On May 10, 2024, ZEEKR officially landed on the New York Stock Exchange, with a market value of 6.898 billion US dollars (about 49.85 billion yuan). This is a new car brand that has been successfully listed after NIO, Li Li, Xpeng and Leap, and it is also the fourth new Chinese car manufacturer to go public in the United States after Wei Xiaoli. From its establishment on March 23, 2021 to its IPO, it took only 37 months, setting a new record for the fastest listing of a new energy vehicle brand.
It is worth mentioning that Li Shufu, the founder of Geely Holding Group, known as the "car madman", also gained his ninth listed company, after having eight listed companies under his name, including Geely Automobile, Volvo Cars, Qianjiang Motorcycle, Hanma Technology, Lifan Technology, Polestar Automobile, ECARX and Lotus.
As a sub-brand of Geely, ZEEKR was born with its own "golden spoon" and has solid technical and resource support, such as SEA's vast architecture, self-developed high-performance electric drive, integrated die-casting, thermal spread non-fire battery safety technology, and so on. At the same time, it also bears the heavy responsibility of Geely Automobile's high-end strategy and aims at the high-end pure electric vehicle market.
The first product, ZEEKR 001, is the world's first mass-produced pure electric vehicle with a CLTC range of more than 1,000 kilometers, providing two drive systems: rear single motor (200KW, 343N.m) and front and rear dual motors (400KW, 686N.m), with a price of 299,000 to 386,000 yuan. It took less than four months from the start of deliveries on October 23, 2021 to the cumulative sales exceeding 10,000. In October 2022, 10,119 units were delivered, making it the first Chinese domestic brand to deliver more than 10,000 high-end electric vehicles in a single month.
On November 1, 2022, the second model, the ZEEKR 009, was officially released, and deliveries began in January 2023. It is positioned as a luxury six-seater MPV, and is the world's first high-end MPV based on a pure electric platform, with a price of 499,000 to 588,000 yuan.
In the past year, ZEEKR has successively launched the compact SUV model ZEEKR X, the pure electric hunting supercar ZEEKR 001FR, and the first pure electric luxury sedan ZEEKR 007. In April of this year, the ZEEKR 009 (Glorious Edition) and the ZEEKR MIX MPV model were released.
In order to provide a better consumer experience, ZEEKR adopts a DTC direct sales model, which is different from the marketing and distribution system of the Geely brand. As of the end of last year, it had 24 ZEEKR centers, 240 ZEEKR spaces, 31 ZEEKR delivery centers, and 45 ZEEKR houses. At the same time, 882 charging stations have been established in more than 130 cities.
ZEEKR is one of the fastest-delivering brands in China's high-end EV market, with a total of 6,009 units delivered in its first year. In 2022 (the first full delivery year), 71,941 units were delivered, exceeding the annual target of 70,000 units. Last year, deliveries increased by 65% year-on-year to 118,685 units.
In April this year, the sales volume of ZEEKR reached 16,100 units, a year-on-year increase of 99%, a record high. In the first four months, a total of 49,148 vehicles were delivered, surpassing peers including NIO, Leap, Xpeng, Nezha and other new EV manufacturers. As of the end of April 2024, more than 240,000 units have been delivered.
With the increase in the number of deliveries, ZEEKR's performance has also risen, with revenue of 6.527 billion, 31.899 billion and 51.673 billion yuan in the past three years. It is worth noting that the company's revenue mainly comes from three business segments: vehicle sales, electric business, research and development and other services, and revenue outside the vehicle accounted for 34% of total revenue last year.
However, like most new car-making forces, ZEEKR has not yet achieved profitability, with net losses of 4.514 billion, 7.655 billion, and 8.264 billion yuan from 2021 to 2023, respectively. The main reason is the large R&D investment, the company's R&D investment in the same period was 3.160 billion, 5.446 billion and 8.369 billion yuan respectively, which continued to increase year by year.
It can be seen that the R&D investment and net loss of each year are roughly offset, which also means that from the perspective of revenue alone, ZEEKR has been able to break even. In fact, in terms of gross profit margin, this new car-making force has entered the first echelon. The gross profit margin of ZEEKR was positive in the first year of its establishment, reaching 15% last year, a year-on-year increase of 10.3 percentage points. For comparison, Li 21.5%, Tesla 18.2%, NIO 9.5%, and Xpeng -1.6%.
Write at the end
Since last year, the price war in the automobile market has been round after round, which is a big challenge for all enterprises. This year, ZEEKR will also launch a new medium and large pure electric SUV to enter the luxury market in 8 European countries. The full-year target is to deliver 230,000 units and aim to turn a profit (in accordance with Hong Kong Financial Reporting Standards).