Auto-First | Liu Tianming
In the Chinese auto market in 2021, the impact of the epidemic has not been completely eliminated, and factors such as chip shortages and rising raw material prices have followed. However, under the low base in 2020 and the strong resilience of automobile companies, it ended three consecutive years of negative growth and returned to a micro-growth trend.
With saic motor's disclosure of the 2021 annual report, 17 listed automobile companies have handed over their annual performance results. Overall, the total revenue of 17 listed automobile companies is nearly 1.9 trillion yuan, and the revenue generally shows a rapid growth trend year-on-year, and in terms of net profit, 12 car companies have achieved profitability, and the new forces of car manufacturing are still in a loss situation.
In addition to performance, listed auto companies have invested heavily in research and development, generally showing a growth trend, accounting for 3% to 7% of total revenue in the range. In terms of production capacity, car companies have obvious polarization, and the capacity utilization rate of marginal car companies is only single digits.
7 companies have revenues of more than 100 billion yuan and 3 companies have profits of more than 10 billion
Among the 17 listed automobile companies, SAIC Motor group ranked first with a total revenue of 779.85 billion yuan, BYD ranked second only to SAIC with a revenue of 216.142 billion yuan, and BAIC ranked third with an operating income of 175.916 billion yuan. The operating income of Great Wall Motor, Changan Automobile, Dongfeng Group and Geely Automobile all exceeded 100 billion yuan.
Among the 7 car companies with operating income exceeding 100 billion yuan, only SAIC, BYD, Great Wall Motor and Dongfeng Group achieved revenue of more than 100 billion yuan through the vehicle business (BAIC did not disclose relevant performance data). Geely Automobile and Changan Automobile, whose total revenue exceeded 100 billion yuan, maintained their operating income in the range of 10 billion yuan in the vehicle sales business.
It is worth mentioning that Geely Automobile's operating income is relatively diversified, in addition to the sale of vehicles and parts to generate revenue, but also through the sale of power batteries, technical assistance and the sale of intellectual property rights and other ways to generate income, the total revenue of this part reached 5.115 billion yuan. At the same time, this part of the high gross profit revenue can help Geely Automobile improve the overall gross profit margin.
Unlike most car companies, BAIC and Jianghuai Automobile have experienced negative revenue growth. Among them, Jianghuai Automobile's operating income was 40.311 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 6.05%, the decline in revenue was mainly due to a significant decline in commercial vehicle sales, its passenger car business operating income increased by 19.39% over the same period last year to 8.723 billion yuan, and the operating income of commercial vehicles, buses and chassis businesses all showed a double-digit decline year-on-year.
In terms of net profit, among the 17 car companies, only SAIC, BAIC and Dongfeng Group achieved tens of billions of profits, while BAIC Blue Valley, Xiaokang Shares, Weilai Automobile, Ideal Automobile and Xiaopeng Automobile showed a loss trend.
BAIC was able to achieve a net profit of 15.151 billion yuan, thanks to the contribution of Beijing Benz. According to the annual report, in 2021, Beijing Benz's revenue was 167.966 billion yuan, down 1.0% year-on-year, accounting for 95.48% of BEIJING Motor's total revenue, and gross profit was 42.255 billion yuan, down 8.10% year-on-year. The gross profit of Beijing brands expanded from a loss of 3.666 billion yuan in 2020 to a loss of 4.513 billion yuan in 2021.
BYD is the only car company that has increased revenue without increasing profits, and its net profit is only 3.045 billion yuan, down 28.08% year-on-year. BYD's large-scale decline in profits stems from two major aspects, on the one hand, with the effective control of the epidemic, the rapid contraction of the epidemic prevention product business, on the other hand, the rise in raw material prices has caused a significant increase in manufacturing and production costs, due to the self-production of power batteries, BYD also has to bear the price increase of key raw materials such as lithium carbonate and battery-grade cobalt, and the cost pressure has suddenly increased.
R&D investment has generally increased
As the survival of manufacturing enterprises, R & D investment has always been the top priority in the annual expenditure of car companies, mainstream car companies generally put R & D investment in the first place, after all, investment in R & D is to invest in the future, reduce anything can not reduce R & D. According to statistics, the total R&D investment of 16 car companies is 78.182 billion yuan (Dongfeng Group did not disclose R & D investment), except for Jianghuai Automobile, Haima Automobile, Lifan Automobile, the rest of the car companies R & D investment has shown an increasing trend.
Among them, SAIC Motor invested 20.595 billion yuan in research and development, an increase of 37.60% year-on-year, ranking first in the list. SAIC Motor said in its annual report that the increase in R&D investment is mainly due to the strengthening of R&D investment in new energy, intelligent networking, digitalization and other technologies.
