Towards the end of April, Changan Automobile finally released its 2021 financial report, although it was late, but the first revenue broke through 100 billion yuan and the net profit increased by 6.87%, which was enough to make it full of confidence.
The redness of Changan Automobile's performance is only a microcosm of Chinese brands. Since entering March, the 2021 results of listed car companies have been announced. Looking at the 2021 report card of car companies, it can be seen that at the moment when the market share of Chinese brands is constantly improving, the double growth of revenue and profit has become the main theme, and the overall joy is greater than worry.
However, it is undeniable that 2021 is also a year of difficulties and challenges, under the influence of many uncertain factors such as lack of cores and rising raw material prices, competition has intensified, the pattern has changed, and car companies have also accelerated their participation in the torrent of change, and strive to be invincible in the new round of competition.
The double growth of revenue and profit has become a common phenomenon
According to the data of the China Automobile Association, the annual operating income of 16 key car companies in 2021 was 4,090.431 billion yuan, an increase of 2.8% year-on-year; the total profit reached 294.687 billion yuan, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year. Judging from the performance of car companies that have announced their financial reports, Changan, Great Wall, AND GAC have both increased revenue and profit; BYD and Geely have increased their income without increasing profits.
Specifically, thanks to the outbreak of the new energy vehicle market, BYD, which has ranked first in the new energy vehicle market for 9 consecutive years, ranked first among the above-mentioned car companies with a revenue of 212.642 billion yuan. Among them, the automobile business still accounts for half of the country, with revenue of about 112.489 billion yuan, an increase of 33.93% year-on-year.
Revenue growth is inseparable from the increase in delivery volume. According to the data, BYD's cumulative sales of passenger cars reached 730,000 units in 2021, up 75.4% year-on-year. Among them, new energy models account for more than 80%. BYD's share of the new energy market also rose to 17.1%, an increase of nearly 8% during the year.
In addition to the continuous growth of sales, the average price of BYD bicycles is also on the rise, according to Wilson data, the average price of BYD passenger car bicycles has exceeded 150,000 yuan, comparable to the joint venture car companies, and even surpass some of the best-selling joint venture brands in China.
But revenue does not represent profit increases. In 2021, BYD's net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 3.045 billion yuan, down 28.08% year-on-year. BYD said that this is due to the triple pressure of shrinking demand, supply shocks and weaker expectations, coupled with uncertainties such as the spread of the epidemic, high fluctuations in commodity prices, and geopolitical conflicts.
The same situation as BYD is also Geely, in 2021, Geely's revenue returned to the 100 billion camp after 2 years, achieving a year-on-year increase of 10.3%. However, despite the optimization of product structure and the improvement of brand premium capabilities, its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies declined for the third consecutive year to 4.35 billion yuan.
In this regard, Geely Automobile explained that the profit pressure comes from the rising cost of raw materials, the increase in R & D investment, and the operating costs generated by the development of new business.
In addition to BYD and Geely, the other three car companies have achieved both revenue and profit growth. Among them, due to the increase in sales in the autonomous sector and the good profitability of the joint venture sector, Changan Automobile's profit has increased significantly.
Specifically, in 2021, Changan Automobile sold 2.301 million new vehicles, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year, and the market share increased by 0.8 percentage points year-on-year. Among them, Changan's Chinese brand vehicles sold 1.755 million units, an increase of 16.7% year-on-year, ranking second in the industry; the sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 100,000 units for the first time, an increase of more than 2 times year-on-year.
Great Wall Motor's performance also reached the best level in the past five years, with operating income of 136.4 billion yuan, an increase of 32.04% year-on-year, and net profit of 6.73 billion yuan, an increase of 25.41% year-on-year. Great Wall Motor said that this was mainly due to the increase in sales in the reporting period and the increase in bicycle revenue due to the brand upwards.
According to the data, Great Wall Motor sold 1.281 million new vehicles in 2021, an increase of 14.79% year-on-year, and sold more than one million vehicles for the sixth consecutive year. At the same time, the overall average price of Great Wall Motors exceeded 106,000 yuan, an increase of 15.02% year-on-year, and high-value and intelligent products gradually became the company's main sales force.
