The 2024 Beijing Auto Show, which has just been held, has become the most dense place in the recent round. The red-clothed sect leader, the green-clothed Lei army, and the Great Wall cannon cannon...... The famous scenes that took turns on the stage, wrapped in unprecedented traffic, turned the "4-year" Beijing Auto Show upside down.
Traffic is a double-edged sword, and before there is no superb "swordsmanship", the probability of hurting oneself is much higher than the probability of hurting others.
In fact, all car companies are well aware of the double-sided nature of traffic, but no one will be willing to be beaten passively when friends are outputting their faces. Great Wall Motors is a car company that knows how to "break away", which can be seen in its strategy of giving up sedans to focus on the SUV market.
And now, a novel scene has appeared. The Great Wall Motors, which "turned around", under the leadership of Wei Jianjun, put down the "shelf" for many years and started round after round of traffic chasing.
It is obvious to all that Great Wall Motors has indeed changed a lot this year. Perhaps, in the future, the Great Wall Motors will be able to change the declining trend and make great progress, or perhaps, several fierce burns until they burn out.
There's a lot of room for imagination, but no one can say for sure what kind of long-tail impact such a top-down change will bring. Fortunately, up to now, Great Wall Motor's series of voices are "pleasing" enough, and it has not made some obvious mistakes like Zhiji.
Whether it is Wei Jianjun and Lei Jun's linkage Xiaomi SU7 press conference, or the roar of the "Great Wall Cannon" at the Beijing Auto Show, it belongs to the general trend of Great Wall Motors' traffic, which is accumulating little by little. The financial report for the first quarter of 2024 released by Great Wall Motors not long ago may be regarded as a good start for this "battle" full of uncertainty.
Net profit was 3.2 billion, an increase of 1752%
On April 24, Great Wall Motor announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2024. According to the content, Great Wall Motor's operating income in the first quarter was 42.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47%, and its net profit was 3.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1752%.
Obviously, this is a "big victory" that has not been seen in a long time.
Looking back on the Spring Festival before and after, Great Wall Motors at that time, the pressure of public opinion was really not small.
According to Tencent News, a number of middle and high-level employees of the Great Wall Motor brand company (including Haval, Wei, Tank, Ora and other brands) have taken the initiative to resign, including newcomers who have been employed for as little as 2 months or even 7 days, and old Great Wall employees who have been in the company for more than 10 or 20 years.
Whether it is the "Guangjin Plan" or the internal disagreements within the company, the situation that people perceive is basically converged into such a piece of information - Great Wall Motors is unstable.
You must know that in the era of the "god car" Haval H6, consumers have great confidence in Great Wall Motors. However, in the era of new energy vehicles, Great Wall Motor's "flowers" and the implementation of the strategic level have not been favored by the market and consumers.
Internal and external reasons, resulting in Great Wall Motors can only "break the wrist" to change. As the saying goes, if it is not broken, it will not stand, and the brilliance of Great Wall Motor's financial report in the first quarter of 2024 may be the result of its "change".
According to the financial report, Great Wall Motor sold a total of 275,300 new cars in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year increase of 25.11%.
Specific to each brand, the sales of Wei brand and tank increased sharply year-on-year, respectively 182.34% and 103.16%, the sales volume of Haval brand increased steadily year-on-year, 25.53%, and the sales of Great Wall pickup truck and Ora brand decreased year-on-year, -10.9% and -15.41% respectively.
Great Wall's financial report for the first quarter of 2024 shows that the growth of Great Wall Motor's total revenue during the reporting period is mainly due to the increase in vehicle sales and the increase in single vehicle revenue in the reporting period.
As for the sharp increase in net profit, Great Wall said that it was mainly due to the growth of the company's sales scale and the optimization of the sales structure during the reporting period, which drove the performance indicators such as operating income and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies to achieve a significant increase compared with the same period last year.
