Written by Wu Jing
Editor/ Zhang Nan
Design / Shi Yuchao
The 160-year-old Changan Automobile is bursting with unprecedented vitality.
On April 27 and 28, Changan Automobile successively released the company's 2021 annual report and 2022 first quarter performance report, and held a 2021 performance briefing meeting on April 29 in the form of network remote.
The data shows that in 2021, Changan Automobile's listing profit, deduction of non-attributable net profit, independent deduction of non-net profit, associated investment income, and cash flow have all increased. Among them, the net profit after deduction of non-attributable to the mother was 1.65 billion yuan, an increase of 4.90 billion yuan year-on-year, an increase of 151% year-on-year.
"In the face of repeated epidemics, lack of core and lack of electricity, we have faced difficulties, innovated and advanced, the scale of revenue has exceeded 100 billion, the deduction of non-profits has been greatly improved, and we have entered a benign development channel that has both scale and efficiency and sustainable development." Wang Jun, president of Changan Automobile, said at the communication meeting.
After 160 years of ups and downs, Through the implementation of the third entrepreneurship-innovation plan, Changan Automobile has entered the "most Chang'an" state in history - the sales scale has not only reached the highest in history, but also its product innovation market performance, customer satisfaction and independent operating benefits have reached the best in history.
Sales volume and performance growth momentum is strong
Changan Automobile, which has grown against the trend, has become one of the few bright colors in the current automobile market.
According to the data, in 2021, Changan Automobile Group achieved batch sales of 2.301 million vehicles, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year, better than the industry by 11 percentage points, achieving stable growth for three consecutive years, and its brand market share reached 8.8%, an increase of 0.8 percentage points year-on-year, ranking fourth in the industry, an increase of 1 place year-on-year.
Changan Automobile's autonomous sector has a strong growth momentum and performs significantly better than the industry. Among them, the Changan passenger brand hit a record high, with sales of 966,000 units, an increase of 20% year-on-year; Auchan brand transformation results began to appear, the scale returned to 200,000 vehicles, an increase of 49% year-on-year; new energy vehicle sales exceeded 100,000 for the first time, an increase of more than 200%; overseas market batch sales of 104,000 units, an increase of 114%.
In the first quarter of 2022, Changan Automobile continued to consolidate its market advantage, with wholesale sales of 651,000 units, an increase of 1.6% year-on-year, and Changan's Chinese brand vehicles sold 529,000 units, an increase of 1.3% year-on-year.
Such eye-catching results are the result of Changan Automobile's series of products advancing hand in hand in various market segments.
In 2021, CS75PLUS ranked first in China's compact SUV market sales; Yidong PLUS maintained the second largest sales volume of compact cars in China; the second-generation CS55PLUS quickly became a blockbuster product in the market segment after its listing; and UNI sequence sales have exceeded 230,000 units.
Through continuous optimization of product structure, Changan Automobile's operating income increased higher than the sales growth rate, showing a continuous upward trend. More importantly, by increasing the premium capacity of products, the proportion of high-value products of Changan Automobile has increased significantly. Up to now, changan passenger car sales have accounted for 59.3% of new products, and the average market price has increased by 4.4% year-on-year.
This allowed Changan Automobile to achieve operating income of 105.14 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 24.3% year-on-year, and the revenue growth rate was better than the sales growth rate of 9.5 percentage points. Attributable net profit was 3.55 billion yuan, an increase of 228 million yuan year-on-year, and non-attributable net profit was 1.653 billion yuan, achieving a turnaround and an improvement of 4.903 billion yuan year-on-year. In particular, the non-net profit of the independent sector reached 730 million yuan, an improvement of 3.41 billion yuan year-on-year, accounting for 44.0% of the deducted non-net profit, and the independent sector is gradually becoming the company's profit pillar.
This benign and strong growth momentum continued until the first quarter of 2022, the quarter of Changan Automobile's operating income of 34.62 billion yuan, an increase of 8.15% year-on-year, an increase of 33.4% month-on-month, the net profit attributable to the mother is expected to be 4.52 billion, an increase of 430% year-on-year, an increase of 708% month-on-month; the net profit of deduction of non-attributable to the mother is expected to be 2.22 billion, an increase of 209% year-on-year, and the self-operating efficiency is expected to reach the best in history.
Product offensive, R & D investment is fierce
In 2022, on the basis of maintaining the competitive advantage of fuel vehicles, Changan Automobile plans to continue to launch 8 new energy products on a large scale and with high frequency to rapidly expand the new energy market share.
These include the national classic scooter LUMIN based on EPA0's new pure electric exclusive platform, the first future technology electric coupe C385 based on EPA1's new pure electric exclusive platform, the first intelligent electric vehicle product Avita 11 jointly built by Huawei and CATL, and hybrid models such as UNI-K iDD and UNI-V iDD.
