Since participating in the Xiaomi car press conference, Great Wall Motors and Wei Jianjun seem to have opened up the second vein of Rendu.
On April 15, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, broadcast live for the first time to measure Great Wall Motor's full-scene NOA. Unexpectedly, the live broadcast quickly became a hot search. The live broadcast attracted more than 4 million people to watch it online in real time on Douyin. As of 5 hours after the live broadcast, the live broadcast attracted more than 10 million views on Weibo.
As early as March 26, Wei Jianjun opened Weibo and posted his first blog post without warning. A few simple words made Wei Jianjun make headlines and quickly attracted the attention of many fans. Up to now, Wei Jianjun's personal Weibo followers have grown to 230,000. The "Daily Economic News" article on April 15 pointed out that for car companies, live broadcast has become a defensive business, because whoever masters the game of Internet marketing will get the splashing traffic.
Baoding's popularity in domestic cities is attributed to one person, and this person is Wei Jianjun, the chairman of Great Wall Motors.
Wei Jianjun, who was born in 1964, came to the military compound in Beijing with his parents since he was a child. After graduating from high school, his family bought him a Lada car. Subsequently, Wei Jianjun successively worked in Beijing Tongxian Micro Motor Factory, Baoding Carpet Factory, and Taihang Water Pump Factory.
In 1984, Wei Jianjun went to the Great Wall Motor Modification Company founded by his uncle Wei Deliang, which was not an automobile manufacturing plant at that time, but a repair and modification factory, which modified specially made passenger trucks for state-owned enterprises and government agencies in various countries. This is Wei Jianjun's first contact with the automotive industry. Due to his early exposure and love for cars, he soon gained a wealth of experience in the automotive industry and an in-depth understanding of the manufacture and sale of automobiles.
In 1989, Wei Jianjun's uncle Wei Deliang was in a car accident on a business trip and unfortunately passed away. Even though the Baoding Dayuan Township Government sent someone to take over the Great Wall Motor, due to poor management, it was in debt of 2 million in a short period of time and was on the verge of bankruptcy. In 1990, 26-year-old Wei Jianjun was ordered to take over the Great Wall Industrial Company, at this time the total assets of the enterprise were 3 million yuan, the loss was 2 million yuan, 60 employees, and 6 modified cars were sold a month.
Wei Jianjun has a strong interest in automobiles and is very willing to learn about automobiles. In 1995, Wei Jianjun went to the United States and Thailand to investigate, and saw that the pickup truck models there were very popular, and after coming back, he set the "pickup truck model" as the company's main product, and in the following three years, it achieved annual sales of 13,000 vehicles, becoming the leader of domestic products. In August 1996, Great Wall Industrial Company was renamed Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd. and successfully listed in the same year. Since then, Great Wall Motors has developed rapidly and has gradually become one of the leading companies in China's automotive industry.
Wei Jianjun, who understands the consumption psychology of Chinese people, seized the opportunity of China's economic take-off in the 90s, and the concept of "cheap and good" was deeply rooted in the bone marrow, which made Great Wall Motors break out of the encirclement among a large number of private car companies and become one of the representatives of excellent national brands. From sedans to pickup trucks to SUVs, Great Wall Motors has come to this day step by step, Wei Jianjun has suffered from the financial pressure of selling houses and paying wages, and has also suffered from technical bottlenecks, but they have been overcome by Wei Jianjun one by one. On October 24, 2023, the Hurun Research Institute released the "2023 Hengchang Burning Fang Hurun Report", Wei Jianjun ranked 24th, and his worth of 120 billion yuan made Wei Jianjun the richest man in Hebei. And Baoding is also famous for Wei Jianjun's Great Wall Motors.
Today's Wei Jianjun has become a big man in the automotive circle, and even at the Xiaomi SU7 press conference, Lei Jun personally invited Wei Jianjun to the stage and presented a top version of Xiaomi SU7. Perhaps influenced by Xiaomi's Internet car-making thinking, Wei Jianjun, who has never been interested in live broadcasts, also opened his personal live broadcast debut on April 15, showing Great Wall Motors' full-scene NOA without high-precision maps. In the live broadcast of "Real No Picture Real Challenge, Great Wall Motor's Intelligent Driving System Zero Mistake Challenge", Wei Jianjun sat in the main driver's seat and conducted actual measurements on the busy road section in the center of Baoding. The live broadcast attracted more than 10 million viewers, and Wei Jianjun's sentence "The Great Wall Intelligent Driving does not let users be guinea pigs, and safety is no trivial matter" was once rushed to the hot search on Weibo. On the same day, Great Wall Motor's share price closed at 25.68 yuan, up 0.98%, with a total market value of 219.4 billion yuan.