BYD is second only to SAIC motor with 10.627 billion yuan in research and development investment. According to the annual report, BYD's current research and development projects are blade cell technology, energy storage products, DM-i super hybrid, DM-p technology platform, DiLink 4.0 (5G), e platform 3.0, and large-size half-chip photovoltaic module technology. Among them, the DM-i super hybrid and DM-p technology platform has been applied to many of BYD's models, and DiLink4.0 (5G) has been installed on the flagship model of HanEV, and will be further installed in other models in the future.
Great Wall Motors is the car company with the largest increase in R&D investment among traditional automobile companies. In 2021, R&D investment reached 9.067 billion yuan, an increase of 76.10% over the same period last year. Great Wall Motor pointed out that the growth of R&D investment is mainly due to the company's increased investment in intelligence, electrification, new models and other aspects.
The new car-making forces maintained a large amount of R & D investment, WEILAI Automobile, Xiaopeng Automobile and Ideal Automobile was 4.592 billion yuan, 4.114 billion yuan and 3.29 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 12.71%, 19.60% and 12.18% of the total revenue, respectively. The proportion of R&D investment in total revenue is not only significantly higher than that of domestic enterprises, but also much higher than that of multinational automobile companies.
In terms of the proportion of R&D investment in total revenue, China's traditional automobile companies are generally in the range of 3% to 7%, and more than 5% of car companies reach 6 enterprises. According to relevant research, the R& D investment of multinational car companies such as Volkswagen, General Motors, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Honda is usually between 4% and 6%. It can be seen that Chinese auto companies are gradually at the same level as multinational auto companies in R&D investment.
As Chinese car companies accelerate the transformation process, R&D investment will show rapid growth. In Great Wall Motor's 2025 strategic strategy, by 2025, Great Wall Motor will invest a total of 100 billion yuan in research and development for research and development of new energy and intelligent technologies. Changan Automobile said at this year's partner conference that it plans to invest more than 80 billion yuan in key areas such as new energy, intelligence, scientific and technological innovation, and digital transformation.
Capacity utilization is polarized
In 2021, Chinese brand passenger cars show a rapid growth trend. According to the statistics of China Automobile Association, China's brand passenger cars sold a total of 9.543 million units, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year, accounting for 44.4% of the total passenger car sales, and the share increased by 6.0 percentage points over the same period last year.
The heat of the Chinese brand passenger car market has made the capacity utilization rate of the head car companies at a high level. According to auto-first statistics, BYD's new energy vehicle design capacity is 600,000 units, the capacity utilization rate reached 99.51%, Great Wall Motor's design capacity was 1.44 million units, the capacity utilization rate was 90.61%, SAIC's passenger car design capacity was 800,000 units, and the production capacity reached 802,000 units during the reporting period, and the capacity utilization rate exceeded 100%.
It is worth mentioning that the production base of Great Wall Motor's hot products has insufficient capacity. The Baoding production base, including xushui vehicle factory, has a design capacity of 600,000 vehicles, an actual production capacity of 705,100 vehicles, and a capacity utilization rate of 117.52%, a design capacity of 160,000 vehicles, an actual production capacity of 212,000 vehicles, and a capacity utilization rate of 132.51%, and a taizhou production base designing capacity of 100,000 vehicles, an actual production capacity of 122,300 vehicles, and a capacity utilization rate of 122.29%.
The overall capacity utilization rate of large auto companies is between 70% and 80%. SAIC Motor's total design capacity is 7.224 million units, with a capacity utilization rate of 75.78%, of which SAIC Volkswagen has a design capacity of 2.088 million units and a capacity utilization rate of 60%, and SAIC-GM has a design capacity of 1.908 million units, with a capacity utilization rate of 70%.
GAC Group has a total designed production capacity of 2.933 million units and a capacity utilization rate of 75.86%. Among them, GAC Toyota and GAC Honda have a design capacity of 800,000 units and 770,000 units respectively, with a capacity utilization rate of more than 100%, and a design capacity of 820,000 units for GAC Passenger Vehicles (including Aian), with a capacity utilization rate of 54.59%. Gac Mitsubishi and GAC FCA's capacity utilization rate is at a low level.
Among the 17 listed car companies, Beiqi Blue Valley and Lifan Technology showed overcapacity. Among them, the capacity utilization rate of BAIC BJEV Changzhou plant under BAIC Blue Valley is 0, the design capacity of BAIC BJEV Co., Ltd. is 320,000 vehicles, the implementation of single-shift production, the production capacity is reduced to 160,000 vehicles, the capacity utilization rate is only 0.08%, and the design capacity of the BEIC Magna plant that puts into production of Jihu brand products is 150,000 vehicles, using single-shift production, and the capacity utilization rate is 8.32%.
After experiencing bankruptcy and restructuring, Lifan Technology has a low vehicle production capacity. According to the annual report, its passenger car factory has a single-shift design capacity of 100,000 units, and the capacity utilization rate is 3.95%.