WM Motor Visual China infographic
Caught in the whirlpool of public opinion for many days, WM Motor finally appeared.
On the evening of February 17, Shen Hui, CEO of WM Motor, posted on Weibo, saying, "In the past year, due to the objective impact of the epidemic and the market environment, WM did encounter some difficulties. We are making adjustments through a series of measures to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and we are making every effort to ensure the resumption of work and production and the experience of end users. Only then can you pack up and go again! Thank you for your concern, and please do not believe in rumors and wait for our good news. ”
Earlier, WM Motor also issued a statement. The statement said, "Our company is concerned about the untrue remarks and misleading information about the company's management and business conditions published and reproduced by a number of media. Once the relevant article was released, it caused some netizens to spread, reprint and discuss on major social platforms, which had a serious impact on the company's brand, reputation and the personal reputation of the enterprise management, and our company has sent a lawyer's letter for some false information, and asked the relevant media to delete the information that is not in line with the facts, and stop misleading the industry and the public. ”
In the statement, WM Motor responded to and clarified the three rumors on the Internet: "WM Motor's financial department set up a project without authorization", "the enterprise relies on scalpers to brush tens of millions of projects", and "the company's management gave the green light to its own project".
In recent years, WM has been called "get up early, catch up late". WM's first car was mass-produced in 2018, and compared with NIO, Li Auto and Xpeng Motors, the current three new forces in China's car manufacturing are almost in the same running line, but when "Wei Xiaoli" ran all the way, WM Motor had already fallen out of the first echelon.
On January 12, Apollo Smart Mobility Group Co., Ltd. (Apollo Mobility, 00860.HK) announced on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange that on January 11, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the company entered into an acquisition agreement with WM Holdings Co., Ltd., intending to acquire WM MOTOR, a subsidiary of WM Holdings, for US$2.02 billion, and to settle by allocating 28.8 billion shares at HK$0.55 per share. The news is regarded by the industry as WM's backdoor listing through Apollo Travel.
Apollo Mobility mentioned in the announcement that in the first half of 2022, WM Motor sold only 16,500 electric vehicles. In contrast, new automakers including NIO, Xpeng, Lili, Nezha and Leap all sold more than 50,000 vehicles in the same period. In December 2022, Li Auto delivered 21,200 units, and WM Motor's half-year delivery volume was less than the ideal one-month delivery.
In the previous years, WM Motor's delivery data was not satisfactory, and WM Motor's prospectus showed that from 2019 to 2021, WM Motor's delivery data was 12,800 units, 21,900 units, and 44,200 units, respectively. In the external publicity at the end of last year, WM said that its cumulative sales exceeded 100,000 vehicles. In comparison, in 2021, the delivery volume of NIO, Xpeng, and Lili has approached 100,000 vehicles.
The sluggish growth of sales and the rising cost of new energy vehicles have made it difficult for WM Motor's gross profit to turn positive. According to the prospectus, from 2019 to 2021, WM's total revenue was 1.762 billion yuan, 2.672 billion yuan and 4.7425 billion yuan, respectively; losses were as high as RMB4.145 billion, RMB5.084 billion and RMB8.206 billion respectively; Gross margins were -58.3%, -43.5% and -41.1%, respectively.
According to the announcement released by Apollo Mobility, WM Motor's total revenue in the first half of 2022 was 1.854 billion yuan. During the same period, the total revenue of NIO, Xiaopeng and Lili was about 20.2 billion yuan, 14.9 billion yuan and 18.3 billion yuan respectively.
Interestingly, after the announcement of Apollo's acquisition agreement, WM Motor CEO Shen Hui posted a clip of the film "Furong Town" on Weibo, the line of which was "Live, live like an animal".