Now there are two major trends in Chinese car companies, which have set up factories overseas, and traditional car company bigwigs are vying to start live broadcasts.
Because of the "catfish effect" of Lei Jun's car-making, more and more car company bosses have come to the front of the stage from behind the scenes. Recently, the automotive industry has attracted the attention of many netizens because of the live broadcast of Lei Jun and Zhou Hongyi, and there are more and more CEOs of car companies who are going to live broadcast.
From Geely Chairman Li Shufu's live broadcast conversation with New Oriental founder Yu Minhong, to Chery Chairman Yin Tongyue's 4-hour live broadcast, to Great Wall Motor's Chairman Wei Jianjun's live broadcast to show Great Wall Motor's full-scene NOA without high-precision maps in the form of live broadcasts, and Xia Yiping, CEO of Jiyue Automobile, invited Baidu CEO Robin Li to experience Jiyue 01 live.
Among them, it should be noted that Yin Tongyue, chairman of Chery, is two years older than Wei Jianjun of Great Wall Motors, 60-year-old Wei Jianjun can get off the live broadcast, and 62-year-old Yin Tongyue also can't sit still. Wei Jianjun conducted his first live broadcast after attending the launch of Xiaomi's new car. With Wei Jianjun's strong personal IP and Great Wall Motor's influence, more than 10 million people watched Wei Jianjun's live broadcast online.
Yin Tongyue, who has always been low-key, invited the speaker of the self-media video talk show "Luo Ji Thinking", who is also from Anhui, and got the founder Luo Zhenyu to broadcast live together, you must know that Luo Zhenyu is a super V with more than 10 million fans, and the help of Luo Zhenyu and Wu Pei, a well-known automotive media person, did also make Yin Tongyue's live broadcast attract more attention.
The live broadcast of Yin Tongyue and Luo Zhenyu lasted 4 hours, which is a long time in the live broadcast of many car company CEOs. But Yin Tongyue, who was live for the first time, was somewhat restrained, and as for the reason for the live broadcast, he was very frank and said that he was forced by a new opponent. "Learn from Yu Chengdong, learn from Lei Jun, and personally explain and introduce products." It is Xiaomi and Huawei who have strong Internet marketing genes that forced the CEO of a car company who has never liked to appear in the spotlight into the live broadcast room, Yin Tongyue joked to himself: "Forcing me, an old man in his sixties, to come out." ”
Xiaomi, Huawei into the game, with the marketing gene of the mobile phone circle, set off waves of huge traffic in the automobile circle, and these traffic may be difficult for traditional car companies to obtain, so Great Wall, Chery, Geely and other traditional car companies that do not pay much attention to network marketing have to go down to deal with the new competition, Yin Tongyue's ridiculous words reflect the pressure of the older car company leaders in the face of the new situation, such as 61-year-old Li Shufu was not very interested in live broadcast before. As for the effect of the live broadcast, regardless of it for the time being, at least the old people who have passed the sixtieth year can enter the live broadcast room, reflecting that under the strong involution, all car companies have begun to learn and adapt, after all, the "king of traffic" like Lei Jun can greatly improve the brand power of the enterprise.
There are more and more CEOs of car companies who are live broadcasting, and there are voices of support and doubts on the Internet, perhaps the automotive industry has really been subverted by Lei Jun. Yin Tongyue also set a new goal for Chery after the live broadcast: to return to the top three in new energy in the middle of the year, and to become the second in the industry by the end of this year.
Exports totaled 937,000 units, ranking first for the 21st consecutive year
Yin Tongyue invited Luo Zhenyu to live broadcast, not because Chery's performance was poor, on the contrary, Chery handed over a brilliant answer sheet in 2024.
In 2023, Chery Automobile's total revenue will be 315.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 50.4%, and in 2022, Chery Automobile's revenue will just break through the 200 billion yuan mark, with a revenue of about 209.5 billion yuan, which means that Chery Automobile has increased by 106.6 billion yuan in a year, achieving a big leap of 100 billion yuan in a year.
