2017-2019, the key three years lost by Haima Motors

Text丨Aotou Finance Wang Jieren

Xi丨 Li Lin

As one of the earliest automobile companies established in China, Haima Automobile Co., Ltd. (000572. SZ, hereinafter referred to as "Haima Motor") at its peak in 2016, with a total sales volume of more than 220,000 units, a revenue of nearly 14 billion yuan, and a net profit of 230 million yuan. But in the first three quarters of 2023, the company's revenue has fallen to 232 million yuan, and the net profit is -86 million yuan.

Sorting out Haima Motor's actions and layout in recent years, Aotou Finance noticed that 2017-2019 can be described as a key year for Haima Motor's development. At that time, due to factors such as the slowdown in the growth of the industry and the promulgation of the National VI standard, Haima Automobile's sales fell by more than one-third year-on-year.

At that time, the new energy vehicle market was not as hot as it is now, and the head enterprise of the new car-making force "Wei Xiaoli" was still in its infancy. Haima Automobile is facing many opportunities in the field of new energy vehicles, especially in Hainan Province, where it is located in the "base" market, actively encourages the development of new energy vehicles. Due to the heavy bet on hydrogen energy, the decline in R&D investment, and the decline in sales, Haima Motor's revenue gradually declined, and it had to rely on the sale of assets to maintain its status as a listed company.

From "prosperity" to "decline", the crisis is beginning to appear

According to public information, Haima Automobile was founded in 1988, and its subsidiaries include Haima Automobile Co., Ltd., Haima New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., Hainan Haima Automobile Co., Ltd., etc., which is a modern automobile group integrating R&D, production, sales, service, logistics, finance, etc., and the main models on sale are Haima 8S, Haima 7X, Haima 6P, Aishang EV, etc.

In 2016, Haima Automobile's total annual sales exceeded 220,000 units, of which Haima S5, as a star model, became the company's sales leader, with annual sales of 102,000 units, becoming a model that cannot be ignored in the market.

According to the relevant announcement issued by Haima Motor, in 2017, the company's total sales volume was more than 14 million units, and the revenue was 9.683 billion yuan, down 30.29% year-on-year, and the net profit was -994 million yuan, turning from profit to loss.

Haima Automobile said in the announcement that in the first three quarters of 2017, the company's sales volume declined significantly year-on-year due to various factors such as slowing industry growth, intensified market competition, and internal product structure adjustment. In the fourth quarter, the company's increased investment in marketing, advertising and other resources also failed to achieve the expected results, and the total sales volume for the year declined sharply.

Haima Motor's performance fluctuated greatly in 2017, and the loss amount of that year was equivalent to the sum of the net profit of the past five years, which made it receive an inquiry letter from the China Securities Regulatory Commission after the release of its annual report.

Haima Automobile's performance changes in 2016 have been foreshadowed, an important reason is that although Haima S5 with its fashionable appearance design and high cost performance advantages, sales exceeded 10,000 for many months, at the same time, consumer complaints about the car's engine shake, steering system abnormal noise and other aspects occurred frequently, making Haima S5 this car failed to continue the sales growth trend in 2017.

According to public data, in 2017, the annual sales of Haima S59 (including S5 Youth Edition) were 64,000 units, a year-on-year decline of more than 40%, and sales were close to halving.

In 2018, Haima automobile's sales continued to decline sharply, down more than 50% from 2017 to 67,600 units. In 2019, it was 29,500 units, down nearly 90% from the sales figure of more than 220,000 units in 2016. The company's performance also continued to decline, and was "ST", and finally relied on the sale of assets to be able to "take off the hat".

Deeply cultivate the field of hydrogen energy and miss the opportunity of electrification transformation

In 2017, Haima Automobile fell into huge losses, and new energy vehicles will be an important direction for the future development of the automotive industry, which has become the consensus of car companies, and has carried out the layout, and Haima Automobile is no exception.

In fact, as one of the earliest independent brands in China to start the research and development of new energy vehicles, Haima Automobile began to invest in the research and development and industrialization of pure electric vehicles and their key technologies as early as 2006, and has undertaken 6 national "863" and provincial and ministerial scientific research projects.

In 2009, Haima Automobile began to plan the pure electric vehicle project, established the new energy vehicle development process, the technical standards and evaluation system of the vehicle testing enterprise, and has independent intellectual property rights of the three core technologies of vehicle electronic control, electric drive and battery system.

