AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/17 Report--

Recently, according to 36 krypton's car platform "Future Automobile Daily" released news: Skyline will complete a new round of financing of more than 750 million yuan to promote the resumption of work and production.

The content of the article shows that the news comes from a number of people familiar with the matter. The money will arrive on March 24 at the latest, according to one of the people familiar with the matter. Another person familiar with the matter revealed to him: "it is true." At this stage, it is not convenient for the financier to disclose, and the specific plan is under negotiation. " At the same time, the report also said that an internal employee from Skyline Motors said that Skyline Motors has been in arrears for two months so far this year. Wages are not paid in January and February, and social security and provident fund in February have not been paid yet. Tianji Motor, a production plant in Changsha, Hunan Province, has not entered production since the beginning of the year.

It is worth noting that Skyline was found to be in arrears with its employees in 2019. News of layoffs and arrears of more than 30 million yuan in fees owed to partners was also reported in 2020. In addition, personnel changes were also very frequent in 2020. According to earlier media reports, Zhao Huan, vice president in charge of public relations and digital marketing, and Yang Yanru, vice president in charge of sales, both left their jobs in June 2020. Prior to this, Xiang Dongping, the former chief marketing officer of Skyline Automobile, also left, and Chen Min, the former senior vice president of Skyline Automotive, replaced him. Three marketing executives have left and salary arrears, layoffs and other news, have a certain impact on the future development of Skyline Motor.

Relevant data show that Skyline was established in 2015, its predecessor is Letv Motor's electric car brand Electric Cafe, the main business is the research and development and sales of new energy vehicles, repair and maintenance of new energy vehicles and other services. In 2017, when Letv's car capital chain broke, Jia Yueting emptied Letv's 35 per cent stake in electric coffee cars, which was then offered by Zhang Hailiang, then Letv's CEO, as chairman. In 2017, the electric coffee car launched its first EV10 model, which is positioned as a small pure electric car, with a subsidised price of 59800 to 67800 yuan. Soon after the new car came on the market, it encountered a large-scale subsidy decline, there was no subsidy policy, and the sales market of EV10 was not as expected.

In November 2018, the electric coffee car had to find a new way out, launched a new brand Skyline car, and moved to the high-end market. In 2019, "Zhejiang Electric Automobile Technology Co., Ltd." was changed to "Tianji Automotive Technology Group Co., Ltd.". On December 28, 2019, ME7, Skyline's first production car, was launched in Shaoxing. Skyline announced at that time that it had received 8000 orders, which are expected to be officially delivered in the first quarter of 2020, but it was not officially available until September 19, 2020 due to the delayed delivery of the epidemic. The price of ME7 is 218800-289800 yuan after comprehensive subsidy. In July, 2021, the added compact SUV Skyline ME5 was launched, and the new car launched a total of two equipped models with a price range of 14.99-159900 yuan. However, the sales figures for the two models are mediocre. According to relevant data, total sales of Skyline cars are 1778 in 2021 and 5321 in 2022.

In order to reverse the sluggish sales, Skyline had hoped to boost sales by speeding up the development of offline store channels. At its peak, there were more than 200 stores, but the results were still not good. In addition, in recent years, Skyline Automobile has been exposed that there is a shortage of capital chain, which also makes these offline store channels ushered in a wave of withdrawal. In April 2022, Tianji Motor withdrew from the central store on the first floor of Dongfang Xintiandi in Beijing.

In addition to opening up offline channels, Skyline Motor has also laid out overseas markets. In 2022, Skyline announced the establishment of a joint venture with Sumou Holding, a local Saudi company, to jointly invest about 500 million US dollars in two phases to set up a manufacturing and R & D base for new energy vehicles in Saudi Arabia, with an annual production capacity of about 100000 new energy vehicles. However, it is not easy to successfully explore the road to sea. Some people in the industry have pointed out that whether it is to open up the market in the early stage, or pre-sales and after-sales service, it will cost a lot of money and energy. And funds and energy for the current stage of Skyline Motor, are very scarce, after all, Skyline Automobile at this stage of domestic development layout also needs a lot of money and energy to support.

Of course, if this round of financing can be successfully put in place, for Skyline Motor, it can solve the urgent needs and promote the resumption of work and the development of new business. However, after Tesla starts a big price reduction this year, the new forces of car-building will also face a more intense life-and-death reshuffle. There is not much market competitiveness in terms of the production power of the two models of Skyline, how to break through at this time?

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