After zero run, who will become the next IPO player to go to Hong Kong? Nezha's car is about to move.
A few days ago, Hezhong New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (the operator of "Nezha Automobile") opened a Pre-IPO round of financing with an estimated scale of about 3 billion yuan, with a target valuation of 45 billion yuan, and it is rumored that the IPO in Hong Kong will be officially launched as early as June. If the progress goes well, Nezha Automobile may become the second echelon player of the new forces after zero-running cars to apply for listing in Hong Kong.
The latest delivery data shows that in March 2022, Nezha Automobile delivered 12,026 new cars, a year-on-year surge of 270%, climbing to the second place in sales of new power car companies. Perhaps in the outlook of Nezha Automobile, the "Wei Xiaoli" pattern will soon be replaced by "Wei Xiaoli". However, in the fierce competition of new power car companies, there is never a shortage of opponents, in the face of the menacing first camp, and the second camp of the latecomers, can Nezha Automobile successfully complete the outlook? The road ahead is still full of thorns and unknowns.
1
The average price of bicycles does not reach 100,000 yuan, and it is difficult to "win by quantity" for a long time
On closer inspection, March this year is not the first time that Nezha Automobile has won the title of runner-up of the new forces, in October 2021 and February 2022, Nezha Automobile has twice won the second place in sales in half a year. Judging from the trend of sales exceeding 10,000 vehicles in many months in the past six months, Nezha Automobile has hidden the capital to compete with the first camp.
But the runner-up throne did not sit securely. The sales volume of "Wei Xiaoli" has declined in turn, mainly due to the crisis of the spread of the epidemic in China and the shortage of chip supply. Ideal Car was affected by the previous epidemic in Malaysia, and the supply of millimeter wave radar-related chips was seriously short, resulting in the failure of Ideal ONE related models to be delivered on schedule. Weilai has not launched a new car in 2021, and the slow iteration speed of new products has reduced the user's desire to buy a car to a certain extent, and sales growth has been limited. Also subject to chip shortages, Xiaopeng Motors also experienced delays in the delivery of new cars in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Although all of the above has prevented "Wei Xiaoli" from entering the "annual sales of 100,000 vehicles" club in 2021, the annual delivery number of the three car companies has exceeded the 90,000 mark after all, while Nezha cars are still hovering at 69,000 vehicles, even if the monthly sales have broken through the 10,000 mark at this stage, its brand influence is still far from the above three car companies.
In 2021, the average price of bicycles in the three car companies of "Wei Xiaoli" will reach 410,000 yuan, 230,700 yuan and 326,300 yuan respectively. When Weilai founder Li Bin has locked competitors into BBA, the average bicycle price of Nezha Automobile in the same period still did not exceed the 100,000 yuan mark, according to the data released by 360 Group when it invested in Nezha Automobile, in the first half of 2021, the total revenue of Nezha Automobile reached 1.63 billion yuan, and the sales volume of 17,000 vehicles in the same period was only 95,800 yuan.
When the head camp of the new forces is riding the dust towards the high-end intelligent electric vehicle market, traditional car companies are also preparing for the momentum. According to the latest financial report data of GAC Group, in 2021, the average price of GAC Aian bicycles has reached 147,200 yuan, and this independent brand that has attributed itself to a new force has successfully exceeded 20,000 units.
In addition, the average price of bicycles in 2021 has reached 106,000 yuan for traditional car companies Great Wall Motors, and Geely Automobile also has more than 60% of the average bicycle prices of models and products exceeding 100,000 yuan, even if Beiqi Blue Valley, which is not optimistic about the outside world, will increase the average price of bicycles to 190,000 yuan in 2021 through the optimization of product structure and inventory driven by Jihu.
Under the double-sided attack of new forces and traditional car companies, Nezha Automobile is still confused and wandering in the low-end market.
2
The product positioning is biased towards the low end, and the founder lacks Internet genes
Obviously, the brand influence of Nezha Automobile is running counter to its upward sales performance.
At the beginning of its birth, the main major customers of Nezha Automobile came from the public market, which is what we often call the B-end. In July 2018, the first model Nezha N01 rolled off the production line, with a price range of 66,800-99,600 yuan after subsidies, and the first batch of 20,000 orders came from four shared travel companies.
In March 2020, Nezha Automobile's second mass-produced car, Nezha U, was officially listed, with a price range of 139,800-199,800 yuan after subsidies, and the price doubled compared with N01, but the target customers were still concentrated in the travel market. This time, Nezha not only set its sights on the travel company, but also the Tongxiang Municipal Government where the factory is located, as well as the official vehicles of the Beijing Municipal Government, which have become the main sales source of Nezha U.
The positioning is biased towards the B-end, which is inseparable from the equity relationship of Nezha Automobile. According to the enterprise investigation information, in the shareholding structure of Hezhong New Energy, the parent company of Nezha Automobile, the industrial funds of Tongxiang in Zhejiang, Yichun in Jiangxi and Nanning in Guangxi are prominently listed. That is to say, whether it is an official car or a unit group purchase, Nezha Automobile can use the advantage of equity relationship to obtain order support from the above three places.