Huge R&D investment affects net profit
It is difficult for a live broadcast to support the rise of Great Wall Motor's share price, and the stock price of Great Wall Motors has rebounded significantly recently, entering April, its share price has risen by more than 12%, ranking among the top in the stock price performance of car companies in the same period, which has something to do with Great Wall Motor's recently released 2023 financial report.
According to the financial report, Great Wall Motor's total revenue in 2023 will be 173.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.12%, which is a record high for Great Wall Motors and more than twice that of 76.03 billion yuan in 2015. In 2022, when the revenue growth rate is only 0.69%, Great Wall Motor's revenue growth will increase significantly in 2023.
However, Great Wall Motor's net profit attributable to the parent company decreased from 8.266 billion yuan in 2022 to 7.022 billion yuan, a decrease of 15.06%. However, it can be found from the financial report that Great Wall Motor's R&D expenses have increased significantly, from 6.445 billion yuan in 2022 to 8.054 billion yuan in 2023, an increase of 24.97%. In the past three years, Great Wall Motor's R&D efforts have been significantly improved, with the increase in R&D expenses being 46.36%, 43.56% and 24.97% respectively, and the R&D expenses of Great Wall Motors in 2020 will be 3.067 billion yuan, and the R&D expenses in 2023 will be 2.63 times that of 2020.
While increasing R&D investment, Great Wall Motor's management expenses have declined, from 4.893 billion yuan in 2022 to 4.735 billion yuan in 2023. This has something to do with Wei Jianjun going to Toyota headquarters in Japan to learn Toyota's TPS lean production method, after returning from Toyota, Wei Jianjun has been taking Toyota as a benchmark for imitation and learning, and Toyota's TPS management model as the basic rules of the company's operation. The decline in management expenses in 2023 is also a major manifestation of Wei Jianjun's ability to learn.
In 2023, the marketing expenses will reach 8.285 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41%, the largest increase in the past five years, and its marketing expenses will exceed net profit for the first time. This also directly affects the net profit of Great Wall Motors, and at the same time, due to the high proportion of Great Wall Motors' exports, the net profit is greatly affected by the exchange rate, and many factors are superimposed, resulting in a decline in Great Wall Motor's net profit in 2023.
"In the first half of 2022 alone, Great Wall has invested 5.81 billion yuan in core technologies in the field of new energy, more than doubling year-on-year, and more than 8 billion yuan in R&D investment in 2023, which also shows Great Wall's determination to be a latecomer in the field of new energy vehicles." The continuous huge investment in R&D will inevitably affect the short-term net profit, which is one of the reasons for the decline in the net profit of the Great Wall in 2023, but it will play a great role in promoting the future development of the Great Wall. ”
New energy vehicles have become bright spots
At present, Great Wall Motors has five major brands: Haval, WEY, Ora, Great Wall Pickup and Tank, and its products cover four categories: SUV, sedan, pickup and MPV, covering traditional fuel power and new energy. After increasing the research and development of new energy vehicles for many years, the development of Great Wall new energy vehicles is obvious to all and has gradually become a highlight of Great Wall Motors.
According to public information, the total sales volume of Great Wall Motors in 2023 will be 1.23 million units, a year-on-year increase of 15.9%, exceeding one million units for the eighth consecutive year. Although it did not achieve the sales target of 1.6 million units, it exceeded the target of net profit of not less than 6 billion yuan.
Specifically, Great Wall Motor's sales of models above 200,000 yuan will be 225,800 units, accounting for 18.36%, and this proportion will be 15.27% in 2022, and the sales proportion of Great Wall's high-end models will increase significantly, with the average income of Great Wall bicycles in 2023 being 141,400 yuan, and the average income of Great Wall bicycles in 2022 being 129,400 yuan, and the average income of bicycles increasing by 12,000 yuan.
In 2023, the total sales of Great Wall Motor's new energy vehicles will reach 262,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 98.74%, and the sales volume of 262,000 units is second only to Ideal compared with the three new car-making forces "Wei Xiaoli", which is higher than the 160,000 and 140,000 units of Weilai and Xiaopeng.
Great Wall Motor's overseas sales in 2023 will also grow rapidly, with annual overseas sales of 316,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 82.48%. Based on the strength of new energy vehicles and overseas markets, Great Wall Motor has set itself a sales volume and net profit target for 2024, and will make full efforts in the plug-in hybrid model and pure electric vehicle market in 2024, striving to achieve sales of 1.9 million units and a net profit of 7.2 billion yuan.
The research report believes that Great Wall Motors will add many new models in 2023, and will maintain a high frequency of new models in 2024.
Great Wall Motors has advantages in products, production capacity, channels and other aspects in overseas markets, and has a good prospect of going overseas, and its sales volume is expected to continue to grow at a high rate in 2024.