Unlike the fluctuation of monthly sales of some car companies, Chery Automobile's monthly sales in 2023 will achieve "12 consecutive increases". The annual sales volume was 1881316 units, a year-on-year increase of 52.6%, of which the annual export of automobiles in 2023 will reach 937148, a year-on-year increase of 101.1%, maintaining the first place in the export of Chinese brand passenger cars for 21 consecutive years. In the past three years, Chery's overseas performance has ushered in leapfrog growth, with only 269,000 units exported in 2021 and an increase of 248% in 2023 compared to 2021. That's more than 3 times. In 2021, Chery Automobile's export sales accounted for only 28% of total sales, and this proportion has soared to 49.81% by 2023.
Chery will have a wide distribution of overseas markets in 2023, mainly in Russia, Latin America, the Middle East and other regions, including more than 80 countries such as Russia, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Turkey, Kazakhstan, and South Africa. Chery Automobile seized the characteristics of "low potential energy and low production capacity" in these areas and quickly seized the local market. Chery Automobile has maintained rapid growth in Russia and increased its market share rapidly, especially after the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, a large number of Western car companies have withdrawn, and Chinese car companies have quickly completed the filling, Russia has become the largest exporter of the mainland, and Russia has also become the most important overseas market for Chery Automobile.
As a low-key and stable representative of the industry, Chery Automobile is willing to work hard in technology. Unlike BYD, which abandoned fuel vehicles to specialize in new energy vehicles, Chery Automobile did not abandon fuel vehicles because of the trend of new energy, but relied on the advantages of its own fuel vehicles and achieved rapid development in two different tracks: new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles through multi-channel operation. According to public data, the average price of Chery Automobile's bicycles in 2023 will exceed 150,000 yuan, which is already very rare among self-owned brand cars.
Zhang Zhiyong, an automobile media person, believes that seizing the overseas outlet is the key to the rapid development of Chery Automobile in recent years, "In fact, the domestic market of automobiles is more volatile, and the competition for overseas exports will be relatively small, but Chery Automobile's exports have more than tripled in three years, indicating that its product quality is excellent, and it has been recognized after overseas market inspection." I believe that the increase in overseas export sales will lead to an increase in the price of Chery Automobile's bicycles, which will also lead to an increase in net profit. ”
Low net profit margin will increase
Because Chery Automobile is an unlisted company, Chery does not have a specific net profit in its financial report, but in 2021, Anhui Wuhu Construction Investment Co., Ltd. released the "Bond 2020 Annual Report". According to the report, Chery Automobile's total sales in 2020 will be 449,000 units, with a revenue of 34.762 billion yuan and a net profit of 7.3718 million yuan, and Chery Automobile's net profit margin in 2020 will only be 0.02%. Calculated by dividing total revenue by total sales, Chery Automobile's net profit per vehicle is only 16.4 yuan, in contrast, Toyota's profit per vehicle in 2020 is 15,000 yuan, almost 1,000 times that of Chery Automobile.
In 2020, the company's revenue was 2.332 billion yuan, the net profit was as high as 773 million yuan, and the net profit margin was as high as 33.15%.
However, among many independent brands, the low profit of a bicycle is not unique to Chery, and the net profit of a single vehicle of FAW Group in 2019 is only 27 yuan, slightly higher than that of Chery. In 2019, Xiali Automobile's profit per vehicle was -60,600 yuan. Changan Automobile sold as many as 2003663 vehicles in 2020, with a net profit of 3.32 billion yuan and a net profit of only 1,656 yuan per vehicle. In 2020, Great Wall Motor's net profit was 5.362 billion yuan, with a sales volume of 1.112 million units and a net profit of about 4,800 yuan...... Chery Automobile's net profit per car has also attracted widespread attention on the Internet, with many netizens commenting that selling cars is not as good as selling cabbage to make money, and some netizens think that a car only earns 16 yuan and is a conscientious businessman, but more netizens think that Chery Automobile's net profit per car is too low, and Chery Automobile's management is to blame.
