"Wei Xiaoli" financial report came out: Weilai has the most revenue and the highest ideal gross profit

Recently, Xiaopeng Automobile announced its 2021 financial report, so far, the "report card" of "Wei xiaoli" (Weilai Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile, Ideal Automobile) in 2021 has been released. Judging from the results, the three new car-making forces have shown a trend of double growth in revenue and gross profit.

According to the financial report data, in 2021, WEIO's revenue was the highest, at 36.136 billion yuan, an increase of 122.3% year-on-year; ideal automobile revenue was 27.010 billion yuan, an increase of 185.6%; Xiaopeng Automobile's revenue was 20.988 billion yuan, an increase of 259.1% year-on-year. In terms of gross profit margin, the gross profit margin of WEILAI and Ideal Vehicle exceeded 20%, 20.1% and 20.6% respectively, and Xiaopeng was 11.5%.

The substantial increase in revenue is inseparable from the continuous increase in the delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" in 2021. In 2021, the delivery volume of "Wei Xiaoli" will exceed 90,000 vehicles. In 2022, "Wei Xiaoli" continued its growth momentum. (Data show that in March, "Wei Xiaoli" delivered 9,985 vehicles, 15,414 vehicles and 11,034 vehicles respectively.) ）

However, at a time when sales are growing by leaps and bounds, "Wei Xiaoli" still faces many challenges. Traditional car companies are increasing investment in electrification, and new brands are also pouring in. In this context, "Wei Xiaoli" also began a new round of competition.

He Xiaopeng, CEO of Xiaopeng Automobile, said in an interview with The China Business Daily that Xiaopeng Automobile will put its main production capacity on models with more gross profits. At the same time, the Xiaopeng G9 will be released on sale as scheduled in the third quarter of this year, and the XPILOT4.0 intelligent driver assistance system will also be installed on the G9 at the end of this year.

Ideal Auto and WEILAI Auto are aiming at the pain points of electric vehicle supporting facilities. Sun Guangmin, vice president of Ideal Auto, told reporters, "In the case of the next increase in the stock of electric vehicles, high speed is the user's just need scenario, high-speed infrastructure construction, we believe that the super fast charging network is the core weapon to solve this pain point, and ideal car is currently developing a 480-kilowatt super charging platform." Shen Fei, senior vice president of Weilai, told reporters that the separation of vehicle electricity and the replacement of batteries are the huge advantages of Weilai Automobile. In addition, THE USER RELATIONSHIP OF NIO is also very close, and we can guide decentralized users to actively participate in the interaction of the grid. In the future, NIO will promote the coordinated development of electric vehicles and power grids with incentive mechanisms.

Revenue and gross profit increased twice

According to the financial report, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered more than 98,000 units in 2021, a sharp increase of 263% over 27,000 units in 2020, and won the title of sales champion of new car-making forces. WEIO followed suit, delivering a total of 91,429 units, an increase of 109.1% year-on-year. Ideal Cars delivered 90,491 Ideal ONE units in the whole year, an increase of 177.4% from 32,624 units in 2020.

On April 1, the sales express report of "Wei Xiaoli" was also released. According to the data, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 15,414 vehicles in March, an increase of 148% month-on-month and an increase of 202% year-on-year, and won the monthly championship again. In the first quarter, Xiaopeng Automobile's cumulative delivery volume reached 34,561 units, 2.6 times that of the same period last year. As of the first quarter of 2022, Xiaopeng Automobile has won the new power delivery championship for three consecutive quarters, and the cumulative delivery volume in history has exceeded 170,000 vehicles.

In March 2022, Ideal Cars delivered 11,034 Ideal ONE units, an increase of 125.2% year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2022, Ideal Cars delivered a total of 31,716 units, an increase of 152.1% year-on-year. Since delivery, the cumulative delivery volume of Ideal ONE has reached 155804 units.

In March 2022, NIO delivered 9,985 units, up 62.9% month-on-month and 37.6% year-on-year. At the same time, NIO's total deliveries in the first quarter of 2022 were 25,768 units, up 28.5% year-on-year, and have been growing positively for eight consecutive quarters. As of the first quarter of 2022, NIO has delivered 192838 vehicles in its history.

The gradual release of the scale effect has made the gross profit margin of the three new car-making forces show an overall improvement trend.

Among them, ideal automobile has the highest gross profit margin, with a comprehensive gross profit margin of 21.3%, and the gross profit margin of the whole vehicle reached 20.6%, up 4.2%; the comprehensive gross profit margin of Weilai Automobile reached 18.9%, and the gross profit margin of the whole vehicle reached 20.1%, up 7.4% over 2020; the comprehensive gross profit margin of Xiaopeng Automobile was 12.5%, and the gross profit margin of the whole vehicle was 11.5%, an increase of 8%.

Some analysts believe that the reason why the ideal car leads the gross profit margin is that the cost reduction brought about by the scale effect is reduced. The second is that the ideal ONE belongs to the extended-range hybrid model, which has less cost pressure than pure electric models, so the total production cost is low and the bicycle revenue is high.

Large investments lead to strategic losses

However, the three new forces of head car manufacturing are still in the middle of losses.

