Author 丨 Mei Xukang
Editor 丨Hao Qiuhui
Core ideas
In the past 25 years, GAC Group has witnessed the development and transformation of Guangzhou's automobile industry, and also carried the ups and downs of competition between joint venture brands and independent brands;
Although GAC Group has the intention to increase the proportion of its own sector, it is still unable to compete with the joint venture brand, and "Shuangtian" is a situation in which the autonomous sector continues to transfuse blood, which is difficult to improve for a while;
IPO road is long, Eian should focus on reality, avoid internal friction, strengthen research and development, and further broaden the price band to stabilize the basic disk.
"Market for technology" is a generation of auto people's helpless move, relying on people's sniffles is not a long-term solution.
In order to win a place in the fuel vehicle market, China's independent brands are riveting to catch up, but their share in the local market is not more than half.
According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in 2022, the cumulative sales of China's own brand passenger cars were 9.543 million units, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year, occupying 44.4% of the market share, up 6% year-on-year.
The opportunity for new energy vehicles has come. China's own brands are taking the initiative in China's auto market.
Today's GAC, although it can not change the dilemma of the joint venture brand occupying the C position, its own brand has seized the opportunity of new energy, and its development has begun to see the dawn.
On April 27, GAC Group's first quarter 2022 financial report showed that GAC Group achieved operating income of 23.15 billion yuan, an increase of 45.7% year-on-year; net profit attributable to listed shareholders was 3.01 billion yuan, an increase of 27.2% year-on-year.
For the growth of revenue, GAC Group particularly emphasized the increase in revenue, which was caused by the substantial increase in sales of its own brand cars, especially the contribution of "Eian", whose cumulative sales reached 45,000, an increase of 1.5 times year-on-year.
Security's 150% growth requires not only luck, but also strength.
In 1985, Guangzhou Peugeot Company settled in Yangcheng, kicking off the prelude to the joint venture construction of the Guangzhou automobile industry.
In 1997, Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd., the predecessor of GAC Group, was formally established, and since then, joint venture brands such as GAC Honda and GAC Toyota have been established.
In the past 25 years, GAC Group has witnessed the development and transformation of Guangzhou's automobile industry, and also carried the ups and downs of competition between joint venture brands and independent brands.
01 Joint venture leads the way, independently catching up
On March 30, GAC Group released its 2021 annual report.
According to the financial report data, in 2021, GAC Group achieved a total operating income of 429.76 billion yuan, and the total operating income of the consolidated caliber rose to 75.68 billion yuan, up 19.8% year-on-year.
Thanks to the increase in sales volume during the reporting period and the increase in investment income from joint ventures, GAC Group ended two consecutive years of profit decline since 2018, and its net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies increased to 7.34 billion yuan in 2021, up 23% year-on-year.
In 2021, GAC Group achieved vehicle production and sales of 2.138 million units and 2.144 million units, up 5.1% and 4.9% year-on-year, but failed to achieve its annual target of 10% growth.
Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, said that due to the epidemic in 2021, lack of cores, rising raw material costs and other reasons, GAC's overall sales have been affected to a certain extent, and GAC Honda has been the most seriously affected. In 2021, Guangqi Honda sold 780,000 units, a 3.17% decrease year-on-year.
The decline in sales of Guangqi Honda has not hurt the vitality. The joint venture brand is still the sales volume and revenue of GAC Group.
The GAC joint venture brand is led by Toyota. In 2021, GAC Toyota's cumulative sales reached 828,000 units, an increase of 8.2% year-on-year, and its operating income also increased by 16.9% year-on-year to 129.46 billion yuan.
GAC's joint venture brand can be described as a double heaven of ice and fire.
In 2021, GAC Mitsubishi's annual sales were 66,000 units, down 12% year-on-year; GAC FCA's annual sales fell by more than 50%, with only 20,000 units. The capacity utilization rate of both is only 30.6% and 5%, while the capacity utilization rate of "Shuangtian" has exceeded 100%.
"Shuangtian" shouldered the signboard of GAC's joint venture and steadily occupied the C position.
According to the financial report data, the investment income of GAC's joint venture reached 11.4 billion yuan in 2021, an increase of 19.2% year-on-year. GAC Honda and GAC Toyota contributed CNY 9.41 billion to the GAC Group.
GAC's autonomous segments are in a very different position in terms of sales volume and net profit.
