Source: Discovery Report
This year's new energy vehicle market is really bursting!
At the beginning of the year, BYD launched the "first shot" of the price war, bringing new energy vehicles into the era of 70,000 yuan, and shouting the slogan of "electricity is lower than oil".
Subsequently, the new energy brands of Changan Qiyuan, Nezha Automobile and SAIC-GM-Wuling followed up with price cuts, and the new energy vehicle market moved from "the same price of oil and electricity" to "electricity is lower than oil".
Then, before the end of the first quarter, Xiaomi came to the three-year appointment, SU7 was released strongly at a price of 215,900, and the number of large orders in 24 hours was as high as 88,898 units, and it was hot searched for many days.
Although, at the same time as the hot spots, there are also controversies such as F code rush purchase, refund rights protection, early order locking, rice powder screen swiping, etc., but Xiaomi car is indeed like a catfish, which makes the nerves of car companies tense, so that many car companies choose to continue the price war.
On the first day of April alone, Wenjie, which is in the same price band as Xiaomi SU7, and some models of Xpeng Motors have reduced prices, and NIO has launched replacement subsidy preferential activities.
So, as a "latecomer" in the automotive industry, how much competition space is left for Xiaomi? What are the advantages of Xiaomi automobiles? What problems still need to be solved if we want to survive smoothly?
How much room for competition is there?
If you want to find out whether Xiaomi cars can work, you must first understand the current situation of the entire new energy vehicle industry.
The development of China's new energy vehicles can be said to be eight immortals across the sea to show their powers, especially in the past three years of Xiaomi's hard work, new energy vehicles can be said to have undergone earth-shaking changes.
Lei Jun said that the Xiaomi SU7 is aimed at Tesla Model 3, which can be said to be quite explosive if it was placed three years ago, but it may be a little "outdated" now.
Not to mention that Tesla has not been "very good" in recent years, it has long lost the top spot in electric vehicles, and BYD, which started by assembling batteries, has caught up, and Tesla's global sales last year were 1.81 million, nearly half less than BYD's 3.02 million.
"Predecessor" Xiaopeng has also used"Comparable to Tesla's intelligent driving technology"This trick has been over-fanned,After the release of SU7,On the morning of March 30, Xiaopeng Motors' official WeChat account sent an evaluation that understands the car emperor,Said XiaopengP7i and XiaomiSU7Tied for the first place。
Brands such as NIO, Ideal, Weimar, and Leap, which were established at about the same time as Xiaopeng, have also experienced the struggle of life and death, and have their own names in the tram industry, and are also striding forward, with new models constantly iterating.
What's more, there is also Huawei, which is also a consumer electronics, has also entered the automotive industry, although Huawei does not make its own cars, but the models launched in cooperation with Huawei, the halo effect of Huawei on the head, has also shown great power, and the question world has repeatedly exceeded expectations, M9 reached 60,000 units on March 22, and Zhijie S7 will also be delivered on a large scale in the near future and is planned to be re-released.
Does that mean that there is very little room for Xiaomi to compete?
Judging from the current market structure, China's new energy vehicle market still contains huge development potential.
According to the data of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's new energy vehicles have developed rapidly in the past two years, ranking first in the world for nine consecutive years. In 2023, NEV production and sales will reach 9.587 million units and 9.495 million units, up 35.8% and 37.9% y/y, respectively, with a market share of 31.6%. It is expected that the future will continue to maintain the development momentum of both production and sales, and the market space is broad.
At present, the pattern of the new energy vehicle industry is undecided, and there are only two mid-to-high-end new energy brands with annual sales of more than 300,000 units in 2023, Tesla and Ideal, and most of the mid-to-high-end new energy brands have annual sales of less than 200,000 units.
In addition, from the perspective of price and model, the new energy penetration rate of 20-300,000 yuan cars shows a rapid increase trend, and in the 2023-300,000 yuan car market, the sales volume of new energy cars will be 909,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 73.2%.
At present, Model 3 and BYD Han occupy a dominant position in the 200,000-300,000 yuan new energy car market, with market shares of 26% and 17% respectively.
However, with the gradual intensification of market competition, the share of participants and rankings are also constantly changing. Referring to the structure of the development history of the mobile phone market, the first-mover may not reach the endgame, and the latecomer still has a chance to catch up.
Minmetals Securities expects the SU7 to enter the top market segment, and is expected to challenge the position of the Model 3, which has not been replaced for a long time and cannot experience the latest features of FSD, with sufficient production capacity.
Goldman Sachs is also optimistic about Xiaomi's electric vehicle strategy, and predicts that Xiaomi's electric vehicle sales will reach 100,000, 170,000 and 326,000 units in 2024-2026, accounting for 1.0%, 1.5% and 2.5% of China's new energy vehicle retail sales, respectively. By 2030, EV revenue is expected to account for 30% of Xiaomi's total revenue.
What are the advantages of Xiaomi cars?
As mentioned earlier, despite the broad market space, but in the same price range, Xiaomi's competitors are not many, the main benchmark models in addition to Model 3 and BYD Han, there are also Krypton 001, Zhijie S7, Xiaopeng P7, as a late entrant to the industry breakthrough, where is the core advantage of Xiaomi cars?
The answer is ecology and patterns.
Let's start with ecology. Xiaomi has the ability to create a "whole ecology of people, cars and homes", which most car companies do not have at present.
This is first of all due to Xiaomi's huge user base, which is not only a potential consumer of Xiaomi cars, but also the foundation for Xiaomi to build a whole ecology of people, cars and homes.
