Evergrande, Huawei, Baidu, and Xiaomi frequently move, and the giants have ＂built cars＂. What is the odds？
On April 19th, Evergrande, Huawei, Baidu and other "new forces to build cars" frequently acted, or released new cars or announced intelligent solutions for automobiles. On the same day, the A-share automobile index plate rose by more than 6%, among which the driverless concept stocks and the automotive electronics concept stocks set off a daily limit.
Text, Table/Guangzhou Daily All Media Reporter Ni Ming, Zhang Lu, Chen Lili? , Xu Xiaofang
Mobile phone terminal business will decline in 2020.
Huawei switched to auto track.
On April 19th, an all-media reporter learned from an internal employee of Huawei that on April 20th, "Huawei’s flagship store will have a huge new partner", and the video released at the same time clearly revealed the outline of a car with the caption "Huawei’s flagship store welcomes new partners in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Chengdu on April 20th". The reporter noticed that SF5, the smart selection of Celeste Huawei, had appeared in Huawei official website that day, but as of press time, Huawei had not provided the purchase entrance.
Regarding cross-border car building, Huawei has repeatedly stated that it will not enter the field of car building. At Huawei’s annual report meeting in 2020, Hu Houkun, the rotating chairman, reiterated that Huawei’s position in the field of smart cars is that component suppliers have not changed.
Industry insiders told reporters that Huawei’s active entry into the auto industry is not unrelated to the current decline in its mobile terminal business. The reporter observed Huawei’s financial report in recent years and found that in 2020, Huawei’s revenue growth slowed down to 3.8%, the lowest in the past decade. Regarding the annual report data, Hu Houkun, Huawei’s rotating chairman, said that the growth rate of consumer business did not meet expectations last year, and admitted that the sales of mobile phones were affected last year due to supply problems. In this case, industry insiders told reporters that the decline of Huawei’s mobile phone sales is not only related to the spin-off of HONOR, but more importantly, the current capacity of Huawei’s mobile phones is restricted by the lack of "core" factors.
When Huawei’s intelligent driving department is profitable, Su Qing, chief architect of Huawei ADS and president of intelligent driving product line, said that autonomous driving does not have to worry about profitability. It is reported that Wang Jun, president of Huawei’s smart car solution BU, said that this year’s investment in research and development will reach 1 billion US dollars (about 6.5 billion yuan).
However, according to the financial report, Huawei’s cash flow has been reduced. The financial report shows that Huawei’s cash flow from operating activities in 2020 was 35.2 billion yuan, down 61.5% year-on-year. In this regard, Huawei said that this is because it has increased investment in supply, research and development, and material storage.
Compared with Xiaomi, which announced to join the ranks of car manufacturers at the end of March, its cash reserve in 2020 is as high as 108 billion yuan. Industry insiders told reporters that if Huawei’s capital is invested in the vehicle manufacturing industry with long manufacturing cycle and high capital occupation, the pressure is obvious. At present, Huawei chooses to lay out the smart driving industry or it is an expedient measure.
The A-share automobile index plate rose more than 6%
On the same day, the 19th Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition (hereinafter referred to as the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show) opened in 2021, which is also the first A-class auto show held in the world as scheduled this year. At this year’s Shanghai Auto Show, on the one hand, the brands of self-owned brands continue to rise and rise in the process of change; On the other hand, it is a joint venture with foreign capital to increase electric power. Under the entry of new and old forces and technology giants, electric intelligence has risen.
Among them, Baidu Apollo Lego car intelligent solution was fully unveiled, and the two products of Zhijia and Zhiyun ushered in a heavy upgrade. Its Zhiyun products can support car companies to quickly build intelligent capabilities, and shorten the autopilot research and development cycle that originally took at least 7 years to complete to 6 months. 100 days after the official announcement, Baidu CEO Li Yanhong and Geely CEO Li Shufu got together. According to people familiar with the matter, the meeting between the two was not at the Shanghai Auto Show, and Jidu Automobile will announce a big cooperation. In addition, Wuling New Energy’s first convertible Hongguang MINIEV CABRIO made its world debut. Evergrande made its debut with nine models of Hengchi, covering all levels from A to D, as well as a full range of cars, coupes, SUVs, MPVs and crossover vehicles.
On April 19, the A-share automobile index plate rose by more than 6%, and many stocks such as Dongfeng Motor, Guangzhou Automobile Group and Changan Automobile had daily limit. In the Hong Kong stock market, as of the close, Wuling Automobile rose by 27.53%, with an intraday increase of over 30%; Geely Automobile rose by 4.82%; BYD shares rose by 4.77%, and Beijing Auto rose by 4.14%.