In 2016, the implementation time of the National VI standard was clarified, which promoted the accelerated development of new energy vehicles. Three years later, in March 2019, Hainan Province, where Haima Motor is headquartered, released the "Hainan Provincial Clean Energy Vehicle Development Plan", becoming the first province in the country to propose a timetable for "banning the sale of fuel vehicles" by 2030, and strongly supporting the development of new energy vehicles.

In 2017, Haima Automobile released a pure electric model Haima Aishang EV, which is based on the Haima Aishang gasoline version of the model, with a ternary lithium battery pack with a capacity of 18.2kWh, with a maximum output of 36 horsepower, a peak torque of 140 Nm, a maximum range of 200 kilometers, and a price of 49,800 yuan after subsidies.

At that time, the new car-making forces represented by "Wei Xiaoli" were still in the initial stage, and most of them were preparing for the debut and release of the first model and mass production off the assembly line. In October 2017, Xpeng Motors (09868. In November, Leapmotor (09863.HK) unveiled its first mass-produced model, the S01, and in December, NIO (09866.HK) announced the launch of its first mass-produced model, the ES8, WM Motor's first mass-produced model, EX5, and Li Auto (02015. HK) launched its first model, the Ideal ONE, and the launch of the Nezha Automobile brand and the debut of its first model, the Nezha 01, took place one year later.

Although the launch of Haima Motor's pure electric model is not late, due to the fact that it is a gasoline-to-electric model, consumers' anxiety about the battery life of pure electric models is widespread, so that Aishang EV has not become a market hit, which makes Haima Automobile focus on the long battery life of new energy vehicles, and increase its determination to deepen the field of hydrogen energy vehicles, but ignore the general trend of new energy vehicle development.

Aotou Finance found that in 2018, Haima Automobile plans to launch three pure electric models by the end of that year, namely Haima E1, Haima E5 and Haima E7, and no information on the listing or delivery of these three models in 2018 was found through public channels.

As electrification has become the mainstream of the development of the new energy vehicle market, hydrogen vehicles have gradually become a niche field. Although Haima Automobile conducted research in the field of pure electric models earlier, due to product layout and the pace of pure electric vehicle launch, it was unable to enjoy the dividends of the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market and missed the opportunity to improve performance.

R&D expenses are gradually decreasing, making it difficult to boost sales

In July 2019, at the launch of the Haima 8S new car, Jing Zhu, the founder of Haima Motors, took the new platform as the chairman of Haima Motors, which means that Jing Zhu led Haima Motors to save himself again.

In this year, Haima Automobile achieved a turnaround by selling real estate, property company equity and other ways to recoup funds, and maintained the position of a listed company.

According to the statistics of Pacific Automobile Network, as of the low of 2019, the sales volume of Haima 8S was 6,301 units, and the monthly sales ranked outside the top 100 among similar models.

The industry generally believes that the mediocre sales of Haima Motor's models such as Haima 8S may be related to the lack of technological innovation of Haima Automobile and the need to improve product competitiveness, because in terms of R&D investment, Haima Automobile is lower than Great Wall Motor (601633.SH), Geely, BYD and other independent brands.

For example, the R&D expenses of Great Wall Motor and Geely in 2019 were 272 million yuan and 3.067 billion yuan respectively, an increase of 55.8% and 59.24% year-on-year, respectively, while the R&D expenses of Haima Automobile in the same period were 203 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 67.82%.

At the same time, perhaps due to the decline in sales and revenue, from 2017 to 2019, the proportion of Haima Motor's R&D investment gradually decreased, and the number of R&D personnel continued to decrease. According to the data, from 2017 to 2019, Haima Motor's R&D expenses decreased from 480 million yuan to 203 million yuan. During the same period, the number of R&D personnel of Haima Motor also decreased from 1,413 to 1,025, a decrease of nearly one-third.

The R&D investment of car companies is a long-term process, and the current R&D investment has a certain lag compared with the improvement of the company's performance, but it is conducive to strengthening the core competitiveness of enterprises, establishing barriers in technology, brand and other aspects, and then gradually expanding market share.

For Haima Motor, if R&D expenses continue to decrease, it will be more difficult to boost sales and improve the decline in performance, and the development opportunities of new energy vehicles will be missed, and it may be difficult to regain the lost market.