AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)08/28 Report--

A few days ago, SAIC released financial results for the first half of 2022, showing that its operating income in the first half of 2022 was 315.993 billion yuan, down 13.69% from the same period last year. The net profit belonging to shareholders of listed companies was 6.91 billion yuan, down 48.10% from the same period last year. Net profit belonging to shareholders of listed companies after deducting non-recurring gains and losses was 6.108 billion yuan, down 48.47% from the same period last year.

With regard to the decrease in net profit and deduction non-net profit compared with the same period last year, SAIC said that the main reason was that the rebound in the epidemic had a serious impact on the supply chain of the automobile industry chain, resulting in a reduction in the company's sales revenue; at the same time, the tight supply of chips and the sharp rise in the price of raw materials such as power batteries adversely affected the gross profit margin of products.

After entering 2022, the automobile industry is facing a more severe and complex external environment and the tremendous impact of a new round of epidemic, especially the epidemic in Shanghai. Many factories under SAIC have stopped production for more than half a month. As Shanghai is an important city of China's automobile industry, the month-long lockout has a direct impact on the development of China's automobile industry. In theory, the epidemic in Shanghai affects not only SAIC-Volkswagen, but also China's automobile industry. The supply of components such as superimposed chips and wire harness is still insufficient, and there is great pressure on the industrial chain in the short term.

However, with the effective containment of the epidemic, the release of lagging production capacity and consumer demand, and the stimulation of the traditional policy of halving the purchase tax on fuel vehicles, the domestic passenger car market has increased significantly, and the production and sales of a number of car companies have rebounded since June. Data show that SAIC sold 2.2343 million vehicles in the first half of 2022, down 2.74% from the same period last year, of which SAIC-Volkswagen grew 7.94% to 574700 vehicles, making it the only joint venture brand of SAIC to achieve growth.

From the group level, SAIC Volkswagen is the profit cow of SAIC Group, which is much higher than SAIC GM and SAIC GM Wuling, so the large and major sales volume will directly affect the profit performance of the group. However, while SAIC-Volkswagen sales are up, net profit has fallen. According to the financial report, SAIC-Volkswagen's operating income in the first half of the year was 63.582 billion yuan, down 3.55% from the same period last year, and its net profit was 2.804 billion yuan, down 2.81% from the same period last year.

SAIC Volkswagen has Audi, Volkswagen, Skoda three major brands, respectively, the layout of luxury, mainstream, low-end market, but except for the Volkswagen brand, the performance of the other two brands are not optimistic. According to the insurance figures, SAIC Audi sold a total of 1892 vehicles in the first half of the year, including the A7L and Q5 e-tron. The first fuel SUV Audi Q6 began pre-sale on July 24, with a pre-sale of 50-650000 yuan. As for SAIC Skoda, first-half sales fell 62.99 per cent year-on-year to 23537 vehicles, with a market share of just 0.2 per cent.

As a joint venture brand that once wrestled with North and South Volkswagen, SAIC GM has three major brands: Cadillac, Buick and Chevrolet, which also covers high-end, mainstream, middle and low-end markets, and has long been at the forefront of domestic passenger car sales. However, SAIC GM's influence has not been as good as it used to be in recent years. According to the financial report, SAIC GM sales fell 12.91% in the first half of the year compared with the same period last year, including Buick down 15.9%, Chevrolet up 21.83% and Cadillac down 32.23%. In addition, operating income in the first half of the year fell 14.84% year-on-year to 67.52 billion yuan, and net profit fell 2.9% to 2.28 billion yuan.

There is no denying that the epidemic in the first half of this year led to the slow progress of the SAIC GM plant, which dealt a heavy blow to SAIC GM sales. But the root cause of SAIC GM's decline in sales in recent years is itself. On the one hand, the domestic fuel vehicle market is gradually shrinking, SAIC GM fuel vehicle road may not be feasible; on the other hand, the domestic new energy market is gradually forming a scale, a number of enterprises are pouring into the ranks of new energy vehicles. Although SAIC GM is accelerating the promotion of the hybrid pure electricity market, it may not be able to gain a foothold even though it started relatively late. Whether SAIC GM can maintain its market position still depends on the market planning in the later stage.

As for SAIC GM Wuling, sales fell 5.94 per cent to 622100 vehicles in the first half from a year earlier, relying mainly on the Hongguang MINIEV, but this is a model with no profit margin, especially in the context of rising parts supply and raw material prices. Hongguang MINIEV's profit margins have been further suppressed. According to the financial report, SAIC GM Wuling's operating income in the first half of the year rose 2.18% to 32.967 billion yuan compared with the same period last year, while net profit fell 15.01% to 330 million yuan.

Now, the era of "market capitalization" and "earning 100 million a day" has also changed. SAIC is constantly strengthening the development of its own brand, but the elephant "turn around" is bound to be very difficult.

On November 26, 2020, SAIC announced that the SAIC "L" project was officially named "Zhiji Automobile", a joint venture between SAIC, Shanghai Pudong New area and Alibaba. The brand was announced on January 13, 2011. the first model, the Zhiji L7, has been on the market with a price range of 368800 yuan to 408800 yuan. On October 29, 2021, SAIC officially announced that the original R brand of SAIC passenger car Branch will officially carry out market-oriented operation in the way of an independent company, which is called Feifan Automobile in Chinese. In the future, Feifan Automobile will focus on 200000 to 400000 yuan of middle and high-end new energy intelligent products, and Zhiji Automobile will jointly assume the important task of SAIC Group's breakthrough in the high-end electric intelligence new track. However, although the action is very intensive, but under the attack of Tesla, NIO, ideal, Xiaopeng and so on, SAIC is obviously unable to take the lead.

According to objective analysis, as a large vehicle manufacturer, more than 90% of SAIC's sales rely on traditional fuel vehicles, especially traditional joint venture brands such as SAIC-Volkswagen and SAIC-GM. Under this background, it is very difficult to give up the huge market of fuel cars. therefore, SAIC launched new energy vehicle brands such as Feifan Automobile and Zhiji Automobile, whose transformation motivation and determination will be far less resolute and thorough than those who subvert the industry.

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