Source: Kan Jian Finance

Following the ideal car, Xiao Peng released the first quarterly report of 2024.

Compared with the "serial bombing" of the ideal automobile financial report, Xiaopeng Automobile This financial report is obviously much better.

According to the financial report, Xiaopeng Auto achieved a revenue of 6.55 billion yuan in the first quarter, up 62.3% year on year; The net profit was 1.368 billion yuan, 41.5% lower than the previous year. It is worth mentioning that the gross profit rate of Xiaopeng Auto in the first quarter has risen to 12.89%.

It is reported that after more than a year, the gross profit rate of Xiaopeng Automobile returned to double digits again.

Driven by the performance, the stock price of Xiaopeng Automobile has risen sharply for a long time. After the disclosure of the financial report, Xiaopeng Auto's US stock rose by 26% at the highest point in the day. By the end of the day, the stock price had fallen back to 5.92%.

In fact, after entering 2024, the new energy vehicle industry has entered the stage of "knockout competition", and Xiaopeng has cut prices for many times in order to improve sales. Under such a background, the performance of Xiaopeng Auto has gradually recovered and its gross profit margin has returned to double digits again, which shows that although the industry has great competitive pressure, there are still opportunities.

Kanjian Finance believes that although the new force of car building is difficult, it has formed its own competitive advantage in the world. Although the domestic competition is extremely fierce, after the knockout competition, going to sea will provide a great space for the final winner to grow its performance. In addition, when new energy vehicle enterprises infiltrate into low-end models, it is also a way to break the situation.

The performance exceeded expectations due to the increase of sales volume and price, and Xiaopeng Auto is no exception.

Taking apart the financial report, we believe that its performance has recovered significantly due to the following factors:

　　 First, the average price of bicycles has increased. According to the analysis of "Dolphin Investment Research", the average price of a single car of Xiaopeng Automobile in the first quarter was 254000 yuan, 51000 yuan higher than the 203000 yuan in the fourth quarter of last year, and the average price of a single car increased by more than 20%. Since the beginning of this year, although Xiaopeng has lowered the price for many times Xiaopeng X9 (Configuration |Inquiry) But it hedged the impact of price reduction.

Data shows that Xiaopeng X9, priced from 359800 to 419800, accounted for 36% of the sales in the first quarter. Follow the ideal Mega (Configuration |Inquiry) "Waterloo" is different. The sales volume of Xiaopeng X9 proves that it has achieved phased success.

　　 Second, Xiaopeng Automobile "strictly controls" expenses. According to the financial report, the operating loss of Xiaopeng Automobile in the first quarter was 1.646 billion yuan, significantly improved from the loss of 2.585 billion yuan last year.

According to media reports, since last year, Xiaopeng Auto launched the channel reform plan of the "Jupiter Plan", increased the proportion of authorized stores, and rapidly expanded and sank the market by expanding the distribution model. Due to the reduction of dealers' sales rebate ratio, when Xiaopeng Auto expanded more than 70 stores, its operating losses decreased significantly, which shows that channel reform is playing a role.

　　 Third, the technical R&D service fee for cooperation with Volkswagen is "received". According to the financial report, the service and other sales of Xiaopeng Auto in the first quarter of this year were 462.3 million, while in the first quarter of 2023, the revenue of this business was 365.9 million. According to relevant analysis, the main reason for the growth of this business is the "receipt" of the R&D sharing revenue from the cooperation with the public.

From the current point of view, Xiaopeng Automobile seems to have found a "way" in the competitive new energy vehicle market, making money by selling technology.

In general, the reason why Xiaopeng Automobile can make money by technology is also to rely on past research and development investment. According to the financial report data, from 2020 to 2023, the R&D expenditure of Xiaopeng Auto will be 1.726 billion, 4.114 billion, 5.215 billion and 5.277 billion respectively, and the total R&D expenditure in four years has exceeded 15 billion. In the first quarter of 2024, Xiaopeng Automobile still has no "slack" in research and development, and the research and development expenditure is still up to 1.35 billion yuan.

There is no denying that this financial report of Xiaopeng Auto is really eye-catching in the face of intensified competition, especially when the performance of Ideal Auto has just been "thunderous". From the stock price performance, it can be seen that Xiaopeng Auto is improving.

In fact, although Xiao Peng handed over a beautiful report card, it was far from the time to "relax".

In terms of sales volume, the cumulative sales volume of Xiaopeng cars in the first quarter of this year was 21821, up 19.7% year on year. Although the sales volume has increased, the average monthly sales volume is only about 7000. Previously, Kan Jian Finance mentioned many times that the monthly sales of 10000 new energy vehicle enterprises is the "life and death line" of enterprises. From now on, Xiaopeng Automobile still has not stood on this line.

He Xiaopeng once said that, The goal in 2024 is to more than double the performance, complete all the weak points of the organization, and start to put high quality first in business. It is expected that the sales target in 2024 will exceed 280000 vehicles.

Data shows that the cumulative sales volume of Xiaopeng cars in the first four months of this year was 31214, only 15.6% of the target.

If the sales are not accelerated in the second half of the year, the target completion rate of this year will only be about 50% based on the current sales volume. Of course, this is not a problem for the Xiaopeng family. The ideal car and Weilai car are also difficult to achieve the goals set previously.

In fact, I can see that Finance and Economics has analyzed Xiaopeng Auto more than once. In fact, the biggest challenge Xiaopeng Auto faces is the loss of intelligent advantages.

In the past two years, with the cooperation between Huawei and many automobile enterprises, Huawei's excellent intelligent technology has "eclipsed" Xiaopeng's intelligent technology. In terms of algorithm and computing power, Xiaopeng Automobile has chosen NVIDIA Drive series chips and developed algorithms in software development. However, Huawei uses self-developed chips. Huawei is the only one in China that has achieved mass production using network algorithms; In terms of computing power, Huawei's current computing power invested in automatic driving training is 1800P, which is three times of Xiaopeng's 600P computing power.

At present, new energy vehicles have entered the "second half". All auto companies are also working hard on intelligence. Previously, although Xiaopeng Automobile could rely on technology accumulation to maintain its advantages, as time goes by, its advantages will become less and less obvious.

Against this background, Xiaopeng Automobile can only push its chips to the lower price A-class market in order to open up space and misplace competition.

He Xiaopeng has previously said that Xiaopeng Auto will soon launch 100000 to 150000 Class A cars and face the world. At the same time, we will bring Xiaopeng's high-level intelligent driving, even unmanned driving into the future, and be able to make profits. This is our future goal.

Admittedly, it is a good strategy to take the route of "technology introspection" and put automatic driving down to A-class cars. However, in the A-class car market, the ultimate cost performance ratio is the key. Automatic driving is only an additional item rather than a necessary option. In addition, there are competition between Biya, Geely and a number of joint-venture car companies. It can be predicted that it is not easy for Xiaopeng Auto to successfully develop the A-class car market.

Although the road ahead is difficult, Xiaopeng's efforts have also received feedback from the market, and it has ushered in the dawn of hope. It is only to break the situation, but Xiaopeng still needs to work hard.