On the one hand, there is a strong momentum of sales and performance, and on the other hand, there is a fierce product offensive and research and development investment.
Changan Automobile invests 5% of its sales revenue in research and development every year, and has invested more than 110 billion yuan so far in the "Eleventh Five-Year Plan". In 2021, Changan Automobile's R&D investment increased by 24.3% year-on-year, of which new energy investment increased by 60% year-on-year, and software + intelligence investment increased by 89% year-on-year.
Through high-intensity investment, Changan Automobile's R&D capabilities have been comprehensively improved, and an engineering R&D team of about 5,000 people has been built in key areas such as new energy and automatic driving. Throughout the year, it broke through 58 intelligent and low-carbon core technologies, and mass-produced new technologies such as APA6.0 remote intelligent parking and three-clutch integration. Promote the construction of seven underlying core capabilities of "Core Diagram Core Cloud Nettex" and create a full-scenario intelligent electric super digital platform. 2015 patents were declared, an increase of 87% year-on-year. In the evaluation of the National Enterprise Technology Center, Changan Automobile has achieved the first in the industry and the second in the country, ranking a new high.
It is worth mentioning that through the large-scale production brought about by technological innovation and sales increase, Changan Automobile has continued to build a cost management system of the whole value chain and all fields with "efficiency" and "benefit" as the core, promoting cost reduction and achieving cost reduction.
In 2021, the company's cost and expense ratio to revenue decreased by 3.72 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, the proportion of operating costs decreased by 1.9 percentage points year-on-year, and the proportion of expenses during the period decreased by 1.78 percentage points year-on-year. The company has adopted a prudent financial strategy as always, reducing future cost pressures and risks, and adhering to the low capitalization rate of R&D investment, which has been less than 30% in the past three years.
Changan Automobile continued to promote debt reduction and deleveraging, reducing financial costs, and in 2021, interest-bearing liabilities were 619 million yuan, down 60% year-on-year, and financial expenses were reduced by 271% year-on-year. Through continuous promotion of cost leadership actions, the company's cost competitiveness has been continuously enhanced.
The foundation to build a world-class Chinese brand
"The purpose of innovation is not only to change, but also to cultivate new momentum for us to achieve growth under the new normal." In 2022, we will continue to promote technological innovation, marketing innovation, organizational innovation, etc., further break down development barriers, continuously improve operational efficiency, and continue to build future-oriented core competitiveness. ”
As Wang Jun said, Changan Automobile's confidence in building a world-class Chinese brand comes from the company's technological innovation, marketing innovation and organizational innovation.
In the future, Changan Automobile will make every effort to build a new digital pure electric brand Changan Deep Blue and high-end intelligent electric vehicle brand Avita, and comprehensively transform to electrification and electrification. By 2025, Changan Automobile is expected to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation, and accelerate the construction of core capabilities in the field of transformation.
It can be seen that under the general trend of new energy and intelligent vehicles, Changan Automobile will also promote the Shangri-La plan and the Beidou Tianshu plan at full speed, and continue to escort the realization of the goal of enterprise transformation.
In terms of marketing, in 2021, Changan Automobile set up the Group's Smart Marketing Center to coordinate the implementation of a new business model of "unified middle office of the whole group, unified transformation of all channels, and unified direct management of all scenarios". Continue to promote the transformation of channel ecology, the scale of channels has exceeded 5500, and the coverage rate of core business districts has reached 99%. Promote the "No. 1 Project" of customer management, deeply practice the "Five Commitments of Honest Service", and in the sales satisfaction ranking released by the China Quality Association in 2021, Changan Automobile won the crown of its own brand.
In order to innovate the incentive and constraint mechanism and stimulate the vitality of enterprises, at the beginning of 2021, Changan Automobile carried out a personnel change with the largest number of people and the largest adjustment changes in history. Changan Automobile dismissed and re-optimized the middle and senior management personnel, and finally 208 people were "laid off" or "changed guards", after this battle, the sense of urgency, responsibility and sense of purpose of all middle and senior management personnel were further enhanced.
In addition, in 2021, Changan Automobile implemented the equity incentive for core employees, covering more than 1,600 people, granting nearly 100 million shares of shares, and contributing nearly 700 million yuan to employees.
It is not only necessary to solve long-term strategic problems in the future, but also to solve the urgent needs of the moment. Under the repeated impact of "lack of core and less electricity" and the epidemic, resource supply has become the core work of the entire automotive industry, and only by fighting the epidemic and grabbing materials and going all out to ensure market demand can there be a double growth in operating efficiency and sales.
Up to now, Changan Automobile is actively coordinating and constantly striving for resources to make a pre-embedding for possible sales decline in the short term.
This article was originally produced by Automotive Business Review
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