"Investor Network" Ge Fanmei
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On April 18, NIO (9866. HK) substation Nanjing Jiangning Auchan was officially launched. According to the data released by it, as of now, WEILAI Automobile has built a total of 900 substations across the country, and the cumulative number of users has changed electricity more than 8 million times.
Actively laying out the power exchange track is one of the many distinctive labels on the new car-making force Weilai Automobile. However, behind its bright power replacement business, the company is also encountering the dilemma of vehicle suspension. According to the statement released by NIO on April 9, due to the epidemic situation, supply chain partners have stopped production one after another, resulting in the suspension of NIO vehicle production, and many users' vehicles will be delayed in the near future.
In fact, this is not the first time that WEILAI Automobile has been impacted from the supply chain level, and the delay in the delivery of the company's products has a precedent. Nowadays, the suspension of the whole vehicle has also led to complaints about the refund of consumer refunds from Weilai Automobile on the Black Cat Complaint Platform.
Judging from the latest deliveries, in March this year, Xiaopeng Automobile (9868. HK), Nezha Automobile, Ideal Automobile (2015. HK) and zero-run car four new car-making car companies have monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles, while Nio's monthly sales of less than 10,000 vehicles, only 9985 vehicles, as a member of the "Wei Xiaoli", Weilai Automobile's Sales in March has fallen out of the top three of the new forces car-making enterprises, and the market performance is not optimistic. Now that the whole vehicle is suspended, for Weilai Automobile, which has a net profit loss of up to 4 billion yuan in 2021, can the general price increase of the product alleviate the company's operating pressure this year?
The entire vehicle was discontinued
On April 9, WEIO released the "Explanation of Recent Production and Delivery" on its APP, saying that since March, due to the epidemic, the company's supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have stopped production one after another and have not yet recovered. Affected by this, the parts could not be put together, resulting in the suspension of NIO vehicle production. Due to the above reasons, many users' vehicles will be delayed in the near future.
Weilai Automobile said that the company will work with supply chain partners to strive for an early resumption of production under the premise of meeting the requirements of epidemic prevention.
(Screenshot source: NIO APP)
In this regard, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of Weilai Automobile, once said, "Affected by the epidemic in Changchun and Hebei, some parts of Weilai were cut off in mid-March, relying on some parts inventory to barely maintain." Recently, there have been epidemics in Shanghai and Jiangsu, and many partners cannot supply goods and can only suspend production. ”
As WEIO stopped production and postponed delivery, complaints about consumer refunds appeared on the Black Cat complaint platform. In April this year, a consumer said on the black cat complaint, "(Buy Weilai Car) after paying the deposit, want to refund; after contacting the sales consultant, the sales consultant feedback must only be refunded after 7 days, and show me the content of the agreement, and indicate that they are listed companies, and other reasons, set the user to pay the deposit, must be 7 days later, and in the case of the vehicle is not scheduled to be returned." ”
Black Cat complaint platform complaint about Weilai Automobile
(Source: Black Cat Complaints)
As for the delay in delivery, as early as October 29 last year, Weilai Automobile also issued a "note on the recent delivery of vehicles". WEILAI Automobile said that due to the transformation and upgrading of the production line, some vehicle orders scheduled for delivery in October will be delivered later than originally planned, and a one-time 2888 points will be given away after the delay. Today, WEILAI Automobile has postponed delivery due to supply chain suspension.
However, under the current epidemic, almost all car companies are facing pressure from the supply chain level. Since the outbreak of the epidemic in March this year, major domestic automobile production bases in Shanghai, Jilin, Changchun and Guangzhou have been affected. The above places are all important towns in the automobile industry. According to Huafu Securities Research Report, Jilin, Shanghai and Guangdong account for about 33% of the country's automobile production.
According to the Jiazhidao Automobile Database, 17 of the world's top 20 auto parts companies in 2021 have built 34 production bases in Shanghai, and 9 companies in China are headquartered in Shanghai, including giant auto parts companies such as Bosch, Continental, ZF, etc.
