Text/Armand
A few years ago, when Nine submitted its listing materials, it wanted to use "Nine Robot" as the company's abbreviation, but the regulator did not agree.
The reason given by the regulatory authorities is that the proportion of revenue of No. 9's balance bikes and scooters is too high, and the recognition of "robots" is not enough.
If a company name and abbreviation contain the word "bot", it may be misleading to investors and do not accurately reflect the essence of the company's business.
Before the IPO, the No. 9 company, balance bikes and scooters were the absolute source of income, and at that time, these businesses were still representatives of "cool" technology and were deeply loved by young people.
In an interview with the media at the time of listing, Gao Lufeng, the founder of Nine, said that the company has invested heavily in robots, and the robot business may exceed other existing businesses in the long run.
However, after a few years of listing, the contribution of these long-cherished robot businesses to Nine's revenue is still minimal.
With the growth bottleneck of the balance bike and scooter business, Nine Company turned its focus to the seemingly traditional two-wheeled electric vehicles and plunged headlong into the red sea competition.
Today, Nine's business source is two-wheeled electric vehicles.
The ambition of scientific and technological innovation is still bowing to the real demand for making money.
It is in response to the old saying in the investment world: how can listed companies have so many bells and whistles, and it is true to make money without pretentiousness.
Pinduoduo understood this from the beginning.
Ali has also woken up after so many years of tossing.
Nine is now joining the ranks.
1.
In the first quarter of this year, among the 2.5 billion revenue of Nine Company, the revenue of self-owned brand retail scooters was 300 million, and the revenue of robots was 180 million.
Two-wheeled electric vehicles accounted for nearly half, with 417,000 units sold.
The contribution of two-wheelers to the company's performance increased from 41% for the whole of last year to 46% in the first quarter.
From the perspective of business structure, the track switch of No. 9 Company has been very obvious.
In the past, the fame of Nine Company first came from its success in opening up the market as a member of the Xiaomi ecological chain with a 1999 balance car.
With an approachable price and full of black technology experience, the balance bike at that time was considered a trendy product among young people.
Later, Nine Company launched a very popular scooter.
Compared with the difficulty of balance bikes, scooters have better application scenarios.
Through Xiaomi's channels and the overseas acquisition of Segway, Nine's performance has achieved rapid growth.
The prospectus at that time disclosed that in 2017~2019, the revenue of No. 9 Company was 1.381 billion yuan, 4.248 billion yuan, and 4.586 billion yuan respectively.
In fact, at that time, Nine Company was mainly OEM for Xiaomi in the domestic market.
At its peak, the revenue from Xiaomi exceeded seventy percent.
For some startups, if they want to become bigger and stronger, the benefits of a big money like Xiaomi are obvious.
Marketing and marketing, basically don't think about it, as long as you do a good job in product manufacturing.
The disadvantage is that the channel is in the hands of others, and he has no right to speak, and the price is stuck.
For example, the channel price of the balance car, the channel price given to Xiaomi by the Nine Company is more than 1,400 yuan.
If you retail yourself, the price can range from 1800 to 2000.
As an ecological chain enterprise, the greater risk still comes from being replaced.
Therefore, many industrial chain enterprises that produce products for end consumers will eventually seek to build their own brands and become independent.
Nine is no exception.
In recent years, it and Xiaomi's affection is no longer what it used to be.
By last year, Nine's revenue from the Xiaomi channel was only more than 400 million, accounting for about 4%.
The cost is that the company needs to do more user mental cultivation and more sales expenses.
Another important reason for the acceleration of the de-millet of Nine Company is still affected by the decline in the business of balance bikes and scooters.
In the balance bike and scooter business, whether it is OEM or retail abroad, Nine Company mainly uses the Segway brand.
In China, Xiaomi is an important sales channel.
Starting in 2020, Nine no longer discloses sales data for balance bikes and scooters separately, but on a consolidated basis.
In those years, especially abroad, contactless and green travel were advocated, and the sales of balance bikes and scooters increased significantly.
In 2021, the sales amount of Nine's balance bike and scooter business reached a peak, reaching 6.4 billion, accounting for 70% of the company's revenue.
However, due to policy restrictions and the decline in overseas demand, in 2022, this part of the business revenue will drop to 5.5 billion.