Financial analyst Xu Yi believes that Chery Automobile's brand planning may not form a system, "compared with Geely, Great Wall and other car companies in the sub-brand targeted planning, Chery Automobile's brand planning is obviously weak, so many sub-brands seem too messy, 120,000 to 180,000 yuan range of models have several, not only did not target the major market segments, but also led to internal consumption, weakened their own brand power, it is better to be simpler, such as BMW, Chery 3, Chery 5, Chery 7, in terms of brand building, Chery Automobile has not done a great job. ”
After 3 years of development, especially the number of exported cars has soared to half of the total sales, and as we all know, the net profit of exported cars is much higher than that of China, and the net profit of Chery Automobile must be far more than 16 yuan, as for how much, there is no relevant data to disclose.
Lei Jun's "Catfish Effect"
Chery Automobile's strength in the overseas market has also been praised by many netizens as the top four automobiles along with BYD, Geely, and Great Wall, and the interesting thing is that in addition to Wang Chuanfu's age of less than 60 years old (58 years old), Yin Tongyue, Wei Jianjun and Li Shufu are all over sixty years old. Although Wang Chuanfu is not directly broadcast like Wei Jianjun and Yin Tongyue, in mid-April, Wang Chuanfu appeared in many counties and cities in Shandong to personally deliver the car to the owners of Denza, Equation Leopard and Yuan UP.
The top four cars in the eyes of netizens are currently more or less influenced by Lei Jun, and Wei Jianjun and Yin Tongyue also admitted in the live broadcast that they were forced by Lei Jun to come out of the live broadcast, which shows that they also recognize Lei Jun's traffic marketing. Lei Jun, as the founder of Xiaomi mobile phone, himself entered the game with the marketing gene of the mobile phone circle + Internet circle, and the strong sales of Xiaomi cars have also attracted huge attention in the automobile circle, almost subverting the new perception of marketing by old car companies, after the Xiaomi press conference, many car companies have flocked to the live broadcast room, in order to enhance the influence of their own brands.
Wang Chuanfu, Yin Tongyue, Wei Jianjun and Li Shufu, originally were relatively low-key and down-to-earth entrepreneurs, usually did not have the habit of showing their heads outside, they were more inclined to grasp quality control and heavy research and development, before their marketing methods were almost always to hand over the product to the dealer, the content to the third party, Lei Jun's cross-border entry into the automobile circle, has become a "catfish" that stirred the entire automobile circle, especially Xiaomi's new car launched because of the strong traffic ushered in the sky-high wealth, which made the owners of many car companies who have always been low-key began to sit still, They understand from Lei Jun's success that the promotion and influence of the entrepreneur's super IP on the brand can bring real money to the enterprise.
Zhang Zhiyong expressed concern about the CEO of the car company, "The success of Lei Jun's IP may be difficult to replicate, Lei Jun's IP has been built by Xiaomi for more than ten years, plus the cross-border car itself is very inspirational, and it is also more gimmicky, other car companies may be difficult to copy Lei Jun's model, Lei Jun will operate the fan economy as a rice noodle culture when he founded Xiaomi mobile phones, and build the No. 1 person as an IP, which is why there is a huge traffic today, but traditional car companies are willing to take this step, which can prove the determination to innovate and embrace new things, And that's a good thing. ”
Yin Tongyue, Wei Jianjun and others will be live broadcast, and what kind of sales performance will be brought has not been announced. However, the CEOs of traditional car companies put down their bodies and walked into the live broadcast room, which narrowed the intimacy between the car company's brand and users, and won the favor of a large number of netizens. On the positive side, traditional car companies have begun to recognize the importance of network marketing under the agitation of Lei Jun's "catfish", which is beneficial to the future development of enterprises.
Learning from Lei Jun's wave of trends may allow traditional car companies to solve the problem of "the fragrance of wine is also afraid of deep alleys", but the premise is that their "wine" is indeed fragrant and the product quality is indeed passable.
Author | Dream Shaw