China Times (www.chinatimes.net.cn) reporter Zhai Yanan reported in Beijing
On the evening of November 4, SAIC Motor (600104.sh) released its production and sales data for October. In October, SAIC Motor's automobile production and sales fell year-on-year, with a total of 572,000 units and 582,100 units, respectively, a year-on-year decline of 5.12% and 2.44% respectively. Sales of new energy vehicles grew rapidly, with sales of 77,000 units in October, an increase of 58.03% year-on-year. Since the beginning of this year, its cumulative sales of new energy vehicles have reached 555,900 units, an increase of 187.57% year-on-year.
For SAIC Motor, which is in a slump in stock prices and declining performance, the success or failure of the new energy business has become a key battle. Recently, SAIC R brand officially announced that it was renamed "Feifan Automobile" to carry out market-oriented operation in the form of an independent company, and SAIC Motor hopes to promote the strategic transformation of SAIC Group with the help of the capital market in the future.
"Get on the horse and give a ride"
Feifan Automobile was invested and established by SAIC Motor with a registered capital of 7 billion yuan, of which SAIC Motor contributed 6.65 billion yuan, accounting for 95% of the shares, and the employee shareholding platform subscribed to contribute 350 million yuan, accounting for 5% of the shares. In this regard, SAIC Motor said that the independent operation of the r brand will explore the use of innovative company operation methods, business operation models and market-oriented incentive and constraint mechanisms to achieve independent operation and self-financing.
Previously, the r brand belonged to SAIC Passenger Vehicles, a subsidiary of SAIC Motor, which was a new high-end pure electric brand launched by SAIC Group. The reporter learned that after the independent operation of Feifan Automobile, SAIC Motor will also make every effort to promote its development. The relevant person in charge of SAIC motor said that in the initial stage, Feifan Automobile will fully integrate the resources of SAIC Motor in the fields of research and development, manufacturing and service, and the SAIC Motor Technology Center will provide all-round technical support and solutions, and the passenger car branch will carry out OEM production. This means that reducing manufacturing investment and costs for Feifan Automobile in the early stage can help enterprises tide over the difficulties in the early stage.
According to SAIC's description, it also has five innovation centers of world-class new energy three-power core technology, mature l4-level automatic driving project experience, artificial intelligence, big data, cloud computing, network security and software, the industrial chain layout across more than 70 countries and regions around the world, and the top strength in the field of intelligent manufacturing, which will become a strong endorsement of Feifan Automobile.
Judging from the October sales data of Feifan Automobile, the number of orders continued to rise, and the overall order increased by 30% month-on-month to nearly 3,000 units; of which the er6 order increased by 64% and the year-on-year increase of 214%; the number of suv marvel r orders also increased steadily. Overall deliveries in October were 2002 units, of which 1585 were delivered for the ER6 model and 417 for the Marvel R model. According to public data, the r brand has now laid out 148 experience centers across the country, opening 80; laying out 10 delivery centers and opening 5; and laying out 70 service centers and opening 50.
However, compared with brands at the same price such as E-An and BYD, Feifan Automobile's sales, brand power and product strength are not dominant. On May 10 last year, SAIC Motor launched a new high-end pure electric exclusive r brand, announcing a full-year sales target of about 20,000 vehicles. However, third-party platform data shows that the cumulative sales volume of the r brand from January to September this year was 9919 vehicles, coupled with the delivery of 2002 vehicles in October, there is still a big gap from the annual sales target. In the past October, Xiaopeng, GAC E-An and Volkswagen id families have all achieved monthly sales of more than 10,000 vehicles.
Attack the mid-to-high-end market
According to the data, saic's revenue and net profit in the third quarter of this year have declined: the main revenue was 186.616 billion yuan, down 13.17% year-on-year; the net profit attributable to the mother was 7.036 billion yuan, down 14.75% year-on-year. Industry insiders said that the decline in SAIC's profits was caused by a variety of factors, including the sluggish sales of some joint ventures and independent fuel vehicles, and while profits declined, the continuous "blood transfusion" for new brands undoubtedly became a burden.