Last year, it dropped to 3.5 billion.
For the whole of 2023, the production of balance bikes and scooters will drop by 38%.
sales, 32% less.
The decline in the balance bike and scooter business, coupled with the obvious decline in overall overseas revenue, led to almost no growth in the company's overall revenue last year.
Therefore, by last year, the electric vehicle business officially became the largest source of revenue for Nine Company, with revenue reaching 4.2 billion.
The business engine of Nine Company has shifted from fashionable black-tech balance bikes and scooters to "ordinary" small electric donkeys.
2.
Nine officially launched its two-wheeled electric vehicle business in 2019.
The background at that time was that there was a very large policy adjustment for two-wheeled electric vehicles.
The main purpose is to eliminate some products that do not meet the standards before, raise the entry threshold, and the small factories in the market are out of the market.
But after all, two-wheeled electric vehicles are rigid demand, and to eliminate the old ones, people have to replace them with new cars, which brings a lot of incremental space.
It was also at this time that Nine Company saw the opportunity of this market and cut into this red sea of competition.
For Nine Company, although the use scenarios of balance bikes, scooters, and electric vehicles are different, it is not difficult to realize business transformation technically, and the threshold for two-wheeled electric vehicles is not high.
However, from the perspective of growth logic, the company's previous layout of balance bikes and scooters is the leader in the subdivided field.
The valuation given by the market may have some premium for the leading enterprises in the segmented field, because there will be an obvious performance gap between the leading and the companies behind.
Entering the field of two-wheeled electric vehicles has become a competition with the previous leader in this business field.
The company's valuation logic needs to be changed.
Especially in the context that the company's strategic business robots still do not have a large contribution, the value range for No. 9 Company is to continue to be evaluated by subdivision leaders, or according to the positioning of the traditional manufacturing industry catch-up, investors seem to need to spend their brains.
Last year, the production and sales of electric vehicles of Nine Company were around 1.48 million units.
Judging from the latest disclosed data, by February this year, the total shipments of electric two-wheelers of Nine Company in the past five years exceeded 3 million.
In contrast, Yadea and Emma, the two leading companies in electric two-wheelers, sold more than 10 million units last year alone.
Specifically, Yadea's sales volume is the highest, reaching 16.5 million units in 2023, corresponding to a revenue of 34.8 billion.
Emma followed with sales of 10.29 million vehicles, corresponding to revenue of 21 billion.
If you simply convert the sales amount and the total sales volume, the price of Yadea's bicycle is about 2,100 yuan.
Emma is about 2040 yuan.
Nine Company is about 2850.
Although Nine has positioned itself in the field of electric two-wheelers as intelligent, young and high-end.
However, the relatively high price is not reflected in the gross sales margin, and there is no significant difference between the three companies in this regard.
Among them, Yadea's gross sales margin is about 16.9%, and Emma's is 16.38%.
The Nine is slightly higher, but only 19.27%.
Compared with the gross profit margin of 29.45% of its own electric balance vehicles and electric scooters, there is still a significant gap.
It also shows from the side that the business barriers of electric two-wheelers cannot be reflected in the additional functions of the product.
The more core may be the channel layout and the occupation of users' minds.
If you want to buy a two-wheeled electric car, users won't say which brand I want and where to buy it.
The reality may be that users want to buy it, and they will go in and pick up a store that looks pleasing to the eye when they see a store along the street around the community.
To achieve such an effect, in addition to smashing out overwhelming advertisements to occupy the minds of users, it is also necessary to open as many stores as possible.
By 2023, there will be more than 30,000 stores laid by Yadea and Emma.
Nine Company still has only 5,000 offline stores.
As a latecomer, the channel layout of Nine Company still has a long way to go.
In the final analysis, the small electric donkey is just a transportation tool with strong demand, limited to hard needs such as picking up and dropping off children to and from school, buying vegetables in the vegetable market, commuting for short distances, and going out for a short run.
There is electricity, can run, twisting a key solves 99% of the problem, intelligence, science and technology, these demands, many users may not pay attention to it at all.
is like that talk show joke, no matter how cool your Emma is, Jay Chou's garage will not park electric cars of various colors, and press the key to "tweet".
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