On April 22, Li Auto suddenly officially announced a price reduction policy, including the guide prices of the 2024 Ideal L7, 2024 Ideal L8, 2024 Ideal L9 and Ideal MEGA, and also canceled the Air version of the Ideal L7 and Ideal L8 models.
The price reduction of the ideal L series Pro version is 18,000 yuan, which is consistent with the price of the original Air version of the model, which is considered to have taken over the positioning of the Air version of the model, and the price of the Max version and the Ultra version of the model are both reduced by 20,000 yuan, which lowers the entry threshold. The price of the Ideal MEGA has been lowered by 30,000 yuan, which can be regarded as improving its competitiveness.
But what really makes the ideal rush to the hot search is actually the operation of refunding the 2024 old car owners, whether it is the 2024 ideal L series or the ideal MEGA, the ideal will refund the difference, and the speed of refund is very fast, some users said that they received an ideal refund on the afternoon of April 22.
This price cut is clearly a compromise made by Li Auto for the market, in order to save the precarious sales.
Before the Spring Festival, Li Auto's monthly sales exceeded 50,000 units, which became the peak of Li Auto's sales in history. However, in March, Li Auto's monthly sales were only 29,000 units, almost halved, and it was the only new power car company whose sales did not recover to the level before the Spring Festival holiday under the background of the overall sales recovery.
Affected by this, in the entire first quarter of this year, Li Auto's cumulative sales were 80,400 units, a year-on-year increase of 52.9%, but only 10% of the annual target. If the annual sales volume of 800,000 units is calculated, the ideal monthly sales from April will be close to 80,000 units.
Subsequently, Ideal lowered its annual sales target to 540,000-640,000 units, and even if the target of 540,000 units is used, Ideal will sell more than 54,000 units per month in the remaining months of this year.
Li Auto's monthly sales want to return to the 50,000 mark, on the one hand, it is necessary to pin its hopes on the newly launched Li L6, and on the other hand, it is necessary to tap the potential from the existing models.
But the author has analyzed it for you before,Ideal L6The pricing is actually more embarrassing,After the lack of air suspension、Electric suction door and other "core competitiveness",The performance in terms of cost performance is not outstanding,It is relatively difficult to become a hit,Ideal Auto should also understand this problem internally,So it has become the best choice to tap the potential of existing models by reducing prices。
However, as mentioned above, the range of this price reduction is not large, and even when the 2023 model hits 50,000 sales in a single month, the discount range is larger than this price reduction, plus the ideal car has always had a relatively high gross profit, so in the eyes of many industry insiders, the price of the ideal L series still has some room to fall.
In a sense, there are only 0 and countless price cuts, once the price reduction begins, it almost means the beginning of the price war, but the ideal to find that this price reduction does not play a big role in stimulating sales is the time, a new round of price reduction may start, of course, it may not be an official reduction, but through the form of store discounts to provide.
On the other hand, the damage of the price cut to the Li Auto brand is also very obvious, affected by the price cut, the share price of Li Auto fell by 8.33% to close at HK$97.45 per share, which has fallen below the 100 yuan mark.
For a long time, the ideal stock price can be maintained at a high level, and the market value even exceeds that of many traditional car companies, not because of how high the sales are, but because of the high gross profit and the ability to tell stories, so it will be recognized by the capital market. Price reductions will inevitably affect profits, as well as the ability to tell stories, and a drop in stock prices is inevitable.
In 2023, the ideal has been "building cars" from friends and businessmen, and in 2024, the ideal will learn how to "survive" from friends.