The head pattern of new car-making forces has changed, and Xiaomi and Huawei have become the accelerators of the knockout competition

With the entry of Xiaomi Automobile, Geely, Changan and other traditional car companies have rolled out new energy product lines, and the pattern of new power represented by "Wei Xiaoli" is undergoing significant changes.

Recently, according to the data released by the Passenger Association, the share of new car companies was 11.8%, a year-on-year increase of 0.5 percentage points, among which new power car companies such as Ideal, Weilai, and Zeekr all saw a month-on-month increase in sales. In addition to the continuous competition for the world and the ideal sales championship in the past few months, Xiaomi entered the monthly delivery ranking for the first time with more than 7,000 deliveries, in addition, ZEEKR Motors hit a new high with 16,000 monthly deliveries, and surpassed Weilai, Leap and other "old and new forces".

In the past few years, NIO, Xpeng, and Li are considered to be the top three new car companies, and together with Leapmotor and Nezha Automobile, which can steadily obtain sales, the five companies together form the first echelon of new power car companies. Starting in 2023, the pattern will begin to change: Li Auto has sprung up, with annual sales of more than 300,000 units, becoming the only one in the first echelon of new forces; Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing's new M7 became an instant hit after its launch at the end of 2023, and the Wenjie brand also took the opportunity to become the new power sales champion in the first quarter of 2024; Deliveries of the long-awaited Xiaomi car began in April, with more than 7,000 units delivered in the first month.

"This year, the pressure on the market will only be greater, and some new energy vehicle companies that have not been able to break through the sales scale may be eliminated, and the enterprises that were considered to be the head in the past may also be replaced by latecomers and become waist enterprises, or even eliminated." Cui Ye, a senior from the planning department of a new energy vehicle company, told the first financial reporter.

The "new new forces" are concentrated upward

Three months later, Li Auto finally regained the throne of the sales crown of the new power car company. Li Auto delivered about 25,800 vehicles in April, up 0.4% year-on-year. At the beginning of April, Li Auto basically completed the adjustment of its organizational structure, and basically determined the structure and process mechanism of matrix organization 2.0. Subsequently, Li Auto further adjusted its product pricing and store sales strategy, and released a new price system on April 22. At the same time, orders for the new car Ideal L6 exceeded 20,000 units within 12 days of its launch, and the car is expected to provide greater sales boost for Ideal in May.

Although the sales crown is handed over, Wenjie still maintains a relatively strong sales performance. In April, the sales volume of the Wenjie brand was 25,100 units, which is hundreds of units behind Li Auto. Among them, nearly 13,400 units of the M9 were delivered in the current period, setting a new high for the monthly sales of Chinese auto brands in the market of more than 500,000 yuan, but the sales volume of the new M9 in July showed a large decline compared with the previous month. During the Beijing Auto Show, the Wenjie brand unveiled the new M5 model, which was set at 4,031 units in 24 hours. However, in April, the total sales volume of Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing's Wenjie and Zhijie brands was 29,600 units, surpassing that of Li Auto. With the landing of Xiangjie and JAC Huawei's cooperative brands in the later stage, the monthly sales of Hongmeng Zhixing still have the possibility of a great increase.

ZEEKR delivered 16,100 vehicles in April, up 99% year-on-year and 24% month-on-month, hitting a new high again. Since the beginning of this year, ZEEKR has maintained a relatively strong growth momentum, with a year-on-year increase of 111% in deliveries in January ~ April. During the Beijing Auto Show, ZEEKR released the "Baby Bus" ZEEKR MIX model. In early May, ZEEKR submitted a U.S. stock prospectus.

NIO also ushered in a rebound in April, delivering 15,600 new vehicles in April, up 134.6% year-on-year and 31.6% month-on-month. So far, NIO has delivered a total of 495,300 new vehicles. Since March, NIO has made frequent moves to increase sales: on March 14, NIO optimized the BaaS leasing program, reduced the battery rental price, and launched a scheme to offset the battery purchase cost from the leasing fee; In April, Weilai successively launched activities such as 0 down payment car purchase and 10,000~20,000 yuan replacement subsidies, and after the terminal price fell, Weilai's sales rebounded, but so far, Weilai's sales are still hovering around 10,000 units, and it has not gotten rid of the title of "Wei 10,000". In early May, NIO will disclose information about its second brand, Ledao.

In April, Leapmotor delivered more than 15,000 new vehicles. Starting in 2024, Leapmotor will rapidly expand its product lineup. In addition to the upgrade and facelift of T03, C11, C01 and other models, in the first four months of this year, Leapmotor has launched two new products, C10 and C16. Zhu Jiangming, chairman of Leapmotor, said that next year, Leapmotor will launch a series of A products with 100,000 yuan as the middle point; In the future, Leapmotor will also launch D series products with 200,000 yuan as the middle price. In addition, in the third quarter of this year, Leapmotor products will complete overseas certification work, and batch delivery will begin in the fourth quarter.

