In the past Three months, Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal, the troika of China's leading new car-making forces, have successively announced their 2021 annual financial reports.
Overall, the three new force car companies are in a stable upward channel, the delivery volume has embarked on a new level, arm in arm to achieve the small goal of delivering 90,000 vehicles, the revenue has risen, the gross profit margin has also increased, but the three as a whole have not been able to turn losses into profits, each has different degrees of losses, it is expected that such a situation will continue for a period of time.
Seeing this, I believe that many small partners will raise such a question, not to say that sales and revenue are rising, why is the loss situation "repeatedly prohibited"? Are car companies really charities, or do they sell feelings? Selling one at a loss is still insisting?
Today, the electric brother will take you to introduce what their annual financial reports have reported in a simple and simple way.
Simple analysis of core data
What the? Too many words? Data too complex?
Diange used years of experience in studying the financial reports of car companies to tell everyone that as long as the core data of the key points is grasped, in fact, the operating conditions of a car company can be understood by a large part. If you want to quickly understand the operation of the Yusanjia, Diange extracts the core data for you:
NIO: Delivered 91,429 new cars in the whole year, with a total revenue of 36.14 billion yuan, automobile sales revenue of 33.17 billion yuan, a gross profit margin of 18.9% for the whole year, a net loss of 4.02 billion yuan, and a cash reserve of 55.4 billion yuan.
Xiaopeng: Delivered 98,155 new cars in the whole year, with a total revenue of 20.99 billion yuan, automobile sales revenue of 20.04 billion yuan, a gross profit margin of 12.5% for the whole year, a net loss of 4.86 billion yuan, and a cash reserve of 43.5 billion yuan.
Ideal: 90,491 new cars were delivered in the whole year, with a total revenue of 27.01 billion yuan, automobile sales revenue of 26.13 billion yuan, a gross profit margin of 21.3% for the whole year, a net loss of 670 million yuan, and a cash reserve of 52.4 billion yuan.
From the core data of the three car companies, we can actually see a lot of information:
For example, due to the high average selling price of bicycles, Weilai has the highest sales revenue of automobiles, and after deducting automobile sales revenue, it can achieve good revenue performance with high value-added services and peripheral goods.
Although Xiaopeng has the largest number of new car deliveries, it has the largest net loss due to low gross profit margin (high cost of marketing and R&D expenditure).
Although the ideal sales volume is the lowest, it can obtain such sales results with only one model, and the gross profit margin is naturally high, but the follow-up model research and development and new car promotion progress need to be paid attention to.
Financial report analysis To figure out the logic behind it
After looking at the overall business situation of the three in 2021, we have to continue to dig deeper.
In addition to caring about the general operating conditions, we have to figure out what kind of strategy leads to such a difference, why Xiaopeng, which sells more and Weilai, which sells the most expensive, loses more, and the ideal of only one model is not far from profitability, and what hidden dangers are there.
For the net loss situation, the three car companies have come up with similar words, and the reason for the loss is mainly due to the growth of research and development, marketing, promotion and advertising costs.
From the public data, what they say is true, in the R & D cost of this item, Weilai's annual R & D investment of 4.59 billion yuan, ranking first, an increase of 84.6%; Xiaopeng ranked second with 4.11 billion yuan, an increase of 138.4%; ideal is ranked third with 3.29 billion yuan, the highest increase of the three, reaching a staggering 198.8%.
In terms of operating expenses, that is, sales, general and administrative expenses, WEILAI, Xiaopeng and Ideal spent 6.88 billion yuan, 5.31 billion yuan and 3.49 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 74.9%, 81.7% and 212.1% respectively compared with 2020.
In terms of vehicle gross profit margin, the gross vehicle gross profit margin of the three "Wei Xiaoli" companies has been improved in 2021, and the gross profit margin of Weilai and Ideal Vehicle has exceeded 20%, 20.1% and 20.6% respectively, and Xiaopeng is 11.5%.
Weilai: "Expenditure costs, product pricing" double high
In 2021, Weilai can be described as a "money-burning demon", and a number of expenditure costs have won the honor of first place, but in the case of a significant increase in research and development and operating expenses, it has achieved a narrowing of losses and a substantial increase in gross profits, which shows that Weilai is still on the right path.