On April 14, He Xiaopeng, founder and chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, wrote a paragraph in his personal circle of friends: "If the supply chain enterprises in Shanghai and the surrounding areas cannot find a way to dynamically resume work and production, all Chinese automakers may have to stop work and production in May." Yu Chengdong, CEO of Huawei's consumer business and CEO of Smart Car BU, forwarded He Xiaopeng's above-mentioned post in the circle of friends and commented: "It is true. ”
Also facing the pressure of the epidemic and supply chain impact, Weilai Automobile, as one of the first car companies to be forced to stop production, has once again exposed its supply chain problems. In fact, THIS ISIS is not the first time it has suffered from supply chain constraints. In August 2021, it delivered 5,880 vehicles, down nearly 26% month-on-month, falling out of the top three of the new car-making forces.
At that time, for the sharp decline in delivery volume, Weilai Automobile said that in August, affected by the epidemic in Malaysia, China Nanjing and other regions, the company's individual parts supply was seriously limited, and the production side was restricted, especially the production side of the model ES6 and EC6 was severely restricted, which affected the delivery volume in August.
Sales fell out of the top three
This time, Weilai Automobile is once again facing the challenge of supply chain obstruction, and the suspension of production will also bring a test to the company's sales.
According to the data, NIO's models mainly include the high-end intelligent electric flagship SUV ES8 launched in December 2017, the five-seat high-performance high-end intelligent electric SUV ES6 launched in December 2018, the five-seat high-speed intelligent electric coupe EC6 launched in December 2019, and the high-end intelligent electric flagship sedan ET7 launched in January 2021, which began to be delivered in March 2022. In addition, the launch of the MID-size high-end smart electric sedan ET5 in December 2021.
Nio's main models on sale are ES8, ES6 and EC6, with a minimum starting price of more than 350,000 yuan per vehicle. WEILAI Auto said that the smart electric flagship sedan ET7 has opened delivery, and 163 units have been delivered as of March 31. The 2022 ES8, ES6 and EC6 models equipped with the latest smart cockpit hardware are expected to be released in late May, as well as the existing user smart cockpit upgrade plan, and the new large five-seater SUV ES7 born on the NT2 platform will also be released at the same time.
According to the March sales data released by NIO on April 1, NIO delivered 9,985 new cars in March 2022, an increase of 37.6% year-on-year. In the first quarter of 2022, NIO delivered 25,768 new vehicles, an increase of 28.5% year-on-year; NIO has delivered 192838 vehicles.
At first glance, NIO's sales performance is good. However, from the perspective of industry comparison, as the leader of the new forces to build cars, Weilai Automobile's sales in March have been overtaken by "latecomers", and the sales ranking has fallen out of the top three in the industry. According to the data, in March this year, Xiaopeng Automobile sold 15,414 vehicles, ranking first in the sales list of new car-making brands, Nezha Automobile sales were 12,026 vehicles, ideal cars and zero-run cars were sold 11,034 and 10,059 vehicles, respectively, and Weilai Automobile's monthly sales were less than 10,000 vehicles, only 9985 vehicles.
From the perspective of cumulative sales in the first quarter of 2022, the companies in order of sales from high to low are Xiaopeng Automobile (34561 units), Ideal Automobile (31716 units), Nezha Automobile (30152 units), Weilai Automobile (25768 units), and zero-run cars (21579 units). It should be noted that the price of Niolai's models is the highest among the five, and brand positioning will also affect the scale of sales.
(Source: Auto Concern Network)
Today, Weilai Automobile has also raised the price of its products. Following the announcement of the suspension of vehicle production by NIO on April 9, on April 10, NIO announced on its official Weibo that a number of models will increase in price.
Weilai Automobile said that due to the impact of rising global raw material prices, from May 10, 2022, NIO will make appropriate adjustments to the prices of its products: the starting price of EACH version of ES8, ES6 and EC6 models will be raised by 10,000 yuan, and the starting price of ET7 and ET5 will remain unchanged. ES8, ES6, EC6, ET7 deposit or ET5 reservation deposit payment before May 9, 2022 (inclusive), the purchase price and battery rental service fee are not affected by this adjustment.
