Looking back at the development of China's hyundai automobile industry, due to the late start of independent brands, everyone had to rely on joint ventures to seize the market at the beginning. However, this also has a situation that everyone does not want to see, that is, domestic brands rely heavily on foreign brands, and even the core technology of the three major pieces cannot be learned or obtained, and it lacks the ability to innovate independently.
Among them, Brilliance Auto is "anti-customer-oriented" by BMW because of its weak strength, and as a joint venture car company of Mercedes-Benz in China, Beijing Automobile seems to be facing the same dilemma.
Back to the Mercedes, lying down to make money
To ask how profitable BAIC Motor is, it is undoubtedly still very profitable, which can be seen from the 2021 annual performance report recently released by BAIC Motor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "BAIC Motor").
According to the report, in 2021, BAIC Motor achieved revenue of 175.916 billion yuan, down 0.6% year-on-year; gross profit of 37.643 billion yuan, down 10.67% year-on-year; annual net profit of 15.151 billion yuan, an increase of 16.95% year-on-year; net profit attributable to the company's equity holders of 3.858 billion yuan, an increase of 90.17% year-on-year.
It can be said that under the influence of the epidemic and the supply of parts, BAIC Motor can still achieve a sharp rise in net profit, which is very rare in the market. However, if you spread out the specific revenue data of Beijing Automobile, you will find that the car company's own brand is very weak, after all, it is almost relying on Mercedes-Benz to make money. Of the 175.916 billion yuan in revenue achieved by Beijing Motor, the Beijing brand only contributed 8.174 billion yuan, not even 5%; while the revenue of Beijing Benz reached 167.966 billion yuan, and it is no wonder that netizens also joked that "without Mercedes-Benz, BAIC does not exist."
Self-selling that drags its legs
In fact, BAIC has long realized that Mercedes-Benz alone cannot stand in the market for a long time, so it has been continuously developing its own brands over the years.
For example, BAIC BJEV, this car company believes that everyone is not unfamiliar, it was once one of the earliest brands involved in the new energy vehicle market in China. From the performance of BAIC BJEV, because it entered the market early, so the results are also quite eye-catching, in 2018 and 2019, BAIC BJEV's sales exceeded 150,000 vehicles twice, and won the title of domestic pure electric vehicle market sales champion for 7 consecutive years, which can be described as the industry benchmark of new energy at that time.
But sometimes the market competition is very cruel, in the face of the continuous rise of new car-making forces, the lack of core technology BAIC BJEV has also suffered a trough, coupled with the serious impact of the epidemic in 2020, its sales in the past two years can be said to be miserable, last year's cumulative sales of only more than 20,000 units, gradually marginalized by the market.
In addition to BAIC New Energy, BAIC's other independent brands are even more unable to get their hands on it, so it has also formed a status quo of "BAIC Group as a whole relies on Beijing Benz for blood transfusion, Beijing Benz is responsible for making money, and other sectors are responsible for spending money".
Will it be the next Brilliance?
Seeing the development of BAIC today, people also have to think of Brilliance.
At the end of 2020, Brilliance Group officially declared bankruptcy and reorganization, this news was unexpected by everyone, but after thinking about it, it seems to be expected, and such dramatic episodes in life are often staged.
Comparing 2020 to the "war years" I believe no one will refute it, right? In this "war" without smoke of gunfire, the reshuffling process of the car market was accelerated in an instant, and many car companies were reduced to "cannon fodder", and everyone knew that Brilliance was not an isolated case, just one of them. Especially those independent car companies that rely too much on joint venture brands and lack of independent research and development capabilities, with the continuous arrival of "flood beasts", it is only a matter of time before they are impacted.
Will BAIC be the next Brilliance? At present, it seems that the current situation of BAIC is not optimistic, on the one hand, because it is too dependent on Mercedes-Benz blood transfusion, which leads to its right to speak is not too strong; on the other hand, it is the slow development of the independent section, and even say that there is no progress, seeing that Changan, which also relies on the joint venture to grow up, only the domestic car can sell more than one million vehicles, you can know that BAIC is helpless now. In addition, there is news about Mercedes-Benz seeking to increase shares, according to the Financial Associated Press quoted by informed sources, negotiations with BAIC have been basically completed, Mercedes-Benz seeking to increase its holdings in Beijing Mercedes-Benz for many years or will be settled within this year. Although both sides have denied it, if they can't wake up when they see BAIC's current situation, they may not repeat Brilliance's mistakes.
Editor's note
The car market cleaning is so fast, the brand that does not want to make progress will eventually be eliminated by the market, this is an indisputable fact, it is even more difficult to survive in the cracks, BAIC now has the same crisis as Brilliance, then do you think it will become the next Brilliance?
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