Small partners who are familiar with NIO's business model should have an understanding of its service-oriented business strategy, in 2021, NIO will continue to promote the layout of the service network, spending a total of 6.88 billion yuan on operating expenditure, compared with 2020 spent more than 2.32 billion yuan, but under such a strong investment, NIO has opened a large gap with competitors in the layout of sales and service outlets. It is understood that in 2021, WEILAI has built 15 new NIO Houses, 606 new substations, and 505 supercharging stations. Services are expected to continue to become NIO's invisible growth point.
In the R & D expenses, in 2021, Weilai invested 4.59 billion yuan, compared with 2020 increased by 2.1 billion yuan, an increase of 85%, high investment also let Weilai in exchange for a wealth of product reserves, in 2022, Weilai will have two models will soon open delivery, a model is expected to debut, the flagship car ET7 will set the tone for Weilai's high-end sedan products, ET5 is responsible for the volume, these two models are expected to become Weilai's new sales growth point.
Although Weilai spends money so "generously", but the gross profit margin of the vehicle can still record good results, which is actually due to the higher positioning and pricing of The Weilai model, the profit of the bicycle is naturally high, and in 2021, the fourth quarter of Weilai's cost control of the power battery, replacing the 70-degree ternary lithium battery with a 75-degree ternary iron lithium battery, reducing the production cost and further improving the gross profit margin of the vehicle.
Xiaopeng: The advantages of full-stack self-development are still not prominent
Xiaopeng from the beginning of its establishment has always emphasized the full-stack self-development, from its models to the research and development of automatic driving technology are adopted in the self-developed and self-produced mode, the cost of early investment will cause pressure on corporate profitability, but in the later stage, with the landing of technology and models, the loss situation is expected to be improved.
In the column of operating expenses, Xiaopeng can be said to be trying to catch up with the competitor Weilai as a catch-up, and in 2021, Xiaopeng spent 5.31 billion yuan, ranking second among the three, in exchange for 197 new stores and 613 new supercharging stations. However, it is worth noting that Xiaopeng is the only one of the three to adopt the mixed channel sales model of direct operation and agency, but in 2021, the proportion of operating expenses in total sales revenue is still high, which means that for every car sold, the additional costs need to be spent are more, and the gross profit margin is difficult to reduce.
In the R & D cost investment of this item, Xiaopeng ranked second with 4.11 billion yuan, this main cost is mainly reflected in the research and development of new cars and new technologies, in 2021, Xiaopeng launched the first mass production model equipped with lidar, although the model has landed, but the application function of lidar is still in intensive research and development preparations. And compared with the other two car companies, Xiaopeng also focuses on more directions of technology research and development, including but not limited to flying cars, robots and other products, and with the deepening of technology research and development, this part of the cost investment should also show a growth posture.
Xiaopeng's low gross profit margin is actually related to its model price positioning, the average selling price of Xiaopeng models in the three companies is the lowest of the three, which is also the direct reason for the low gross profit margin of Xiaopeng vehicles. Next, what Xiaopeng has to do is naturally to raise the positioning of the model, and the G9 will be the first step. By the way, He Xiaopeng set up a FLAG in public, and then to increase the profit of bicycles, Xiaopeng must achieve a gross profit margin of 25%, such a goal, can only say: the task is heavy and the road is long.
Ideal: It is expected to get rid of losses as early as possible
The ideal, whether from the speed of pre-research and development or the speed of the layout of the pre-sales and after-sales service store, gives people a bit of a feeling of "dragging the progress", but what many people did not expect is that the ideal is the closest to "getting rid of losses".
The ideal of achieving a sales performance of 90,000+ a year with a single model is not only placed in the new power car companies, but also in the SUV sales list of the same level. Since the price of the ideal ONE is 338,000 yuan (before the price increase, the price is 349,800 yuan after the price increase), the bicycle price is higher, and the net profit and net profit growth in the context of the surge in sales are also very impressive.
Hot-selling single products can also slightly delay the research and development pressure of enterprises, take 2021 calculations, even if the ideal to strengthen the development efforts, spent 3.29 billion yuan, compared with 2020 increased by 198.8%, research and development investment costs are still not too high (compared to Weilai, Xiaopeng). At present, the information that has been disclosed, the ideal in 2022 is only the ideal L9 a new car, if you want to enrich the product matrix, the pressure of later research and development is still huge. Simply put, the ideal is the new force closest to getting rid of losses, but whether this is so depends on the subsequent product planning and the market response of L9.