For SAIC Motor, its stock price has been criticized by investors for its depressed stock price. Watching the stock prices of BRANDS SUCH ASD and Great Wall soaring, SAIC has only maintained the leading position in sales and marketing of car companies, and its market value performance has not improved, even compared with new car-making forces such as Weilai, which has just been listed for a long time. In terms of new energy vehicle sales, although SAIC Is still leading this year's cumulative sales, from the single-month data, BYD's new energy vehicle sales have surpassed SAIC for two consecutive months. According to the data, BYD's new energy vehicle sales in September and October were 70,000 units and 81,000 units, while SAIC Motor's new energy vehicle sales in September and October were 64,000 units and 77,000 units. In the first ten months, BYD and SAIC motor group's cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were 419,000 units and 555,900 units, respectively. From the perspective of the sales ratio of new energy vehicles to oil vehicles, BYD's side of the new energy vehicles accounted for more than 90% of the new energy vehicles in the October sales data, while SAIC Motor group was only 13%.
In fact, in order to achieve the transformation of electrification, SAIC Motor has been constantly trying. Before the establishment of the independent R brand of Feifan Automobile, SAIC Motor has begun to "incubate" the high-end electric brand - Zhiji Automobile. In terms of positioning, Zhiji Automobile will be higher than the R brand. It is reported that Feifan Automobile will mainly attack the high-end new energy intelligent models of 200,000 to 400,000 yuan, and Zhiji Automobile will mainly attack the model market of more than 400,000 yuan. This means that the two brands will fight on a two-front basis, releasing a signal that SAIC Will attack the mid-to-high-end new energy vehicle market. "In the face of the trend of consumption upgrading in the domestic automobile market and the upward advancement of independent brands, SAIC Motor has launched two independent brands, which is also accurate for the new energy vehicle market to complete the testing stage." Yan Jinghui, a member of the expert committee of the China Automobile Dealers Association, believes that the SAIC-GM-Wuling brand under SAIC Motor Group competes for the volume market through miniev, and at the same time, it is more necessary to break through the high-end model market to ensure the success of enterprise transformation, and Zhiji and Feifan Automobile are the key to SAIC Group's acceleration of the high-end intelligent electric vehicle track. It is reported that Feifan Automobile will launch a mass production version of the ES33 concept car in the second half of next year, which is positioned as a medium and large pure electric SUV and will be built based on r-tech high-energy intelligent body. In addition, the Zhiji L7 is also scheduled to start delivery in the first half of next year.
Feifan Automobile operates independently, on the one hand, it can fully impact the new track, and at the same time, it also provides the possibility to attract the attention of capital. Lan Qingsong, vice president of SAIC, said: "SAIC motor should use capital. Everyone thinks saic is not bad money. But our chairman also said that many of our previous thinking was still industrial age thinking, relying on rolling development, coming by ourselves, and now we must actively use the capital market. At present, it is reported that after the establishment of Zhiji Automobile, it has formulated an independent operation and independent listing plan, and Feifan Automobile also has an independent listing plan.
It can be seen that in order to support the impact of the new energy vehicle sector on the high-end market, it has become a trend for domestic car companies to operate their electric brands independently. In July 2020, Dongfeng's high-end electric brand "Lantu" was born and implemented a comprehensive market-oriented operation; in November 2020, GAC New Energy changed its name to "GAC Aian" to complete brand independence; in April this year, Geely also released a new high-end electric brand "Extreme Krypton", adopting an independent operation model. In August this year, GAC Aeon said that it would make full use of the capital market and actively seek to list at an appropriate time. In the same month, the release of only 4 months of extreme Krypton fast step, completed the first round of independent financing.
Compared with the new car-making forces that were born and market-oriented, these independent brands incubated by traditional car companies have the innate advantage of relying on large groups, but their innovative thinking is inevitably limited. If Feifan Automobile wants to take off quickly, it is bound to take off the swimming ring and truly throw itself into the tide of the new energy market.