Text: Financial Street Lao Li
Under the personal control of Wei Jianjun, Great Wall Motors is taking a long-term road.
On May 10, Great Wall Motor held an on-site exchange meeting of the annual general meeting of shareholders, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, led the core senior management team of the company to have in-depth exchanges with investors, and during the same period, Great Wall Motor released the best quarterly report since its establishment, in the first quarter of 2024, the revenue was as high as 42.86 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47.60%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company reached 3.228 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17 times.
In the past two years, the Great Wall is not a hot spot in the automobile capital and industrial market, and even in the industrial field, it has been treated somewhat "unfairly". How to go about the differentiation of the Great Wall? How to go behind the scenes and get into the spotlight?
The Great Wall on an upward trend
Lao Li has always been optimistic about the Great Wall, the reason is that the Great Wall has a boss who understands strategy, management, industry, and users, and the boss has been commanding on the front line. Don't underestimate this, at present, the domestic vehicle companies that are doing well are basically the bosses who come to the front line to command, such as BYD's Wang Chuanfu, Xiaomi's Lei Jun and Wei Xiaoli, etc., these bosses are the cornerstone of enterprise development.
Maybe it's because other brands are too high-profile, or maybe it's because Great Wall Motors is too low-key, in the past two years, many friends have passed on the feeling to Lao Li that everyone always feels that Great Wall Motors is "no good". Lao Li did a survey some time ago, and there are several reasons for everyone's opinion, one is that Great Wall Motors is not loud enough because of the new energy vehicles, and the sales volume is not enough; The second is that the professional managers of the Great Wall are turbulent and feel that the enterprise is unstable, and the third is that there are many categories of cars in the Great Wall, and everyone knows little about the system.
Sound volume is not equal to sales, traffic is not equal to profit, back to the core of business operation - financial report, Great Wall Motors has always been very powerful:
In terms of sales, the sales volume in 2023 will be 1.23 million units, a year-on-year increase of 15.85%, of which 256,400 new energy vehicles will be sold, a year-on-year increase of 113.88%; Overseas sales were 314,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 82.37%, a record high.
In terms of financial reports, Great Wall Motor's revenue in 2023 will reach 173.212 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.12%, a record high; net profit reached 7.023 billion yuan, deducting non-attributable net profit of 4.834 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.98%; overseas revenue was 53.611 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 100.41%; Total assets reached RMB201.270 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 8.59%.
If the growth in 2023 is within everyone's expectations, then Great Wall Motor's performance in 2024 will exceed everyone's expectations, according to Great Wall Motor's first quarterly report:
In the first quarter of 2024, Great Wall Motor sold 275,300 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 25.11%, of which 59,200 new energy vehicles were sold, a year-on-year increase of 112.82%; Overseas sales reached 92,800 units, a year-on-year increase of 78.51%. In terms of finance, the revenue in the first quarter reached 42.86 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 47.60%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company reached 3.228 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17 times.
Some friends may say that the financial report is "made", Lao Li does not think so, in the three fees and other major indicators, Great Wall Motor's quarterly report has not decreased at all, in terms of research and development expenses that everyone values most, the first quarter was as high as 1.96 billion yuan, an increase of 27.73%.
Friends who are familiar with Great Wall Motors in the secondary market know that in the past 2023, Great Wall Motors' quarterly financial performance is "progressive", it breaks the inherent cycle law of the industry, and with its own performance, one step per quarter, it can be said that in the past two years, Great Wall Motors has planted the "causes" of strategy, technology and products, and harvested the "fruits" of finance, sales and potential energy.
The road to differentiation
In this era of change, the road of enterprise development is also constantly changing, Lao Li's biggest experience in the start-up company is that the development path of any large and medium-sized enterprise is not immutable, and the development path of any industry is not immutable.
For enterprise traders, there are two dimensions that are very important, one is to find their own industry positioning and find differentiated development direction in the horizontal dimension; The other is to dare to change and adjust in the vertical dimension of enterprise development.
Friends who often look at the secondary market know that in recent years, although the voice of new energy vehicle companies is unlimited, the Great Wall, Changan, Geely and other automobile giants have been growing steadily every year. Like Great Wall Motors, from 90 billion to 170 billion revenues, it only took five years, BYD took a road, Geely took a road, Chery took a road, Great Wall Motors is different from everyone, and has also taken a road of its own.
Frankly speaking, Lao Li really can't say what path Great Wall Motors has taken, I'm afraid only Mr. Wei and the executives of Great Wall Motors know. But what Lao Li can judge is that in the face of the cold winter period in the next three years or even longer, Great Wall Motors adheres to long-termism, focuses on the present, looks to the future, and is in the next game of chess from technology to products to finance.