In terms of Xpeng Motors, it delivered 9,393 new vehicles in April, up 33% year-on-year and 4% month-on-month. Among them, Xpeng X9 delivered 1,959 units, and nearly 10,000 units were delivered in April. In January ~ April this year, Xpeng Motors delivered a total of 31,200 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 23%. Judging from the situation in the first 4 months of this year, the delivery volume of Xiaopeng Motors has a certain trend of falling behind, but at the Beijing Auto Show, Xiaopeng Motors disclosed some of the information of the second brand MONA, in the brand, Xiaopeng and Didi signed a VAM agreement, Didi will use its own channels to sell MONA models, if the highest annual sales for two consecutive years reach 180,000 units, Didi can obtain up to 5% of the equity of Xiaopeng Motors.

Nezha Automobile's April deliveries were 9,017 vehicles, down 18.6% year-on-year and up 7.8% month-on-month. Nezha Automobile revealed that orders for the Nezha L, which was launched on April 22, have exceeded 15,000 units. Although Zhou Hongyi, chairman of 360, continues to help Nezha make profits, Nezha Automobile, the new force in 2022, has not reproduced its peak performance in the past year, and compared with Wei Xiaoli Zero, Nezha has not yet achieved an IPO.

When Nezha's delivery volume is slow to pick up and break through, the new Xiaomi car is showing a rapid catch-up trend. Since the first delivery on April 3, Xiaomi Auto has completed the delivery of 7,058 units in April. As of 24 o'clock on April 30, Xiaomi SU7 locked orders of more than 88,000 units, and Lei Jun publicly stated that this year, Xiaomi cars will hit the annual delivery volume of 100,000 units. At present, Xiaomi has delivered less than 8,000 vehicles, in the next 8 months, Xiaomi needs to complete the delivery of 92,000 vehicles to achieve the goal, and its average monthly delivery volume will exceed 11,500 vehicles.

Xiaomi and Huawei have become knockout accelerators

According to data previously released by the Passenger Car Association, in April, the sales volume of the narrow passenger car retail market was about 1.60 million units, down 1.5% year-on-year and 5.3% month-on-month. Among them, the retail sales of new energy vehicles are expected to reach 720,000 units, basically the same as in March, but a year-on-year increase of 37.1%, and the penetration rate is expected to reach 45.0%.

The Federation of Passenger Cars believes that the recovery of the auto market in April will be slow. At the end of March, the auto market did not rebound significantly, and the market heat during the Qingming holiday was not as hot as the regular weekend, and the overall auto market continued the wait-and-see trend at the end of March, and the release of terminal demand was blocked. The price and preferential policies of various enterprises have been adjusted frequently, but the actual effect is relatively limited, and until the middle of the month, the terminal sentiment in April has not recovered to the level of the same period in March.

In the case that the market as a whole has not seen a significant expansion, the entry of new players such as Xiaomi and Huawei has greatly seized the market stock, and the "old car new forces" that have only staggered to gain a foothold in the past two years and are mostly in huge losses have ushered in another wave of new challenges.

Weilai Li Bin and Ideal Li Xiang are the top performers in the car circle in the past, and now it is difficult to compare with Xiaomi Lei Jun and Huawei Yu Chengdong in terms of traffic. At the just-concluded Beijing Auto Show, Li Bin, Zhu Jiangming and other founders of new car-making forces coincidentally mentioned that traffic is very important, but in the end, it is still necessary to look at the competitiveness of products.

"The essence of making a car is to build a good car, that is, the standard of quality, quality, system, and globalization, and to create a model that users like, I think this is the first thing. After that, from the means of marketing, it would be good if the boss could bring traffic, but if they all went to work hard, I don't think there was any need for this. Consumers buy products and experience our products. Xiaomi is not something that everyone can learn, I think we should be cautious, and every company should do a good job of its own products before marketing. Li Xueyong, deputy general manager of Chery Co., Ltd., said.

But on the other hand, the current market product homogenization is serious, the same price of new energy vehicles between the product has not appeared leapfrog leading products, Lei Jun after visiting the Beijing Auto Show bluntly, "car companies to launch a large number of homogeneous models are desperate, this approach is not to make products, but to rely on Mongolia."

In this environment, traffic and popularity are important factors affecting product sales to a certain extent.

An executive of a new energy vehicle company told reporters that car sales are like a funnel, and the thick end of the funnel represents the traffic, which means how many users will be able to pay attention to the product. The stronger the channel, the more users will make the transaction, and the higher the efficiency of the transaction.

Compared with Huawei and Xiaomi, traditional car companies and "Wei Xiaoli" do not have an advantage in the battle for traffic. After Xiaomi SU7 swept the automobile circle for nearly two months, a number of traditional car company executives began to interact with Lei Jun and Yu Chengdong frequently, and some executives who had been hidden behind the scenes for more than ten years began to come to the front of the stage, using live broadcasts, Weibo voices and other ways, with the intention of adding more traffic to the company.

The above-mentioned executives believe that Xiaomi and Huawei have brought a lot of new ways to play in the automotive circle, and with the continuous increase in the sales of their products and the expansion of the product matrix, Xiaomi and Huawei will become the accelerators of the elimination of the auto market.

(This article is from Yicai)