Although the initial wealth has been accumulated in the B-end market, the product positioning has also been greatly limited, and Nezha Automobile has since branded itself as a "low-end". In November 2020, Nezha Automobile launched the third mass-produced new car Nezha V, with a price range of 59,900-75,900 yuan after subsidies. Although the price has fallen relative to Nezha U, the goal of Nezha Automobile this time is very clear, that is, to rely on Nezha V to open the C-end consumer market.
Nezha V did live up to expectations, delivering more than 50,000 new cars in the first full natural year after listing, and then quickly grew into the main sales team of Nezha Automobile. Nezha Automobile, which tasted the sweetness, took the "cost-effective" route, and in April 2021, the "easy to drive and not expensive" redesigned model Nezha U Pro was launched. In the case of the overall configuration upgrade, the price of Nezha U dropped by 40,000 yuan, and the price range after subsidies was 99,800-15.98 million yuan, and it soon became the main model of Nezha Automobile after listing.
This second round of sales growth also failed to bring positive brand influence to Nezha Automobile, whether it is from positioning or pricing, the low-end product pattern has always been in the shadows. It is worth mentioning that the weakening of brand influence is closely related to the high-level background of Nezha Automobile, and the "lack of Internet genes" is also one of the reasons why Nezha Automobile and "Wei Xiaoli" are gradually drifting apart.
Whether it is founder Fang Yunzhou or co-founder Daniel Zhang, both are from traditional car companies. The former has been working in Chery Automobile for 16 years and single-handedly founded the earliest new energy vehicle research and development platform and system in China; while the latter has successively served as the general manager of Beiqi Foton commercial vehicle sales, the executive deputy general manager of Chery New Energy, the deputy general manager of Beijing New Energy, the general manager of the marketing company, etc., and is also a traditional "auto person".
According to the strategic planning of "light research and development, heavy low-end", Nezha Automobile has not actually jumped out of the marketing style of traditional car companies, including opening a breakthrough from the B-end market, which is also the survival idea that Daniel Zhang is best at when baic new energy. In the face of the fiercely competitive C-end market, Nezha Automobile has been weak in its follow-up.
3
Intelligence has become a joke, and the quality of the product is in doubt
For the "lack of Internet genes", it has also received the "official certification" of the Daniel Zhang, and he admitted that this problem is an important reason for the financing difficulties of Nezha Automobile. In view of this, Nezha Automobile chose to cooperate with the Internet upstart 360 Group, hoping to absorb excellent Internet genes and enable it to escort Nezha Automobile in terms of intelligent networking.
However, the main attack of 360 is obviously in the field of PC security, and as for the accumulation of experience in intelligent driving, it is necessary to choose "good car-making helpers" such as Baidu and Huawei. Since the official announcement of the shares of Nezha Automobile in October 2021, only 360 vehicle networking security products have been deployed on Nezha U, and the popular understanding is that the car comes with "anti-virus software", as for intelligence and networking, it is obviously still far away.
At the same time, the price of this Nezha U, which focuses on "high-end intelligent technology", is still controlled within 200,000 yuan, and only medium- and high-end models with higher pricing are equipped with L2+ level automatic driving auxiliary functions.
To make matters worse, according to 360's latest financial report information, as of December 31, 2021, 360 has just completed the operation of increasing the capital of Nezha Automobile by 900 million yuan, which means that the agreed additional 1 billion yuan of capital increase has not yet reached the account of Nezha Automobile as agreed.
In addition, Nezha U Pro even uses a car machine system based on Xiaomi's voice system, which is not related to the 360. After Xiaomi Auto entered the game, the partners became competitors in seconds, and it is really worrying where the "intelligence" of Nezha Car will go in the future.
In addition to the intelligent level of spanning, another disadvantage of low-end products is also restricting the forward development of Nezha Automobile: quality problems. Battery life false standards, brake failure and other issues are not uncommon on the complaint network, especially the problem of brake failure, on a number of third-party complaint websites, more than one car owner reported that Nezha V involves the 2021 long-endurance entertainment version and long-endurance entertainment version of the upgraded model, there are brake failure problems. Disappointingly, the official has not come up with practical guarantees and solutions except for the phrase "subject to authoritative investigations".
Even the common "three electricity" lifetime warranty of new energy vehicles has been marked by Nezha Automobile with the harsh restrictions of "non-original (first) car owners are not guaranteed, non-household and operating products are not guaranteed, and the mileage of more than 30,000 kilometers in a year (365 days) is not guaranteed", which shows that for the quality of their own products, the official does not dare to pack tickets.
epilogue:
Different from Weilai's "high to low" product planning style, Nezha Automobile is taking a reverse road of "from low to high", which is more difficult and not easy to succeed. How to make brand influence truly become a solid backing for car companies, or really enter the first camp, is by no means relying on simple "impulse" to win. Whether it is Nezha making trouble in the sea, or Nirvana reborn, the time left for Nezha's car is running out.
*Disclaimer: The publication of this article by the New Economic Observation Mission is for the purpose of transmitting more information and does not constitute any recommendation. Original articles may not be reproduced without authorization.
End
▼
A selection of original reviews
▼