In addition, GAC Group's main revenue in 2021 was 75.676 billion yuan, an increase of 19.8% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 7.335 billion yuan, an increase of 23.0%. Among them, the joint venture brand Sino-Japanese "Two Fields" is still a profit cow, and the cumulative sales of GAC Toyota and GAC Honda reached 800,000 and 780,000 vehicles respectively.
In the field of new energy, GAC Group has also achieved rapid development, and its new energy business revenue has not only exceeded 10 billion yuan for the first time, but also its dependence on new energy subsidies has been decreasing. It is reported that in 2021, GAC Group's new energy subsidies will be 1.757 billion yuan, accounting for only 10.14% of revenue.
Increase R&D to avoid risks
It is worth noting that regardless of the performance, the investment of car companies in research and development has continued to grow.
CICC once pointed out that during the period of great changes in the automotive industry, completely different design and development requirements were put forward for electrification, intelligence, networking and sharing of multiple tracks, which also forced vehicle companies to increase investment in research and development and strive to maintain competitiveness in the period of industry transformation.
Specifically, in 2021, BYD still ranked among the best in R&D investment, reaching 10.627 billion yuan, an increase of 24.2% year-on-year. It is reported that thanks to the continuous increase in research and development, BYD has core technologies such as blade battery, DM-i super hybrid, e-platform 3.0, IGBT4.0 and so on.
With the blessing of a series of new energy technologies, BYD also took the lead in announcing in April this year that it would stop producing fuel vehicles and focus on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. Some analysts pointed out that with the continuous improvement of market size and the promotion of the new energy market, BYD's profitability will also be improved.
Following BYD, Great Wall Motor's R&D investment in 2021 reached 9.07 billion yuan, a substantial increase of 76.05% year-on-year. Great Wall Motor said that R&D expenses are mainly used for research and development investment in intelligent, electrified and new model projects.
According to the 2025 strategy of Great Wall Motor, the Group will continue to carry out comprehensive and thorough innovation and transformation based on the positioning of global layout, large investment in research and development, great change of enterprises and large operation of users, and transform into a global intelligent technology company. Among them, from 2021 to 2025, Great Wall Motors is expected to invest about 100 billion yuan in research and development.
At the same time, Changan Automobile's cumulative R&D investment in 2021 was 4.827 billion yuan, an increase of 24.51% year-on-year. It is reported that R&D investment is mainly used in the development of PLUS, UNI and other series of models, the development of a new generation of plug-in hybrid models, the development of new intelligent electric vehicles, the development of key technologies for next-generation automatic driving, and the development of intelligent electric digital platforms.
However, it is worth mentioning that even if the performance continues to be good, Changan Automobile still pointed out that it will face three major risks in 2022: supply chain risk, raw material price increase risk and the risk of consumption disturbance of the new crown epidemic on the automobile market.
Based on this, Changan Automobile said that it will continue to increase investment in the adjustment of new energy production capacity structure and new product launch, continue to carry out core capacity building around the two major areas of production capacity and research and development, comprehensively respond to the shortcomings of manufacturing and research and development capabilities brought about by the acceleration of new energy planning, accelerate the process of product switching to new energy electrification, and start the investment in the integrated manufacturing capacity of key components of The Three Electrics.
In addition, Geely Automobile and GAC Group invested 5.5 billion yuan in research and development and nearly 5.2 billion yuan respectively. Among them, the emphasis on self-developed science and technology has promoted the development of Geely's comprehensive intelligent and electrified layout. According to the plan, in 2022, Geely will continue to increase its investment in research and development of new energy products, and make full efforts on pure electricity, super mixing, alcohol hybridization, power exchange and other tracks.
Gac Motor Group, which aims at new energy, intelligent networking and other fields, will continue to increase investment in research and development in 2021, with 2580 new patent applications and 10620 patent applications. Zeng Qinghong of GAC Group said, "In 2021, GAC will continue to build a whole industry chain ecosystem, strengthen the research and development of key core technologies around the field of intelligent networking and new energy, promote scientific and technological self-reliance and self-improvement, and achieve new breakthroughs in many scientific and technological fields." ”
Overall, even if eroded by multiple factors, the above-mentioned Chinese brands still resisted the pressure and handed over a more eye-catching performance. Facing the future competition, each company is also increasing investment, through strengthening independent innovation, grasping the key to the future door. It is foreseeable that with the easing of supply chain pressure, the continuous introduction of new products, and the continuous development of technology marketing, the performance of car companies will continue to improve.