Produced 丨Sohu Auto Car Cafe
In the face of long-term competition, NIO, as a new force that started earlier, has a new situation to deal with.
On March 1, NIO released its fourth quarter and full year 2022 financial report, achieving a historical breakthrough in revenue and delivery, with a significant expansion of net loss and a sharp decline in gross margin. At the same time, five new automakers announced their deliveries in February 2023, with NIO ranking second on the list, and the NEV market collectively picked up.
Revenue and delivery hit new highs, and the full-year sales target doubled
Under pressure, NIO performed well.
In terms of revenue, in 2022, NIO achieved revenue of 49.269 billion yuan, exceeding the 40 billion mark for the first time, a year-on-year increase of 36.3%. In the fourth quarter of 2022, NIO achieved 11 consecutive quarters of positive revenue growth year-on-year of RMB16.06 billion, up 23.5% sequentially due to the increase in ET5 and ES7 deliveries.
In terms of deliveries, in 2022, NIO delivered a total of 122,500 new vehicles, entering the 100,000-unit club, a year-on-year increase of 34%; In the fourth quarter of 2022, NIO delivered a total of 40,052 new vehicles, up 60.0% year-on-year and 26.7% sequentially.
Compared with Li Auto's revenue of 45.287 billion yuan, NIO is better, but the revenue growth rate has slowed down significantly, from 122.27% in 2021 to 36.34%, which is not as good as Li Auto's 67.7% level and less than the same period in 2019 before the epidemic.
In the first quarter of 2023, Li Bin said that NIO is under great pressure, and is expected to deliver 3.1-33,000 new vehicles, with revenue of 10.62 billion yuan to 11.54 billion yuan. Affected by product replacement, NIO's product sales have shifted from NT1 to NT2 platform, the gross profit of the main delivery model ET5 is low, and the existing ES6, ES8 and other models have factors such as national subsidies and clearance of exhibition vehicles. For example, in February 2023, NIO's delivery volume increased by 42.92% month-on-month, which is likely related to the inventory clearance activity in the month.
Revenue and deliveries continued to grow, and looking forward to the overall delivery forecast for 2023, NIO has set a goal of doubling its full-year sales to about 250,000 units.
According to statistics from the Passenger Association, retail sales of passenger cars in the narrow sense of the mainland in February are expected to be 1.35 million units, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%, of which new energy retail sales are expected to be 400,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 46.6%, and the penetration rate is 29.6%.
In the past February, a number of new forces that have endured the "black opening" of the 2023 New Year, successively adjusted sales prices, increased terminal promotions, and superimposed on the introduction of policies to stimulate automobile consumption in many places, etc., generally have a significant recovery in sales: Li Auto ranked first for three consecutive months, followed by NIO, Nezha, Xiaopeng and Zerorun in 2023 cumulative sales fell year-on-year, but affected by the sluggish delivery volume in January, the five new force car companies that have announced sales increased month-on-month in February. The bottom Leap car soared by 180.77% month-on-month.
"Because of the decline in subsidies, the market demand for pure electric vehicles in January and February this year is not high, so every car company will be affected." However, NIO's guidance price is higher and less affected. Li Bin explained that since February, the demand for the two flagship new models of ET7 and ES7 has been growing every week, and NIO is full of confidence in its product strength.
Regarding the sensitive price issue of consumers, NIO said that it will always adhere to a stable price strategy and has no plan to reduce prices through allocation. Standing in the first half of 2023, NIO will launch more new products one after another, accelerating the pace from product launch to user delivery.
All businesses were held high and gross profit margin plunged beyond expectations
Thanks to the sale, NIO's gross margin turned red.
In 2022, NIO's net loss also set a rare high record, reaching 14.437 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 259.4%; The net loss in the fourth quarter was 5.786 billion yuan, an increase of 169.9% year-on-year, both surging compared with 2021.
Based on the delivery volume of 122,500 vehicles in 2022, NIO will lose an average of 118,000 yuan for every car sold, nearly three times the loss of 44,000 yuan in the previous period, and the overall net loss is more than seven times that of the ideal car, and the profit level gap is obvious.
With the strategy of "Haidilao in the car world", NIO's R&D investment and marketing expenditure have expanded rapidly. In 2022, NIO spent more than one-fifth of its revenue on R&D expenditure, up 136% year-on-year to RMB10.836 billion, while selling, general and administrative expenses increased by 53.2% year-on-year to RMB10.537 billion.
How long can the funds lying on the books support NIO? By the end of 2022, NIO's book funds will be 45.5 billion yuan, with an average annual loss of 8.9386 billion yuan, and it can also "renew" NIO for 5 years; Based on the latest quarterly net loss of 5.786 billion yuan, it is only enough for NIO to last less than 8 quarters. In addition, NIO has four debts maturing in one year on its books, amounting to 40.1 billion yuan.
Compared with NIO, the ideal car in the first echelon of car manufacturing in the same place is relatively stable in business investment. In 2022, the ideal R&D investment will be 6.78 billion yuan, accounting for about 15% of revenue; The "three fees" invested 5.67 billion yuan, accounting for about 13% of revenue, both lower than NIO's level of more than 20%, and the overall operating expenses were less than 60% of NIO's.
Aware of the problem, CFO Feng Wei said: "In 2023, NIO will focus on improving execution efficiency and respond to the long-term competition in the global electric vehicle market with a more agile and efficient mode. Li Bin added that one of the priorities in 2023 is to improve "human efficiency", rather than laying off employees or shutting down projects.
NIO's gross margin also dropped sharply, with the gross margin level of the vehicle falling from 20.9% in the fourth quarter of 2021 to 6.8% in the fourth quarter of 2022, exceeding expectations. NIO said that the decrease in gross margin was mainly due to inventory provisions related to existing ES8, ES6 and EC6 models, accelerated depreciation of production facilities and loss of purchase commitments, while the increase in unit cost of batteries further diluted gross profit.
Looking ahead to 2023, NIO has set a gross margin target of 18%-20%. According to Li Bin's calculation, for every 100,000 yuan decrease in the unit price of lithium carbonate, NIO's gross profit margin will increase by 2 percentage points; The unit price of lithium carbonate fell to 400,000 yuan, and NIO's gross profit margin increased by 4 percentage points, "If the price of raw materials reaches the expected decline rate, NIO will achieve breakeven in the fourth quarter of 2023." “
Compared with raw material prices, NIO's top priority is to increase sales and market share to dilute costs and achieve economies of scale as soon as possible. At present, NIO has developed more models and invested more in R&D and marketing, but its sales volume is far from Tesla, which has only two main models on sale, and the cost is under serious pressure. In 2022, Tesla's Shanghai Gigafactory delivered more than 71 new vehicles, crushing NIO's 122,500 vehicles.
As a gradually mature enterprise, how to not fall behind and exchange sales space for market time is a test of the playing style and resilience of each company. At present, NIO needs to enhance its self-transfusion ability, and "radical" is also a proactive posture.