AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/26 Report--

On the evening of March 24th, Beijing Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Beijing Automobile") released its annual results, showing that Beijing Automobile achieved revenue of 190.463 billion yuan in 2022, an increase of 8.27 percent over the same period last year. The net profit attributable to the company's equity holders was 4.197 billion yuan, an increase of 8.8 percent over the same period last year.

Beijing Automobile is one of the five major automobile groups in China, mainly engaged in passenger car R & D and manufacturing, spare parts manufacturing, automotive service trade, R & D, education, investment and financing and other business. among them, the passenger car business is carried out through Beijing Mercedes-Benz, Beijing Hyundai, Fujian Mercedes-Benz and Beijing brands. It should be noted that Beijing Hyundai and Fujian Mercedes-Benz are not controlled by Beijing Automobile, so the financial report does not include these two brands.

Specifically, Beijing Mercedes-Benz's revenue in 2022 was 183.155 billion yuan, an increase of 9.0 percent over the same period last year, accounting for 96.16 percent of Beijing Automobile's total revenue. Beijing Automobile said the main reason for the growth was the increase in sales of Beijing Mercedes-Benz and the increase in the proportion of high-value models. As for the Beijing brand, revenue in 2022 was 7.308 billion yuan, down 8.1% from the same period last year, accounting for about 3.8% of Beijing Automobile's total revenue. Beijing Automobile said the decline was mainly due to changes in the brand's model structure.

Beijing Mercedes-Benz has always been the main source of revenue and profit support for Beijing Automobile. According to the data, Beijing Auto has a 51% stake in Beijing Mercedes-Benz and has been producing and selling Mercedes-Benz passenger cars since 2006. With the decline of Beijing brand and Korean joint venture brands, Beijing Mercedes-Benz is becoming more and more prominent. According to the financial report, Beijing Mercedes-Benz accounted for 73.42%, 87.04%, 89.14% and 88.45% of Beijing Automobile's total revenue from 2016 to 2019, respectively. The proportion of total revenue from 2020 to 2022 was 95.5%, 95.9% and 96.2%, respectively, and reached an all-time high in 2022.

In terms of sales, Beijing Mercedes-Benz is still the backbone of Beijing Auto, accounting for 62.51% of sales. In 2022, the four major business sectors of Beijing Automobile achieved a total of 947000 vehicle sales, of which Beijing brand sales were 72000, down 0.7% from the same period last year; Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales were 592000, up 5.5% from the same period last year; in addition, Beijing Hyundai sold 250000 vehicles and Fujian Mercedes-Benz sold 33000.

As a luxury brand of Beijing Automobile, the gross profit of Beijing Mercedes-Benz was 47.396 billion yuan in 2022, while the gross profit of Beijing brand was still negative, and the loss was further expanded to 5.038 billion yuan. In addition, Beijing Mercedes-Benz's gross profit margin rose to 25.9% from 25.2% in 2021 due to rising sales and an increase in the proportion of high-value models.

On March 7th, Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales and Service Co., Ltd. announced important personnel appointments: the company's President and Chief Executive Officer Yang Ming (Jan Madeja) will return to his headquarters in Germany at the end of his nearly four-year term in the Chinese market, and Duan Jianjun, Chief operating Officer, will take over as President and CEO of Mercedes-Benz sales Company. The above appointments will take effect on May 1, 2023.

It is understood that Duan Jianjun is the first Chinese president and CEO in the history of a multinational car company. Volkswagen, Audi and BMW have never had a precedent. It is obvious that the personnel adjustment carried out by Mercedes-Benz in China is a major move to "prepare in advance" for future development. The appointment of Duan Jianjun not only broke the first Mercedes-Benz sales leader in the history of Mercedes-Benz business in China, but also set a precedent for a multinational company.

Like a number of luxury brand carmakers, Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales mainly come from fuel vehicles, and the development of new energy vehicles is not optimistic. Since 2020, Beijing Mercedes-Benz has launched EQC, EQA and EQB one after another, but these three models are actually only oil-to-electric models of GLA, GLB and GLC, which fail to carry the banner of sales of Mercedes-Benz pure electric vehicles. The performance in the terminal market has been poor, and they have been criticized for their quality problems. Although the EQS, EQE and EQS SUV models are electric vehicles built on brand-new platforms, they are very expensive and difficult to be favored by ordinary consumers.

Although the performance on the new energy vehicle track is not satisfactory, Mercedes-Benz has shown great importance to China's high-end new energy vehicle market. In 2023, Mercedes-Benz will also launch six new pure electric models and plug-in hybrid models, including brand new EQS pure electric SUV, brand new EQE pure electric SUV, Mercedes-Benz S-Class (hybrid) cars, Maybach EQS pure electric SUV and plug-in hybrid models, forming 17 new energy product matrices that fully cover the new generation of luxury, core luxury and high-end luxury market segments.

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