According to the data released by Xiaomi's official WeChat official account, by the end of 2023, the global MIUI (Miyu, Xiaomi mobile phone operating system) monthly active users reached 641 million, the number of users with 5 or more devices connected to the AIoT platform reached 14.5 million, and the monthly active users of the Mi Home app reached 85.8 million.
Secondly, it is inseparable from the support of Xiaomi's surging OS system.
Xiaomi Surging OS is a complete cross-terminal system, which will gradually replace MIUI in the future. Based on Xiaomi's self-developed cross-terminal interconnection framework HyperConnect, Xiaomi's surging OS can not only realize seamless switching and data synchronization between different terminals such as mobile phones, TVs, and computers, but also realize remote control and voice interaction between mobile phones and smart home devices.
Imagine that you get in the car, not only driving, but also controlling the appliances in your home through an intelligent system, and even enjoying a home theater-like entertainment experience, the car seems to become an extension of your home.
Let's look at the pattern. Brand effect, sales channels and marketing capabilities are Xiaomi's killer features.
The reason why Xiaomi cars can bring so much heat and controversy is because of the high popularity of Xiaomi mobile phones, with many "rice fans", which can attract traffic to cars.
According to Canalys, Xiaomi's smartphone market share will reach 13% in 2023, ranking third in the world after Apple and Samsung. The brand reputation on a global scale can also become the basis for Xiaomi Auto to open up the international market and form brand awareness in the future.
In terms of channels, Xiaomi Auto adopts the "1+N" model, "1" represents Xiaomi Auto's self-built and self-operated delivery center, and its functions are mainly delivery, covering "sales and after-sales service" business, and "N" represents agent sales and user service contacts.
In the mainstream automobile business district, Xiaomi cooperates with the top 100 automobile dealer groups or regional strong businessmen to build an integrated car sales and service store, operate "agent sales + authorized services", and in the core commercial plaza (Mall), Xiaomi gives full play to the advantages of the existing 3C retail channels and introduces automobile business in Xiaomi Home in batches.
In addition, Xiaomi is breaking the traditional 4S store layout, making buying a car more like online shopping, and you can pick up the car at the 4S store or direct store after placing an order online, which is more in line with the consumption habits of young people.
As for marketing capabilities, as a long-established technology brand, Xiaomi's internet marketing is simply not too slippery.
Whether it is "paying tribute to other car companies" before the press conference, "answering 100 questions from netizens" after the press conference, or timely disclosing important information through social media, responding to public opinion concerns, or even opening live broadcasts of factories, the hot topics that are constantly manufactured and formed also maintain the popularity of the product.
After one operation, even if you don't pay attention to the automotive industry at all, you will have heard of Xiaomi cars to some extent.
What other problems need to be solved?
With a huge market scale and advantages that are different from traditional car companies and new forces in the past, does it mean that Xiaomi Auto can sit back and relax?
This really doesn't dare to talk nonsense, after all, whether a product can be successful or not still needs to be tested by market practice and time.
As strong as Tesla, its reputation in China has declined sharply in recent years, coupled with the fact that new models have not been launched for several years, the function iteration is too slow, and the brand popularity cannot be sustained.
In addition to entering the game late, missing the best bonus period, and fierce market competition, Xiaomi Auto has to go through several difficulties if it wants to "survive".
First and foremost is capacity. Xiaomi cars were set at 88,898 units in 24 hours after they were launched, and the second phase of Xiaomi's factory is still under construction, with an annual production capacity of about 150,000 units in the first phase. Based on the current production volume, some users will have to wait more than 6 months for the nearly 90,000 units to take delivery of the car.
The long waiting period will obviously affect the user's purchase intention, and many products of brands such as NIO ET5, Wenjie M7, Xpeng G6, and Ideal MEGA have all experienced similar lessons from the past.
In addition, many automakers that started ahead of schedule have already passed the ramp-up stage of production capacity, and can achieve delivery when they are launched, and the delivery cycle can be compressed to less than 8 weeks.
Word-of-mouth is also a challenge. Although the Xiaomi brand has a high reputation and market share in the field of smartphones and smart homes, it is really a new player in the automotive field.
The automotive industry is very different from Xiaomi's previous business areas, requiring a long period of technology accumulation and brand building. Although Xiaomi has strong financial strength and R&D capabilities, it is undoubtedly a difficult task to reach the industry-leading level in many fields of automotive technology in a short period of time.
Although Xiaomi Auto's urban NOA can be opened nationwide this year, it is a strong competition point under the trend of intelligent driving gradually becoming the standard configuration of automobiles, but the domestic driving road conditions are very complex, coupled with the different degrees of promotion of policies in different regions, so whether the actual intelligent driving ability is in the first echelon remains to be tested.
When the heat passes, if the experience of the long-awaited car is similar to most cars on the market, then how to maintain competitiveness may be a new problem.
However, compared with most car companies, the advantages of Xiaomi cars in ecology and mode are obvious, and Xiaomi's entry into the game has indeed made all companies vigilant, and it is expected that the future industry will not only roll the price, volume configuration, but also roll the ecology.
And if you look at Xiaomi a little more broadly and regard Xiaomi as an international car manufacturer, then Xiaomi has a better foundation for going overseas than most car companies.
Looking at the global market share of Xiaomi mobile phones mentioned above, Xiaomi is definitely one of the most successful Chinese mobile phone manufacturers in the world, not only has a good reputation in the world, but also has rich experience in globalization.
Although the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China has been high and the development space is limited, it is still a blue ocean market overseas. The penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the United States and South Korea is less than 10%, and the penetration rate of new energy in major European countries is about 20%, leaving a lot of room for domestic new energy vehicle companies to go overseas.
What do you think?
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