AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/10 Report--

On June 9, NIO announced its financial results for the first quarter of 2023, showing that during the reporting period, NIO realized operating income of 10.68 billion yuan, an increase of 7.7% over the same period last year, of which vehicle sales revenue was 9.22 billion yuan, down 0.2% from the same period last year; a net loss of 4.74 billion yuan, an increase of 165.9% over the same period; in addition, the gross profit margin for the first quarter was 1.5%, compared with 14.6% for the same period, and the gross profit margin for cars was 5.1%, compared with 18.1% for the same period.

In the earnings call, Li Bin, CEO of Xilai, repeatedly mentioned the fierce competition in the auto market this year. He said that the market has changed very much recently and competition is intensifying further. For example, the market performance of ET7, ES7 and ET5 is not as good as expected. Due to the more fierce competition in the market, a number of target users have been lost in the competition. Li Bin said frankly that NIO is not only facing extremely challenging external markets, but also internal competition, such as ES7 users will flow to ES6, and so on. NIO is introducing targeted adjustments in this regard.

According to the financial results released by NIO, although revenue has achieved positive growth for 12 consecutive quarters, reaching 10.68 billion yuan, it is lower than the market expectation of 12.28 billion yuan. At the same time, the loss is also further expanding, with a net loss of 4.74 billion yuan in the first quarter, an increase of 165.9% over the same period last year. Of course, it is not difficult to analyze the reasons for the substantial expansion of Xilai's losses. on the one hand, the new energy vehicle industry has experienced multiple challenges in 2022, including rising raw material prices, core shortage, supply chain pressure and increasingly fierce market competition, and on the other hand, enterprise development planning, including replacement station / charging pile construction, new model research and development, new brand planning and new business layout, etc. In 2022, it was revealed that Xilai had launched a new business layout with multiple lines, including new brand projects internally codenamed "Alps" and "Firefly", as well as R & D projects for core components such as batteries and chips, and even the upcoming sale of Lulai mobile phones.

At present, there are 7 models on sale, including ES8, ES6, ES7, ET7, ET5, EC7 and EC6, all of which are priced at more than 300000 yuan. According to the financial report, a total of 31041 new cars were delivered in the first quarter, an increase of 20.5% over the same period last year and a drop of 22.5% month-on-month, which lags far behind the ideal car and is not as good as Nezha, zero run, polar krypton and other new power manufacturers. Previously, Li Bin joked at a media conference that if he sold 10,000 cars a month, he would have to look for a job with Qin Lihong. Judging from the performance of the NIO terminal market, perhaps Li Bin and Qin Lihong should prepare Zhiji's "job resume" in advance.

According to the financial report, the R & D expenditure of NIO in the first quarter was 3.077 billion yuan, up 74.6 percent from the same period last year, down 22.7 percent from the previous quarter, while the expenditure on sales and administrative expenses was 2.446 billion yuan, up 21.4 percent from the same period last year and down 30.7 percent from the previous month. As the head of the new power, NIO is not stingy in spending on R & D and marketing, which is one of the reasons why its losses continue to expand.

The core business is facing profit pressure, coupled with the promotion of many new projects at the same time, people can not help but worry about the financial situation of NIO. However, although it has not yet made a profit, there will be no problems with its own operating conditions in the short term. As of March 31, 2023, the amount of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments and long-term term deposits is 37.8 billion yuan.

NIO expects second-quarter revenue to range from 8.742 billion yuan to 9.37 billion yuan, down 15.1% to 9% from a year earlier. Vehicle deliveries are expected to be between 2.3 and 25000 vehicles in the second quarter, down 8.2 per cent to 0.2 per cent from a year earlier. It is understood that NIO launched a new ES6 on May 24, with a price of 36.8-426000 yuan, and will release the ET5 travel version on June 15. Li Bin said that with the increase in sales of new models, including the new ES6, the company's team is fully prepared for the steady growth in vehicle delivery.

Before 2022, with the help of "866", there were few competitive products in the high-end and medium-sized SUV market, so it could kill Sifang. When there are more and more products in the 30-600000 SUV market, in addition to facing competitors such as ideals and questions, the "886" three models are also in internal friction with each other, lacking the characteristics of popular styles, making it impossible to reduce costs through economies of scale. As a service-oriented brand in the new power, in order to take care of the interests of existing users, Xilai insists on not making price adjustments, resulting in the loss of performance-to-price ratio in the competition, thus blocking the growth of new users.

NIO, is once the head of the new force camp, and Xiaopeng, the ideal is called "Wei Xiaoli", but after entering 2022, with the change of the market pattern, the gap between "Wei Xiaoli" is getting bigger and bigger. NIO and Xiaopeng frequently lose the market, and the ideal successfully becomes the overlord of the new forces by virtue of the L system. Today, "Wei Xiaoli" no longer exists, and today's "Wei Xiaoli" does not look like it used to be, coexisting peacefully on the surface, but secretly tit-for-tat.

"an automobile company with basic knowledge will generally set a stable gross profit margin of 15%, 25%, at worst, at 15% gross profit margin," ideal Automobile Chairman Li Xiang said in a post on Weibo on the night of the announcement of the results. " Li would like to point out, "the gross profit margin of the product is much lower than expected, and the gross profit margin fluctuates greatly, not because of the enterprise's pricing conscience, but because of the need to improve the operation and management of the enterprise, as well as continue to expand the scale." After reaching a revenue scale of hundreds of billions of dollars, a gross profit margin of 15 per cent and 25 per cent of products is the benchmark requirement for a healthy auto company, as are BYD and Tesla, which are among the leading sellers. "

At present, "Wei Xiaoli" are to release first-quarter results, in which the ideal car gross profit margin is 20.4%, while Xiaopeng car gross profit margin fell to 1.7%, NIO fell to 1.5%, Li Xiang's point of view seems to imply. However, Li would like to stress, "only for the entire industry, not for any enterprise, do not: do not be persecuted paranoia!"

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