AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)11/02 Report--

On November 2, a picture circulated online showed that Xilai will start layoffs, with the proportion of departments ranging from 10% to 20%.

In response to the news, Qin Lihong, co-founder and president of Lai Automobile, responded to Zhan Che, saying: "the pursuit of continuous improvement of organizational efficiency is the work that NIO has been carrying out." Many rumors from all sides are not true. "

According to reports, one employee of Xilai said he did hear the news, but "it should not involve the autopilot department". Another employee said that he had not received the news yet and speculated: "it may be the merger and replacement of some departments. Magnified to the whole company." An industry analysis said that Wei from the beginning of this year began to adjust, but also related to the organizational structure, "personnel changes are also inevitable."

According to the financial report, by the end of 2022, NIO had a total of 26763 employees, accounting for the highest proportion of the three car companies. For comparison, the ideal number of automobile employees is 19396 and that of Xiaopeng is 15829. In addition, compared with Xiaopeng and ideal, NIO's R & D, market and sales also account for the largest proportion among the three car companies. According to the breakdown of the department, by the end of 2022, the user experience department (responsible for sales, marketing and service) had the largest number of employees (11983, accounting for 44.8% of the total); the number of product and software development staff (R & D) was 10025, accounting for 37.5% of the total; the manufacturing department had 2800 employees, accounting for 10.5%; and regular administrative staff was 1955, accounting for 7.3%. For comparison, the ideal R & D staff is the least, 4838, accounting for 24.9% of all employees, and the proportion and number is the least among the three car companies, but the ideal production and manufacturing staff is the largest among the three, with 4318 employees, accounting for 22.3% of the total.

The industry believes that behind the reported layoffs of NIO may be related to NIO sales and various kinds of pressure invested by various parties. At a media conference on the eve of this year's Shanghai auto show, Li Bin joked with users that if he sold 10,000 cars a month, he would have to look for a job with Qin Lihong.

Data show that in October this year, Xilai delivered 16074 new cars, an increase of 2.77% month-on-month and 59.84% year-on-year, lagging behind ideal cars and Xiaopeng cars. It should be noted that October ideal and Xiaopengyue delivery have reached new highs, which also means that NIO is under a lot of pressure. By the end of October this year, a total of 126067 Lulai cars had been delivered this year, an increase of 36.30% over the same period last year. Although it is ahead of Xiaopeng in sales during the year, it is very different from the ideal car.

Up to now, Ulai's models on sale include ES8, ES6, ES7, EC6, EC7, ET7, ET5 and ET5T, covering medium-and large-sized SUV, medium-sized SUV, medium-and large-sized cars and medium-sized cars with a price of more than 300000 yuan, pointing directly to BMW, Mercedes-Benz and other traditional first-tier luxury brand markets.

Li Bin, chairman of NIO Automobile, once revealed at the second quarter earnings meeting: "NIO will next use more channels to cover and improve sales capacity to speed up order conversion." The total monthly sales of the four models it is selling are ET5, ET5T, ES6 and EC6, which may reach 15000-20, 000 vehicles per month, superimposed by an increase in sales of the remaining models, and is confident that monthly sales will be stable at more than 20, 000 vehicles. However, there are no popular models at present. Take September sales as an example, the highest-selling model under the brand is ES6, which is 7896, while the rest is less than 3000. The industry believes that the out-of-control pace of product iterative updates is the main reason why its sales are lower than market expectations.

In terms of operation, in the first half of 2023, the total revenue of NIO was 19.448 billion yuan, down 3.74% from the same period last year; the gross profit margin was 1.28%, and the gross profit margin of cars was 5.57%; however, the loss of NIO was relatively serious, with a net loss of 109.26%, an increase of 139.08% over the same period last year. Of course, this is also related to the expenditure on research and development of NIO. Financial data show that in the first half of the year, the R & D expenditure of NIO was 6.42 billion yuan, accounting for 33.0% of revenue. Although the R & D expenditure is far less than the ideal car, the proportion is the highest among Wei Xiaoli.

Unlike in the past, with the change of the electrified pattern of the domestic car market, the competition in the new energy track is particularly fierce. In this background, a number of automakers have chosen to lay off staff to increase revenue and cut expenditure. During the year, the company began to invest in research and development of mobile phones, batteries and other aspects. on September 21, at NIO IN 2023, the NIO Phone of the mobile phone was officially released and the price was announced. A total of three versions of the new phone were launched, with a price of 6499-7499 yuan. As for why NIO built mobile phones, Li Bin explained, "it's not because mobile phone companies are building cars, and it's not because NIO doesn't make money to make money from mobile phones, but because NIO users need a mobile phone that connects seamlessly with Lulai cars."

Sales are not getting a boost, but R & D investment is increasing, which is really hard for NIO to say.

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