company, and Great Wall Motors, which is a traditional automobile manufacturer, has also been wrapped up in the move forward.
Last year, Great Wall Motors put forward the 2025 strategic goal, and in the future, based on the positioning of "global layout", "large investment in research and development", "great change of enterprises" and "big operation of users", it will continue to promote comprehensive and thorough innovation and change, and transform into a global intelligent technology company. In its latest planning, the car company has set its sights on the global market and intelligence.
In 2021, 8 new cars will increase the average price of bicycles
Great Wall Motors achieved double growth in revenue and profit in 2021, compared with BYD and Geely Automobile, which are also the leading domestic car brands, and have increased revenue without increasing profits.
As for the reasons for the increase in revenue, Great Wall Motor's explanation in the financial report is that the increase in sales volume and brand upwards in the reporting period have led to an increase in bicycle revenue.
In the past year, Great Wall Motors has frequently introduced new actions in markets such as SUVs and high-end brands. According to statistics, Great Wall Motors launched 8 new cars last year, such as Haval Divine Beast, Haval Red Rabbit, Haval First Love, Wei brand latte DHT, Anda Good Cat GT, covering low-end, high-end positioning and new energy models.
In terms of sales data, in the whole year of 2021, Great Wall Motor's cumulative sales exceeded 1.28 million units, an increase of 14.79% year-on-year. Broken down by brand, Haval sold 770,000 units in 2021, up 2.6% year-on-year; Euler sold 135,000 units, up 140% year-on-year; and pickup truck sales of 233,000 units, up 3.6% year-on-year. Last year, the official sales of the high-end off-road tank brand independent from Wei brand were 85,000 units, accounting for more than 50% of the market share of hardcore off-road vehicles. Weipai, which is positioned at the high end, is the only part of the decline, with cumulative sales of 58,363 vehicles in the whole year, down 25.65% year-on-year.
Despite the decline of Weipai, the upward trend of Great Wall Motor's bicycle prices has not been stopped. The data shows that the average selling price of Great Wall bicycles in 2021 is 106,000 yuan, an increase of 15.02% year-on-year.
In the new year, Great Wall Motors will continue its crazy new rhythm. According to statistics, in addition to the tank 500 and other models that have been launched at the beginning of the year, Great Wall Motors will also launch 8 new cars in 2022, such as Haval Cool Dog, Wei Brand Dream, Euler Lightning Cat, Tank 700, and King Kong Gun.
Expansion in overseas markets has accelerated
In Great Wall Motor's 2021 financial report, overseas business is a major highlight.
According to the data, in 2021, Great Wall Motor's cumulative sales in overseas markets reached 139,900 units, an increase of 102.98% year-on-year. Among them, the cumulative export of pickup truck models in the whole year was 46,319 units, an increase of 146.23% year-on-year, and the cumulative export of SUV models was 92,895 units, an increase of 91.79% year-on-year.
According to the official introduction, in order to promote the growth of overseas markets, last year, Great Wall Motors' third-generation Haval H6, Haval JOLION, Great Wall Gun and other models achieved overseas listing.
In addition, the pace of Great Wall Motor's global production layout is also accelerating. In 2021, it has established full-process vehicle production bases in Thailand, Brazil and other places, of which the Rayong plant in Thailand is Great Wall Motor's second overseas full-process vehicle manufacturing plant, and the plant has successfully mass-produced Haval H6 HEV and Haval JOLION HEV models.
In the field of marketing, Great Wall Motors said that by the end of 2021, the company has nearly 6,000 sales outlets of various types and nearly 700 overseas sales channels worldwide, covering more than 60 countries around the world, and the cumulative overseas sales have exceeded 900,000 vehicles.
According to the financial report, Great Wall Motor's overseas operating income last year was 15.919 billion yuan, an increase of 139.13% year-on-year. Among them, Russia is the largest overseas market for Great Wall Motor, achieving an operating income of 4.97 billion yuan last year.
In recent years, the overseas business has become an important layout direction for many domestic auto brands, whether it is traditional car companies or new car manufacturing forces, they are entering overseas markets. According to the statistics of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2021, China's automobile exports will be 2.015 million vehicles, an increase of 1 times year-on-year, and achieved a breakthrough of hovering around 1 million vehicles for many years.
According to the data, Great Wall Motor's export business last year also doubled its growth, which can be said to keep up with the overall pace of China.
The urgent pace of intelligence
In addition to globalization, another label that Great Wall Motors hopes to create is intelligence.
This car company's remarks on the development of intelligence have not been put forward for the first time, and on this road, Great Wall Motors' expectations seem to achieve comprehensive self-research.
In order to achieve the transformation to a technology company, Great Wall Motors released three major technology brands of "Lemon", "Tank" and "Coffee Intelligence" in 2020, the former two adopt intelligent modular design to support the production of multiple categories and different levels of models, and "Coffee Intelligence" positions the vehicle intelligent brand, covering intelligent cockpit, intelligent driving, and new electronic and electrical architecture.
Since then, in 2021, Great Wall Motors has also increased its R&D investment. According to the financial report data, in 2021, Great Wall Motor's research and development expenses were 4.49 billion yuan, an increase of 46.36% year-on-year.
In terms of research and development results, Great Wall Motors mentioned in the financial report that in terms of automotive intelligence, Great Wall Motors has landed products in the field of intelligent driving and intelligent cockpits, and Great Wall Motors is also accelerating its advancement in terms of intelligent services, thereby promoting the transfer of the entire industrial ecology to the back end of the value chain.
For the intelligent transformation, Great Wall Motors' mood is obviously very urgent. Regarding the landing of L4 automatic driving in 2022, Great Wall Motors has begun to mention it in 2020.
From the perspective of technical support, Great Wall Motor's Mo mo Zhixing released the small magic box ICU 3.0 series last year, which supports L4 level automatic driving. The product adopts Qualcomm's Snapdragon Ride autonomous driving chip, the platform single board computing power reaches 360TOPS, can be continuously upgraded to 1440TOPS, and the algorithm is all self-developed by Millima Zhixing. Officials said that ICU 3.0 will land on the Great Wall Motor model this year.
The smooth research and development progress has also brought some confidence to Great Wall Motors, and the car company's planning in research and development is still increasing. Great Wall Motor said it expects to invest about 100 billion yuan in research and development from 2021 to 2025.
At present, the report card handed over by the Great Wall is considered to be passed, and in the face of the transformation goal of global intelligent technology companies, the Great Wall is full of confidence, but whether the market will be as it wishes, it needs to wait for time to give an answer.