Of course, some people may also find that the reason why Great Wall Motor's profit and revenue growth in the first quarter of 2024 will be obvious is mainly because in 2023, most of Great Wall Motor's data in the first quarter are "low base".
According to Great Wall Motor's financial report for the first quarter of 2023, Great Wall Motor's revenue during the reporting period was 29.039 billion yuan, down 13.63% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 174 million yuan, down 89.34% year-on-year.
At that time, the official explanation given by Great Wall Motors was: it was mainly due to the fact that the reporting period was still in the period of product structure adjustment, and based on the pace of new product launches in 2023, it increased new energy brand building and R&D investment.
Great Wall Motors, and now step forward from the beginning
In general, since the beginning of this year, the general environment of the automobile market has not improved. Especially after Xiaomi Auto "bravely entered the automobile circle", based on the previous "price war", this unique "traffic war" also officially fired the first shot.
Uncertainty, competitive confrontation, big price cuts, negative public opinion...... The entire automobile market seems to be "stressed", even if you drink to quench your thirst, you have to bite the bullet.
"Change" must be changed, and not changing is waiting for death. But "change" also pays attention to methods. If it is just a "bleeding" price reduction, the only one who hurts the enemy and loses eight hundred is the car company itself.
Geely, the Great Wall, and Chang'an are known as the "three independent powers". Geely's financial report for the first quarter of 2024 has not yet been released, so let's not mention it for the time being, but Changan Automobile's first-quarter financial report is quite comparable.
Specifically, Chang'an's revenue in the first quarter was 37.023 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.14%, and its net profit was 1.158 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 83.39%.
It is understood that in the first quarter of 2023, Changan Automobile will earn 5.021 billion yuan by increasing its shareholding in Deep Blue Automobile, so that last year's net profit base was large.
In the first quarter of this year, an insider of Changan Automobile said: "The company's profit in the first quarter fell by 80% year-on-year, on the one hand, it was caused by the concession of profits in response to the price war. On the other hand, R&D investment is relatively large, there are more new models, and the investment in the entire technology and development sector has increased greatly. ”
So, Great Wall Motors, has it fallen behind? In terms of data, it seems that it is not.
Comparatively speaking, although Great Wall Motors does not have strong pure electronic brands such as ZEEKR and AVATAR, the performance of financial report data and earning power are not inferior at all, and there is even a sense of leadership.
But one point that cannot be ignored is that if the current situation of Great Wall Motors is put on the grand narrative of the development of new energy vehicles, Great Wall Motors at this time still needs to do more things, such as: intelligence.
Regarding new energy, Great Wall Motors has a clear development direction, that is, the full range of Hi4 hybrids. But in terms of intelligence, Great Wall Motors is more like "getting up early in the morning and catching up with the late set".
If it is said that the flow is a "bright line" that Great Wall Motors will focus on controlling next. Then the empowerment of intelligent technology must be the "dark line" that Great Wall Motors continues to promote.
On the eve of the Beijing Auto Show, Wei Jianjun personally broadcast live for the Great Wall Motor's intelligent driving platform, focusing on "no picture" and "large model". At this Beijing Auto Show, the slogan of Wei brand was changed from "a good life begins in Wei" to "a better life in science and technology".
Playing the card of intelligence is the only way for Great Wall Motors to "overtake in corners" in the era of new energy vehicles.
In the era of new energy vehicles, electrification is the first half, and intelligence is the second half. It is not difficult to find that the road of intelligence has long been occupied by Huawei, Xiaopeng and other companies, and Tesla's FSD is even more "stormy", not to mention Xiaomi, Weilai and other car companies.
But Great Wall Motors, which had already "lost" in the first half, had no choice. If you want to continue to stay at the table, Great Wall Motors must squeeze into the first echelon of intelligent driving even if it is "squeezed", so as to seek more opportunities.
In the future, it is impossible to rely on traffic alone to achieve a "soft landing". For Great Wall Motors, it is not a big deal to "make a profit" in the first quarter, and it is really great to make a lot of money.