In 2021, GAC's autonomous sector lost 4.48 billion yuan, an increase of 13.5% year-on-year, but its sales growth rate was considerable.
Thanks to a number of new or modified models such as the Shadow Leopard and the second-generation GS8 launched by GAC Trumpchi, in 2021, GAC Trumpchi's sales volume was 324,000 units, an increase of 10.4% year-on-year.
With models such as AION Y, AION S PLUS and AION V PLUS, GAC Aeon achieved cumulative sales of 120,000 units in the whole year, an increase of 101.8% at the same time.
The growth rate of E'an has boosted GAC's confidence in its autonomous sector.
Although GAC Group has the intention to increase the proportion of its own sector and take Trumpchi and Aeon as the focus of development, the reality is that it is still unable to compete with the joint venture brand.
"Shuangtian" is a situation in which the autonomous plate continues to transfuse blood, which is difficult to improve for a while.
At present, the sales pillar of GAC "Shuangtian" is still fuel vehicles, and in the face of the wave of the new energy vehicle era, GAC "Shuangtian" is actively seeking changes.
02 Fuel decline, "double field" to change
There is a saying that there are two kinds of hybrids, Toyota and the other.
In 1997, the Toyota Prius became the world's first mass-produced hybrid model. Honda's Insight was officially launched in 1999, and the "Shuangtian" joined hands to open the era of hybrid models.
Since 2021, plug-and-mix technologies such as BYD DMI and Great Wall Lemon DHT have become popular in the Chinese market, and Chinese brands have begun to stir up wind and rain in the hybrid market, and "Shuangtian" rivals are around.
According to the data of the Association, in 2021, the retail sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 2.989 million units. China has become the world's largest electric vehicle market, ANDC "Shuangtian" does not want to be left behind, and accelerating the transformation of electrification is the only way.
Due to the previous strategic failure of "Shuangtian" in China, it lost the opportunity to expand China's new energy market.
In the face of the new energy wave, the "Shuangtian" who started early in the morning and set up late began to accelerate the transformation of electrification.
On April 25, Honda China announced at the e:N brand night event that Guangqi Honda's pure electric vehicle model e:NP Polar Pan 1 will officially open pre-sale in May.
Honda is not the first time to create pure electric products in the Chinese market, and has previously released pure electric models such as VE-1 and EA6, but they have not hung honda standards, and the market performance is flat.
This time, Guangqi Honda unveiled the market with a new pure electric brand e:NP, but it actually wants to make up for the previous "missing class" in today's accelerated reform of new energy.
By 2025, GAC Honda plans to launch an e:NP series of pure electric models every year; after 2023, all models launched by GAC Honda in the Chinese market will use hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric power.
GAC Toyota and GAC Honda are in step. On April 28, GAC Toyota bZ pure electric exclusive series of the first model bZ4X was also officially unveiled, the new car launched a total of 5 products, after the comprehensive subsidy pre-price of 22-30 million yuan.
GAC Toyota bZ4X is the first midsize SUV born under its e-TNGA platform.
The model's intelligent driving uses the third-generation Toyota Zhixing safety system, which is equipped with the MobileyeEyeQ4 autopilot chip, which provides L2-level driver assistance functions and multi-scene intelligent parking functions with memory functions.
Previously, GAC Toyota relied on new energy models such as Leiling Dual Engine E+, iA5, etc., and did not achieve good results, and the new pure electric products of the bZ series released this time are an important weapon for GAC Toyota to expand its territory in the field of new energy.
According to GAC Toyota's plan, by 2025, its electrified model sales account for nearly 60%, and 100% in 2035.
However, in the pure electric market, GAC Toyota as a latecomer, bZ4X has not been verified by the market, and it is not easy to make a breakthrough.
At present, China's new energy vehicle market is competing with each other, Toyota and Honda have been difficult to maintain the advantages of the fuel vehicle era, in this epoch-making automobile revolution, "Shuangtian" is bound to take the tiger's mouth.
GAC will not pin its hopes only on the "Shuangtian", and Aeon is the focus of GAC's new energy era.
03 Aeon rises, co-creation of food
On March 31, at the 2021 earnings conference of GAC Group, Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, said: "We must at least do the current 'Wei Xiaoli' into 'Ai Xiaowei'. "
When Feng Xingya said this, he had the confidence to say this.