(Source: WEILAI Auto Official)
The loss exceeded 4 billion yuan
The price increase of Weilai automobile products may be to reverse the pressure on the company's performance and operation. From the performance point of view, Weilai Automobile is still in the stage of net profit loss. On March 25, NIO released its 2021 annual report, saying that NIO achieved operating income of 36.14 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 122.3% year-on-year; net loss of 4.02 billion yuan, narrowing by 24.3% year-on-year.
From the perspective of industry comparison, in 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile's sales volume was 98,000 units, Weilai Automobile's was 91,000 units, and ideal automobiles were 90,000 vehicles. In 2021, Xiaopeng Automobile lost 4.86 billion yuan, Ideal Automobile lost 320 million yuan, and Weilai Automobile lost 4 billion yuan, which was higher than that of Ideal Automobile.
In the fourth quarter of 2021, Ideal Auto has achieved a single-quarter turnaround, with a net profit of 296 million yuan; in contrast, Weilai Automobile has fallen into the dilemma of "the more it sells, the more it loses". In the fourth quarter of 2021, NIO's operating income was 9.9 billion yuan, an increase of 49.1% year-on-year; net loss was 2,143.4 million yuan, an increase of 54.4% year-on-year.
As for the reasons for the long-term loss, WEILAI Automobile said that it mainly comes from long-term research and development and investment in the European market. In 2021, NIO's R&D expenditure was 4.59 billion yuan, an increase of 84.6% year-on-year, accounting for 12.7% of revenue. In 2018-2020, THE R&D investment of NIO was 3.998 billion yuan, 4.429 billion yuan and 2.488 billion yuan respectively, while in the same period, ideal automobile was 794 million yuan, 1.169 billion yuan and 1.1 billion yuan, and Xiaopeng Automobile was 1.051 billion yuan, 2.07 billion yuan and 1.726 billion yuan. Founded 7 years ago, WEILAI Automobile has invested more than 15.5 billion yuan in research and development in the past four years.
In addition, the power exchange business is also continuing to "burn money". According to Red Star Capital, the on-duty staff of the Weilai Automobile Replacement Power Station said that the internal estimate of the cost of a replacement power station is about 3 million yuan. At present, NIO has built 900 substations. In this way, the cost of Weilai's replacement power station has reached 2.7 billion yuan.
NIO said that in terms of sales and service network, it plans to add no less than 100 NEW NIO centers and 50 authorized service centers in China in 2022. In terms of energy replenishment network, it is planned to deploy 30 PowerUpPlan destination power-up routes in 2022, and build more than 1,300 substations, 6,000 supercharging piles and 10,000 destination charging piles in China.
Continuous capital investment is inseparable from the financing that Weilai Automobile continues to obtain. According to statistics, ATV has completed 12 financings with a financing amount of 44.3 billion yuan. This year, NIO completed four financings totaling 17.5 billion yuan, and nearly 3 billion yuan of convertible bond financing.
In March this year, NIO was also listed for the second time in Hong Kong stocks, so far, the three new forces of "Wei Xiaoli" have gathered in Hong Kong stocks, and they have all been listed in the United States and Hong Kong. However, it is worth noting that xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile have previously landed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in the form of "double listing" and have achieved refinancing, while WEILAI Automobile is a "secondary listing" this time, and adopts the method of introducing listing, which does not involve new stock issuance and fund raising.
Haitong International pointed out in the research report that in 2022, WEILAI Automobile plans to expand its R&D team to 9,000 people, superimposed on the acceleration of the launch of new models and the expansion of overseas markets to bring about relevant adaptation adjustments, and it is expected that R&D-related investment will maintain a high growth rate. At the same time, the research institute also put forward risk tips such as "the sharp rise in raw material prices, the shortage of supply chains cannot be alleviated, the decline in residents' willingness to consume, and the decline in production capacity due to construction projects under construction that are less than expected and the ramp up below expectations". (Produced by Thinking Finance)■