No matter how big the strategy is, it is necessary to grasp several strategic focuses, and Lao Li feels that the focus of the Great Wall is as follows:
The first is to focus on a Great Wall, the core performance of this is to rely on the adjustment of the organizational structure to promote the integration of research, supply, production and marketing, many friends feel that this is very empty, but Lao Li's experience is that for large and medium-sized enterprises, this is the premise of development, there is no organizational foundation, everything is half the effort, so you can see that the ideal car has been adjusting and optimizing the organization, as a million-level enterprise in production and sales, the adjustment experience of Great Wall Motors is much richer than that of the new forces.
The second is to focus on high-profit categories, Great Wall Motors has five sub-brands: Haval, Tank, Wei brand, Great Wall Cannon and Ora, of which Haval, which focuses on SUVs, is the basic sales volume, Tank focuses on high-end off-road, pickup trucks cover tool categories and outdoor scenes, and the latter two sectors are profit cows. Therefore, consolidating the leading position in the hard-core off-road market, off-road new energy market, and pickup truck market, and maintaining core market sales should be the core of this round of development path.
In the field of off-road and pickup, Great Wall Motors has the core competitiveness, we don't need to say much about the advantages in the field of pickup, in the field of off-road, the tank brand currently has 400,000 user groups, with a market share of 55%, forming a first-mover advantage. In addition, traditional exclusive off-road vehicles pursue low-speed torque in terms of scene needs and functions, so as to have good driving ability, but electric vehicles have disadvantages in this regard, so it is difficult for other companies to challenge the market position of Great Wall in a short period of time.
As a result of focusing on high-profit categories, in 2023, Great Wall Motor's average revenue per vehicle will be 141,400 yuan, an increase of 12,000 yuan year-on-year, and the sales of models above 200,000 yuan will be 225,800 units, accounting for 18.36%, a year-on-year increase of 3.09 percentage points, both of which will hit a record high.
The third focus is internationalization, Lao Li is very concerned about the overseas market this year, the current overseas market layout is very similar to the new energy vehicles ten years ago, although in the bud, but the market can be expected, although the problems are frequent, but there are solutions.
Facing the global market, Great Wall Motors focused on the "ONE GWM" brand strategy, with overseas sales of 314,000 units last year, and revenue doubled to 56.3 billion yuan, and its overseas sales target of 500,000 units this year, Haval and pickup trucks accounted for 300,000 and 60,000 units respectively, and tanks were 50,000 to 60,000 units. It can be seen that Great Wall Motor's acceleration of "ecological going to sea" has brought about an increasingly rich global product matrix, and the sales of high-end products and new energy products have increased.
The powerful faction blessed by traffic
Some time ago, Lao Li communicated with some industry leaders, and everyone joked that the current boss not only has to run a good business, but also has to come together with everyone, Lao Li himself is also starting a business, and the advice given by the leader is that you must first be an Internet celebrity when starting a business.
In this regard, Lao Li understands that in the stage of the Internet of Everything, the relationship between car companies and users is very similar to the relationship between employees and leaders.
In our daily work, we work diligently and make a lot of achievements, but the result will not be "performed" in front of the leader, and we do not strive for the favor of the leader, and no matter how much we pay, it is in vain. There is also a group of people who only please the leader every day and get a lot of attention, but they don't know how to work hard, and the leader encounters a problem and can't solve it, but it is easy to be counterattacked. Therefore, the most ideal situation is that doing oneself well in a down-to-earth manner is the foundation, and if you can also get the support of the leadership, you will get a full house.
In the past, Great Wall Motors has always done more and said less, and Great Wall Motors is also innovating internally to change this status quo. As Mr. Wei mentioned, communication in the Internet era requires Internet thinking, and live broadcast can directly face the user group.
On April 15, Wei Jianjun conducted a live broadcast of the urban NOA test, which was a technology demonstration and a new way to interact with the market. In addition, during the Xiaomi car press conference and the Beijing Auto Show, Wei Jianjun personally interacted with Lei Jun many times, and walked in the forefront of the automobile group.
In order to better carry out the layout of To C, since the end of last year, Great Wall Motors has established a sub-brand of "Great Wall Zhixuan" to be responsible for the direct business of Great Wall Motors, which has landed 33 directly operated stores in May this year, and is expected to reach about 200 by the end of the year.
The direct sales store from the store construction to the team are led by Great Wall Motors, the current sales brand is only the high-end market Wei brand and tank, the establishment of direct sales channels not only to strengthen the sales of high-end brands, but also to shorten the distance with users. Wei Jianjun said when talking about industry competition, "In 2024, 2025, and 2026, I don't think the intensity of this competition will decrease." We must face the next three years with a long-term approach. ”
In the past few years, the vast majority of new energy vehicle companies are not profitable or even lose money, in the context of the industry's price war, and even "lose money to make money", Great Wall Motors is facing multiple challenges such as technological change, market reshaping, global competition and price wars, a number of financial indicators show that it is on a track of steady development, I think this is worth thinking about many traditional auto giants.