In 2021, GAC Aeon's cumulative sales exceeded 120,000 units, and it began to occupy a place in the new energy market and began to prepare for IPO.
Feng Xingya placed Aean in the queue of new car-making forces, and the benefits were obvious. Compared with Wei Xiaoli and other new forces of head car manufacturing, Aeon has formed a certain sales advantage.
In the next listing process, EON may receive higher financing and valuation.
On March 31, Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, revealed at the media communication meeting of GAC Group's annual report that GAC A-an expects to complete the A round of financing in September, exchanging 30% of its equity for 50 billion yuan of financing, or will invest all in research and development.
The new car-making forces do not have the historical baggage of the fuel era and can fully invest in the research and development of new energy vehicles. This is not the case with traditional car companies.
In the sectors of intelligence and user service, traditional car companies may not be as good as the new forces of car manufacturing, but the experience of production and manufacturing is not comparable to the new forces of car manufacturing.
The market's valuation logic for car companies is also changing, and in the capital market, traditional car companies have not been popular with new car-making forces. Although Wei Xiaoli is not as good as traditional established car companies such as SAIC and GAC in terms of revenue and sales, its market value is far ahead.
In order to avoid the problem of elephant turning around and to obtain more attention from the capital market, GAC, SAIC, Changan and others have split their new energy vehicle businesses and sought independent financing and listing.
According to GAC's plan, AEON plans to complete the A round of financing and joint-stock system reform by the third quarter of this year, and split and list in 2023. If the plan is successfully realized, GAC Aean will be the first subsidiary of a state-owned car company to go public after the mixed reform.
However, for the market performance, Eian needs to be soberly aware that compared with Wei Xiaoli, Eian is not competing in a unified price range.
As the main sales force of Aian, Eian S and Eian Y are in the pricing range of 100,000-170,000 yuan, which is not consistent with the target group of Wei Xiaoli. Although Aeon can open up the market in the era of new energy, the high-end brand has become a major bottleneck.
Aeon not only faces external competitors, but also competition from within GAC.
Hechuang Automobile, which is jointly invested by Pearl River Investment Management Group, GUANGZHOU AUTOMOBILE Group and NIO Automobile, also launched the Hechuang Z03 model. In March this year, the order volume of Hechuang reached 3,016 vehicles, an increase of 8,000% year-on-year, and in April, the order volume of Hechuang continued to climb to 3,084 units, an increase of more than 6,500% year-on-year.
Co-creation Z03 and Aean Y, there are many similarities.
Both parties are not only based on the GAC GEP2.0 platform, but also have very similar price ranges. Although there are many differences in configuration and details, there is still a suspicion of roommate.
It is not enough to learn how to tell stories from the new car-making forces, GAC also needs to play iron itself.
According to the plan of GAC Group, gac Aeon's sales target is to reach 600,000 units by 2025. Based on this, in 2022, AEAN will launch models such as LX Plus and Y Plus to further improve the product structure.
Relying on GAC, Aeon's own manufacturing strength is remarkable, and it is imperative to seek breakthroughs in electrification and intelligent core technologies.
In 2021, GAC Aeon has launched three original battery technologies of magazine batteries, super-speed batteries, and sponge silicon anode batteries, as well as autonomous driving technologies such as NDA and AVP, and its ADiGO intelligent driving system has been updated to the 4.0 era.
Facing the charging and replacing energy replenishment industry, Aeon has begun to lay out.
On March 22, 2022, GAC Group announced that it will jointly invest with EAN to establish GAC Energy Ecological Technology Co., Ltd., with a total investment of 4.96 billion yuan, in order to build a charging and storage energy supply ecology and battery recycling ecology, promote the research of energy storage system technology, "car-station-network" collaborative interaction of intelligent charging and replacement service technology and product development and application.
If this round of financing is successfully obtained 50 billion yuan according to Zeng Qinghong' description, and all of it is invested in research and development, it may bring further qualitative changes to Aeon.
IPO road is long, Eian should focus on reality, avoid internal friction, strengthen research and development, and further broaden the price band to stabilize the basic disk.
04 Conclusion
The road to independent brand search is bumpy, and GAC wants to get close to the C position in the turbulent automobile market, not only to face the encirclement and interception of joint venture brands, but also to compete with other independent forces that have risen together.
GAC's road to autonomy is full of thorns.