Combined with the financial report, we look ahead
In addition to the financial report can show the company's past achievements, the study of financial reports, combined with the current situation of enterprise development can boldly guess the future development, although Wei Xiaoli three are with sales increases and overall losses similar results ended in 2021, and they are all holding new cars in 2022 ready to do a big job, but their power direction has obvious differences, and then follow the electric brother to continue to see the future development direction of several head new forces.
NIO:
We see from Weilai's annual report that it is the one with the highest expenditure cost of the three, but at the same time we also see that Weilai is the richest model of the three, the service/sales outlets are the most extensive, the cost spent in the early stage, we also gradually see the hope of the harvest period, car sales revenue is growing, losses are narrowing, with the gradual enrichment of models, can play a positive role in the overall revenue.
And we also see a more interesting part of Weilai's financial report, that is, other sales revenue also recorded a good result of 2.97 billion yuan, an increase of 175.9% over 2021. In fact, this also shows that the user's recognition of Weilai's services and peripheral products, while rolling out service/sales outlets, has become a revenue growth point for Weilai. However, there is a saying that Weilai's replacement/charging service is indeed very convenient to use on some highways, and the quality and quality of some goods in weilai APP are indeed passed (delicious) (but the price is really expensive). And there are also rumors on the Internet that some companies have applied to Weilai, hoping to jointly develop power exchange technology with Weilai, or directly purchase the technology, which is also expected to become another financial revenue growth point of Weilai.
From the current point of view, insisting on the development of power exchange technology has been the only way forward for Weilai, and it will also be their advantage, and there is nothing wrong with insisting on development. For models, with the successive launch of ET7 and ET5, it marks the perfect landing of the general direction of Weilai's products' main high-end route, and the rest is to look at production capacity and product strength. In addition, the higher pricing of Weilai's products makes it have a stable profit margin of bicycles, in the face of the trend of rising prices of new energy vehicles, Weilai can still stabilize product prices and insist on not increasing prices, which is also the embodiment of this advantage.
Xiaopeng:
With the hot sales of the P7, Xiaopeng laughed to the end in the final sales war, ending 2021 with nearly 100,000 new car deliveries. However, in 2021, when sales have soared, due to the problem of low average profit of bicycles (low average selling price), even if so many cars are delivered, they still have not too good financial report cards, but the overall loss situation is still better than in 2020.
What Xiaopeng has to do next is to continue to enrich the product sequence while improving brand positioning, or to say that it is white to do addition in the high-end product line. The focus of Xiaopeng's work in 2022 is definitely a series of publicity campaigns of Xiaopeng G9 to prepare for the brand to rise.
And Xiaopeng also has a big advantage ahead of the other two, that is, there is a full-stack self-developed technology precipitation, in addition to the field of automatic driving, flying cars, robots and other fields Xiaopeng is also involved, of course, these technical advantages in the short term can not be quickly converted into revenue items, but in the long run may become a backhand for Xiaopeng curve overtaking.
ideal:
Thanks to the big sale of the ideal ONE, the financial pressure of the ideal can breathe a little, and also give the ideal more time to plan and develop. What the ideal next thing to do is to extend the life cycle of the ideal ONE, maintain its advantages in the same level of models, and enrich its own product line, steady and steady, at least in a short period of time can be invincible.
As for the direction of the product, it is expected that the ideal will also adhere to the development of range-extended models in the near future, and gradually step towards the direction of pure electricity or more energy forms, and then still have to take the brand upward route, the reason is naturally the same as Xiaopeng, after all, everyone understands the reason that the profit margin of selling high-end bicycles is higher.
There are strong enemies in the front and pursuing soldiers in the rear
Although for now, Wei Xiaoli has opened up the gap between many aspects and the large troops behind, and built a service network moat and technical barriers, but this three strong is not absolutely safe in the eyes of the electric brother, they can not break through the fortress built by Tesla in front of them in a short period of time, and they must also beware of the pursuit of elite troops such as Nezha and Zero Run in the rear.
Rather than thinking about how to quickly eliminate losses, their bosses tend to take big strides and do not suspend the "arms race" in research and development in order to achieve profitability faster.
Li Bin said on the 2021 earnings call that WEILAI's R&D investment will be further enhanced.
He Xiaopeng also said in public that Xiaopeng's cumulative R& D investment has exceeded 9 billion yuan, but in 2022, the R & D investment in a single year will exceed the sum of the past one or two years.
It can be seen that in the next few years, new energy vehicles or intelligent vehicles will have a wave of rapid technological development, in the end who can successfully run out in this wave of development period, we wait and see.