On April 29, SAIC Motor released its first quarter report for 2024.
In the first quarter, SAIC's total operating income was 143.072 billion yuan, down 1.95% year-on-year, and net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was 2.714 billion yuan, down 2.48% year-on-year.
In response to the reasons for the decline in revenue and net profit in the first quarter, SAIC officially said that it was adversely affected by the escalation of the price war in the industry.
According to the latest production and sales report, SAIC produced 824,000 vehicles in the first quarter, down 13.37% year-on-year, and sold 834,000 vehicles, down 6.40% year-on-year.
In terms of sales, SAIC used wholesale sales as the basis for statistics, but this time it released terminal delivery data, and the terminal delivery volume from January to March reached 1.132 million units, a year-on-year increase of 9.3%.
It stands to reason that SAIC should use wholesale sales as the basis for data, not terminal data, and there is no reference basis for terminal data.
In the first quarter of this year, SAIC's new energy vehicle sales exceeded 210,000 units, of which 168,000 new energy vehicles were sold in the domestic market.
It is worth mentioning that, according to the data released by SAIC, the new energy penetration rate of the entire group is only 14.8%, which is far lower than the overall penetration rate of the independent brand industry.
There are many new energy brands under SAIC Group, such as Zhiji, Feifan, Wuling, ID. family, Buick, Roewe, etc., and its models cover three grades of sedans, SUVs and other models.
It is said that having more children is good for fighting, but there are so many children in SAIC, and there is no one who can fight, except for Wuling mini cars and SAIC Volkswagen ID.3 in terms of sales.
Looking back on the 2023 annual results, the company achieved a total operating income of 744.7 billion yuan in 2023, a year-on-year increase of about 0.09%, and a net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies of 14.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 12.5%.
The net profit of 14.1 billion yuan in 2023 is roughly equivalent to less than 40% of its historical high (36 billion yuan in 2018), that is, it is almost back to the net profit level of 13.1 billion yuan in 2010.
"Che Yu Talk" noticed that SAIC's net profit has been declining for many years. It fell 34% in 2022, 20% in 2020, better in 2021, with an increase of 20%, and 29% in 2019.
The decline in SAIC's net profit has a lot to do with the decline in sales, with total sales in 2023 being 5.021 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 5.31%, which is also the second consecutive year of year-on-year sales decline.
Judging from past sales data, the three major brands of SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling contributed the most to SAIC's sales.
However, success is also a joint venture, defeat is also a joint venture, and now, the speed of the "troika" is getting slower and slower, which has dragged down SAIC to a large extent.
At present, independent brands, new energy brands, and overseas markets have become the new "troika" of SAIC's performance growth, but due to the large difference in foundation and volume, it cannot smooth out the negative growth caused by the decline of joint venture brands.
A few more words
It is worth noting that Chen Hong, who was born in March 1961, is already serving at an overage level, and it is unlikely that he will continue to serve after his term expires in June 2024.
Departure is inevitable, but what is clear is that Chen Hong will not be able to reverse SAIC's predicament during his tenure, and these are bound to be left to the next successor.