As the world's main market for new energy vehicles, China occupies 65% of the global market share of new energy vehicles, and the production and sales of new energy vehicles in mainland China will complete 9.587 million and 9.495 million units in 2023, an increase of 35.8% and 37.9% year-on-year, respectively. This is also one of the reasons why Great Wall Motors has increased the research and development of new energy vehicles, Great Wall Motors will launch a total of 15 new energy models in 2023, and the sales of new energy vehicles have accounted for more than 20% of Great Wall Motor's total sales. As China overtook Japan to become the world's largest exporter of automobiles, Great Wall Motors, which accounts for a quarter of its total overseas sales, is even more useful.
Splashing wealth is coming
I have to say that Great Wall Motors is getting better and better at marketing!
On March 15, a girl named Dalilun in Henan Province who loves spinach rode an electric car and saw a Great Wall cannon. But when I heard that the price of the car was 300,000 yuan, I was very shocked, and I couldn't help but say that it was too cheap and didn't like it. But a few days later, she saw the Great Wall cannon again in her own parking space, and after admiring it up close, she was attracted by the momentum of the Great Wall cannon, and then she sank into the dantian, used the power of the wilderness, and shouted a sentence "Great Wall - cannon".
What I didn't expect was that in these short three words, it formed a strong contrast with the cute image of the girl who loves to eat spinach, and it became popular on the Internet.
So, netizens with good things began to shout about Great Wall Motors, and the Great Wall Cannon became popular, and one should be arranged for the girl who loves spinach. The official of Great Wall Motors was also generous, shouting @Dalilun loves spinach, saying "Your 300,000 dream car (mountain and sea cannon) is ready!", and instantly liked tens of thousands. Dalilun loves spinach and readily accepts such a splash of wealth, but because she doesn't have a driver's license yet, she posted a response saying, "You wait, I'll go to get a driver's license immediately", just like that, Great Wall Motors and this lovely girl sang and harmonized the Great Wall Cannon, pushing the Great Wall Cannon to a new heat again.
The popularity of "Great Wall Cannon" combined with the sales of Great Wall Cannon made Great Wall Motor's stock price rise continuously, and the topic once occupied the forefront of Douyin's hot search for a long time. According to the data, in the first quarter of 2024, the global sales of Great Wall pickup trucks will be 43,495 units, and the domestic market share will be close to half of them, which means that in the Chinese market, for every two pickup trucks sold, one of them is a Great Wall pickup truck. The Great Wall Cannon sold 12,103 units worldwide in March, with a cumulative sales volume of more than 10,000 units in 42 months, and won the first place in pickup truck sales.
In the "Great Wall Cannon" incident, Great Wall Motors exchanged the price of a Great Wall cannon for the splashing traffic of the whole network, which not only won the favor of consumers, but also brought splashing wealth. Entering 2024, a total of 35 institutions have rated Great Wall Motors, of which 33 institutions have rated Great Wall Motors as "buy" or "overweight". This almost set a record for the research report of the institution on the car company in the same period.
Taking Hualong Securities, which made a "buy" rating on Great Wall Motors for the first time on April 5, as an example, it said in a research report, "Great Wall high-end brands have entered a new product cycle, and overseas sales have continued to grow high." Looking forward to 2024, the company's high-end brands such as Tank and WEY brand will enter the new product cycle, and blockbuster new vehicles such as Tank 300Hi4-T, Tank 800, and WEY Latte are expected to be launched in 2024 to contribute to sales growth, promote new energy transformation and improve the company's overall profitability. In Q1 2024, overseas sales will be +79% year-on-year, maintaining a high growth rate. With the support of more than 1,000 existing overseas channels, with the gradual construction and operation of overseas KD factories in Malaysia, El Dogua and other countries, the company's overseas sales are expected to continue to increase. ”
Soochow Securities said that "Great Wall Motor's sales in March increased month-on-month, and the layout of new energy continued to advance" also gave a buy rating. It is also predicted that Great Wall Motor's net profit attributable to the parent company from 2024 to 2026 will be 8.9 billion yuan, 11.7 billion yuan and 15.1 billion yuan, which is even higher than the target set by Great Wall Motor.
Nowadays, the market, consumers and institutions are full of expectations for Great Wall Motors, and in the face of such a splash of wealth, it depends on whether Great Wall Motors can catch it. At this time, Wei Jianjun's live broadcast was opened, which also shows that the 60-year-old Wei Jianjun is not limited to traditional thinking, at last year's World Internet Conference "Wuzhen Coffee Hui Car Night Talk", Wei Jianjun once said: "We still have to learn communication and learn a lot of new knowledge." ”
Wei Jianjun's first live broadcast has exceeded expectations, and the Internet thinking learned from Huawei and Xiaomi is an attempt by Great Wall Motors and Wei Jianjun, and it also shows that Great Wall Motors has reached a new level.
Author | Dream Shaw