According to the financial report, although Xiaopeng Automobile's sales volume is the highest, it also has the largest net loss, at 4.86 billion yuan, an increase of 78% year-on-year. Among them, the net loss in the fourth quarter was 1.29 billion yuan, an increase of 63.5% year-on-year. In the same period, THE NET LOSS of NIO in 2021 was 4.02 billion yuan, narrowing by 24.3% year-on-year, of which the net loss in the fourth quarter was 2.143 billion yuan, an increase of 54.4% year-on-year.

In contrast, Ideal had the smallest loss, with a net loss of 321.5 million yuan in 2021, but it was still 111.9% larger than the net loss of 151.7 million yuan in 2020, but in the fourth quarter, the net profit of Ideal Automobile was 296 million yuan, an increase of 174.9% from 107.5 million yuan in the same period of 2020, and the first turnaround was profitable. Some analysts believe that the ideal car is likely to become the first new car-making force in "Wei Xiaoli" to achieve positive net profit.

"The main reason for the loss is long-term R&D investment." Li Bin, chairman of NIO, explained that NIO's R&D expenditure reached 4.59 billion yuan, an increase of 84.6% year-on-year, mainly focusing on core areas such as new products and full-stack autonomous driving.

In fact, in 2021, the research and development expenses of "Wei Xiaoli" have doubled. Ideal Automobile spent 3.29 billion yuan on research and development, an increase of 198.8% year-on-year; Xiaopeng Automobile reached 4.114 billion yuan, an increase of 138.4% year-on-year. Xiaopeng Motors said that this is mainly due to the increase in employee compensation due to the expansion of the research and development team, as well as the increase in expenses related to the development of new models.

At the same time, in 2021, the sales and management expenses of the three car companies also increased significantly, with an increase of more than 70%. Among them, the growth of ideal cars is the most obvious, from 1.12 billion yuan in 2020 to 3.49 billion yuan. Ideal Auto said, "In 2021, the company will significantly expand its direct operation and service network, and the number of retail centers at the end of the year will be almost 4 times that of the end of last year." Xiaopeng Motors increased from 2.92 billion yuan in 2020 to 5.31 billion yuan in 2021, and by the end of 2021, Xiaopeng Motors had 357 sales stores nationwide.

2021 is also the year when NIO made a decisive investment in products and technologies, as well as in power and service infrastructure. In 2021, NIO's sales, general and administrative expenses were 6,878.1 million yuan, an increase of 74.9% year-on-year. Official data shows that in 2021, NIO built a new 15-seat NIO House. In terms of energy replenishment system, 606 new substations and 505 supercharging stations have been added.

CITIC Securities pointed out that the three new car-making forces are in the acceleration period of profitability improvement, and large-scale R&D investment has led to its short-term strategic losses, but its rising gross profit of bicycles has shown its ability to approach the breakeven point in the future, and the new car-making forces are expected to rapidly approach the break-even point in the next year.

Li Bin judged that WEILAI Automobile expects to achieve the breakeven of the current quarter in the fourth quarter of 2023, and hopes to achieve breakeven in the whole year of 2024.

Launch a new round of competition

"The car is not only a product, but also needs to improve the comprehensive system capabilities, including brand, market, sales, after-sales service, delivery, etc., but at the same time, all new car-making enterprises must play a product differentiation." He Xiaopeng said in an interview with reporters.

At present, Xiaopeng Automobile, which focuses on intelligence, is deepening this concept. He Xiaopeng said that I think intelligent assisted driving will enter the stage of high-level automatic driving in the second half of this year, and will enter the stage of unmanned automatic driving by 2026. The Xiaopeng G9 is currently progressing smoothly, and the PT production prototype has been rolled off the production line from the factory and will be listed for sale as scheduled in the third quarter of this year. The XPILOT4.0 intelligent driver assistance system will be installed on the G9 at the end of this year, realizing intelligent assisted driving at high speed and in all scenarios in the city. At least 4 models will support XPILOT 4.0 in 2023.

And Weilai Automobile is making efforts on the pain points where it is difficult for users to charge. Shen Fei told reporters, "As of March 23 this year, we have built 865 substations, of which 228 are distributed on the high speed, which means that electric vehicles can be changed all the way on the high speed, and we have penetrated the 'five vertical and three horizontal' 8 most important national highways." In addition, we have built 709 supercharging stations, 677 eye charging stations, and interconnected all other brands of charging piles on one platform as much as possible, so far more than 480,000 piles. ”

At the same time, NIO will also intensively deliver three new cars this year - ET7, ET5, ES7. At the same time, in late May, NIO will release 2022 ES8, ES6 and EC6 to upgrade smart hardware, including 8155 chips, 360 surround view cameras and 5G modules, and performance will be greatly improved.

Ideal Auto will continue to accelerate the layout of the market this year. The new full-size high-end SUV L9 is scheduled to be released in the second quarter of this year and delivered in the third quarter. In 2023, Ideal Auto will launch two ultra-fast charging pure models with high-voltage platforms. At the same time, in order to release the first pure electric model in 2023, the relevant technical work in assisted driving technology, ultra-high voltage platform, super fast charging and other aspects are rapidly advancing.

Sun Guangmin told reporters that for the city, Ideal Auto plans to build more than 3,000 super fast charging stations across the country by 2025, hoping to establish a highway fast charging network of "ten vertical, ten horizontal and two rings" at the high speed. Ideal Cars hopes to fully intervene in all 36 national highways by 2025 and can cover 90% of the mileage.