The reporter also noticed that the automobile industry chain has strengthened its linkage, including unmanned driving, complete vehicles, automotive electronics, auto parts, lithium batteries and other branches, among which unmanned driving concept stocks and automotive electronics concept stocks have set off daily limit tides respectively.
New forces should get through the capital barrier, capacity barrier and market barrier as soon as possible to build a car.
The reporter observed that at the end of March and the beginning of April, China’s "new forces to build cars" continued to move: on March 30, Xiaomi, who built cars across the border, announced that "the initial investment will be 10 billion yuan, and the investment in the next 10 years will reach 10 billion US dollars"; On April 7, the 100,000th production car of Weilai was mass-produced at Jianghuai Weilai Hefei Advanced Manufacturing Base. On April 8th, the Management Committee of Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone and Xpeng Motors officially signed the investment agreement of intelligent networked automobile manufacturing base and R&D center project & HELIP; …
The "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly states that it will focus on strategic emerging industries such as new energy vehicles and organize the implementation of future industrial incubation and acceleration plans in industries such as hydrogen energy. The market believes that this is a strong support for the development of new energy automobile industry. Moreover, the goal of peak carbon dioxide emissions and carbon neutrality has become a national strategic goal, which has also injected a strong impetus into vigorously promoting the development of the new energy vehicle market.
Not only that, in terms of smart cars, the "14th Five-Year Plan" is also clear, and the Internet of Vehicles is actively and steadily developed. The three departments issued the "Recommended Guide for the National Internet of Vehicles Industry Standard System (Intelligent Transportation Related)", and the system construction and development related to the Internet of Vehicles continued to accelerate. The reporter observed that the cooperation between car companies and high-tech enterprises is also accelerating. For example, Huawei cooperated with Arctic Fox, a new energy brand of BAIC, to launch an intelligent luxury pure electric car, Beiqi Alfa S, and Evergrande established a joint venture with Tencent. In this regard, Bohai Securities released a research report that optimistic about the trend of automotive intelligent networking, smart cars are expected to have "explosive" production models this year.
Zhong Shi, an auto industry analyst, believes that now Chinese and foreign auto companies have clearly seen the general trend of industry transformation and entered the new energy auto industry, which will bring new survival challenges to the "new forces to build cars", and they must pass the capital barrier, capacity barrier and market barrier as soon as possible. He also said that in the end, the growth of China’s new energy automobile industry depends on the comprehensive competition of automobile enterprises in terms of advanced technology, cost control, perfect supply chain, excellent quality, safety and reliability. "Objectively speaking, ‘ The new force of making cars ’ The technical challenges are still enormous, and domestic car companies in China need to redouble their efforts to seize the opportunities brought about by this industry transformation. "
Fu Yuwu, honorary chairman of China Automotive Engineering Society, also stressed in an interview that "new car companies should respect the objective laws of technological development, and at the same time exert their efforts on the new track of intelligence and electrification, they should also maintain their awe of the automobile industry".
It is estimated that the sales volume of new energy vehicles will increase rapidly in 2021.
Faced with the overweight of joint venture car companies and the expansion of production capacity of China’s own brand car companies, is there an oversupply of new energy vehicles? On the production side, in the first quarter of 2021, the added value of the automobile manufacturing industry increased by more than 50% year-on-year; According to the data of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first quarter, the output of new energy vehicles in China was 533,000, and the sales volume was 515,000, up 3.2 times and 2.8 times respectively. For the future market, some car companies told reporters that they are currently expanding their factories to increase production capacity. Among them, GAC Ai’ an is expected to invest about 500 million yuan, and plans to double production capacity in early 2022.
On the sales side, in the first quarter of this year, the retail volume of narrow passenger cars totaled 5.092 million, up 68.8% year-on-year, and the growth rate reached a record high. For the substantial increase in the retail volume of passenger cars in the first quarter of this year, the Federation explained that in addition to the low sales base in the same period last year, there is also a major driving factor that the contribution of new energy vehicles is increasing. According to the data of the Federation, in the first quarter, the retail volume of new energy vehicles was 437,000, a year-on-year increase of 302.9%. In the first quarter, the retail penetration rate of domestic new energy vehicles was 8.6%, which was significantly higher than the 5.8% in the same period last year. Among them, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in independent brands in March was 20.5%.
Some industry analysts believe that production capacity does not mean actual supply. In the face of changes in fuel vehicles and new energy vehicles in the market, in addition to adjusting the product structure, auto companies will re-target the marketization goal of new energy vehicles according to their own advantages, and create marketing methods for electric vehicles, which will affect the sales strategy and consumers are expected to benefit.
Huaxi Securities believes that with the continuous improvement of the sales structure and quality of new energy vehicles and the continuous introduction of high-quality new models such as ModelY series, supply will drive demand changes, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is expected to accelerate. It is expected that sales will increase rapidly in 2021.