AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/06 Report--

Before the US stock market opened on September 5, Ulai officially announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2024 and interim results for 2024. According to the financial report, the operating income of Weilai in the first half of 2024 was 27.355 billion yuan, an increase of 40.65 percent over the same period last year, of which the operating income in the second quarter was 17.446 billion yuan, an increase of 98.9 percent over the same period last year. While the operating income is growing, Weilai still can not escape the loss, and further expand. In the first half of 2024, the net loss of Weilai was 10.384 billion yuan, an increase of 4.95% over the same period last year, of which the net loss in the second quarter was 5.046 billion yuan, narrowing 16.7% compared with the same period last year.

From the perspective of the second quarter alone, Weilai's performance is still relatively good, operating income at the same time, losses are also decreasing. Affected by this, U. S. stocks rose 14% after the announcement of the results. Li Bin, founder and CEO of Weilai, said on the earnings call that in addition to the automobile business, the current business of Weilai is rapidly reducing losses. We believe that with the listing of Ledao in the future, the overall sales volume of Weilai will further increase, and it will not take long for the overall break-even or even profit to be achieved.

In the past six months, Weilai delivered a total of 87400 new cars, an increase of 60.2 per cent over the same period last year. Previously, Li Bin set a sales target for 2024: a monthly sales sprint of more than 20, 000 vehicles, an annual sales target of 230000 vehicles, and a gross profit margin of 15%, 18%. According to the guidelines, the total delivery volume of Weilai in the third quarter of this year will increase by more than 10 per cent year-on-year to 61000-63000 vehicles, and the corresponding total revenue will also reach an all-time high of 19.11 billion-19.67 billion yuan, but the year-on-year growth rate will drop to less than 3 per cent. At present, the sales volume of Xilai has remained stable at more than 20, 000 vehicles, with deliveries of 20498 in July and 20176 in August. According to this calculation, the delivery volume in September is expected to be between 20300 and 22300, and 55.7% of the target was achieved in the previous August. More than 24000 vehicles need to be delivered in the next month, which is obviously not an easy task.

In May this year, Weilai launched the L60, the first model of the second brand Ledao and Lodao brand, which will also use the power exchange mode for Standard Tesla Model Y, with an advance price of 219900 yuan. According to Li Bin, the Ledao L60 will be officially launched on September 15. Li Bin stressed that the final starting price of the Ledao L60 will be lower to attract more consumers, but Weilai still hopes to maintain a reasonable gross profit margin, so it will not be very aggressive in pricing. According to Li Bin, the starting price of the Ledao L60 is expected to be just over 200000 yuan.

At present, Weilai Anhui has two factories, F1 and F2, with a designed maximum production capacity of 300000 vehicles. Due to the overload of single-shift production capacity, the Xilai F2 plant has begun to try double-shift production and is expected to reach double-shift production capacity around October. In order to undertake the product layout for the next two years, Weilai is also investing in the construction of a factory with a capacity of 100000 vehicles per shift.

This also brings greater pressure on capital expenditure for Fulai. According to the financial report, in the first half of the year, the cost of research and development of Lulai automobile was 6.083 billion yuan, down 5.25 percent from the same period last year, while sales, general and administrative expenses were 6.754 billion yuan, an increase of 27.39 percent over the same period last year. In response, Weilai management said that the company is carefully controlling the pace of investment according to the actual situation, and capital expenditure this year is expected to be significantly lower than in 2023.

From the perspective of financial results, the current financial pressure is very prominent. As of June 30, 2024, the balance of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investment and long-term deposits was 41.6 billion yuan, 15.7 billion yuan less than at the end of 2023. Overall, the asset-liability ratio of Weilai has reached 79%. Among them, the current assets are 55.5 billion yuan, while the current liabilities are 50.2 billion yuan.

Weilai seems to fall into the circle of "the more you sell, the more you lose." After years of development, as the first force of car building, it is still on the way to break even. According to statistics, the cumulative loss of Weilai from 2018 to the first half of 2024 reached 97.01 billion yuan. As of September 5, Ulai reported HK $34.1 per share, with a market capitalization of HK $71.533 billion.

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