Original title: ideal Joy and worry about the rush of cars
Source: Beijing Business Daily
With the continuous growth of gross profit rate, the new force of car building has come to the turning point of profit. The financial report released by Ideal Auto showed that its revenue in the fourth quarter of last year was 10.62 billion yuan. Not only did the revenue exceed 10 billion yuan, but the ideal car also made a profit in the fourth quarter of last year. Behind the strong performance, thanks to the surge in delivery, in order to maintain the speed of "rush", Ideal Auto is speeding up product development and expanding capacity. However, on the whole, the expanding high investment still further increases the annual loss. In 2021, the ideal average operating loss for each vehicle sold will still exceed 10000 yuan. On the other hand, the company's chief technology officer left after only one and a half years, adding more uncertainty to the ideal future.
Achieve profit in a single quarter
As the first financial report among the three new car making forces, the report card of Ideal Auto released a positive signal. The financial report shows that the revenue of the ideal car last year was 27.01 billion yuan, an increase of 185.6% year on year. Among them, the total revenue in the fourth quarter was 10.62 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 156.1% and a month on month increase of 36.6%. The revenue in the fourth quarter accounted for nearly 40% of the annual revenue, which was also the first time that the quarterly revenue of Ideal Auto exceeded 10 billion yuan.
The soaring revenue in a single quarter cannot be separated from the support of the automobile business. Last year, the sales revenue of ideal auto vehicles was 26.13 billion yuan, an increase of 181.5% year on year; Among them, the sales revenue of ideal automobile vehicles in the fourth quarter was 10.38 billion yuan, up 155.7% year on year. People related to Ideal Auto said that the increase in vehicle sales revenue was mainly due to the increase in vehicles delivered in the fourth quarter of last year.
In addition, other sales and service revenue was 250 million yuan, an increase of 174.5% year on year, mainly due to the increase in the cumulative sales of automobiles, as well as the sales of charging posts, accessories and services. Data shows that the delivery of ideal vehicles exceeded 90000 last year, with a year-on-year growth of 177.4%. Among them, the delivery volume in the fourth quarter was 35200 vehicles, with a month on month growth of 40.2% and a year-on-year growth of 143.5%.
In addition, compared with the gross profit rate of 16.4% in 2020, the ideal automobile gross profit rate was also improved last year. Last year, the gross profit rate of the ideal car was 20.6%. Among them, the gross profit rate of ideal vehicles in the fourth quarter is 22.3%, higher than 17.1% in the fourth quarter of 2020. "Due to the improved cost control of supply chain management and the launch of 2021 ideal ONE with higher price in May 2021, the gradual increase of its delivery volume has raised the average price," said the above person. It is understood that the starting price of the 2021 ideal ONE is 10000 yuan higher than that of the previous version.
It is worth noting that the gross profit rate has been rising and the sales volume has climbed. In the fourth quarter of last year, the ideal car achieved a single quarter profit. The financial report shows that the operating profit in the fourth quarter of last year was 24.1 million yuan, and the operating profit loss in the fourth quarter of 2020 was 78.9 million yuan. Meanwhile, the net profit in the fourth quarter of last year was 295.5 million yuan, and the net profit in the fourth quarter of 2020 was 107.5 million yuan.
It still lost money in the whole year
Although the single quarter realized profits and the gross profit margin also increased, the ideal car still failed to reverse the loss situation of the whole year. The financial report shows that last year's operating loss was 1.02 billion yuan, up 52% year on year; The net loss was 321.5 million yuan, up 111.9% year on year.
The loss is related to the increase of R&D investment. Last year, the R&D expenditure of Ideal Auto was 3.29 billion yuan, up 198.8% year on year. Among them, the R&D expenditure in the fourth quarter of last year was 1.23 billion yuan, up 228.7% year on year and 38.4% month on month. Not only the R&D expenses, but also the operating expenses of the ideal car have increased significantly. Last year, the sales, general and administrative expenses of Ideal Auto were 3.49 billion yuan, an increase of 212.1% year on year. Among them, the cost of this part in the fourth quarter was 1.13 billion yuan, an increase of 162.2% year on year and 10.2% month on month. People related to Ideal Auto said that the increase of this part of expenses was due to the increase of employee salaries due to the increase of R&D personnel, and the increase of the company's new model R&D activities led to the increase of related expenses.
At present, there is only one model of Ideal ONE under Ideal Auto, but this year and next, the new model of Ideal Auto will be launched. It is understood that this year, Ideal will launch the first product on the X platform - full-size luxury plus program electric SUV, and next year, two other SUVs will be launched on the X platform, which undoubtedly makes Ideal further increase its R&D investment.
In order to keep up with the rising sales, the ideal car is increasing its capacity. At present, the ideal car has two production bases in Changzhou and Beijing. Among them, Changzhou Base is a self built base for ideal cars with an annual production capacity of 100000 vehicles. At present, the production base is being expanded and will reach an annual production capacity of 200000 vehicles after completion; The Beijing Green Intelligent Manufacturing Base is the first factory of Beijing Hyundai, which is ideal for car docking. After transformation, it plans to have an annual production capacity of 100000 vehicles for the production of pure electric vehicles, which is planned to be put into production in 2023. In addition, in December last year, Ideal Auto signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with Chongqing Municipal Government to build a Chongqing manufacturing base in Liangjiang New Area.
Yan Jinghui, a member of the expert committee of the China Automobile Circulation Association, said that the annual sales of the ideal automobile exceeded 90000 units, which proved that its brand had a certain influence in the minds of consumers. However, it was urgent to further seize market share and improve the product line. In addition, the investment in factory building was assumed that the investment in automobiles would only increase.
However, at present, the capital flow of the ideal car has not been affected. Data shows that the cash flow of the ideal auto business last year was 8.34 billion yuan, up 165.6% year on year. People related to Ideal Auto said that as of December 31, 2021, the total amount of cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, time deposits and short-term investments was 50.16 billion yuan.
"Car manufacturing industry Apple ”How far is it
For the layout of accelerated products and production capacity, the goal of an ideal car is not only to gain more market share, but also to position itself as "in the field of intelligent cars, we hope to reach Apple's standard in ten years' time". In the opinion of Li Xiang, the founder, chairman and CEO of Ideal Auto, "Ideal Auto has verified that Ideal ONE can become the ceiling of the industry in the family car segment from the 0-1 stage, and has won the first place in the sales volume of medium and large SUVs. In the next few years, Ideal Auto will enter the 1-10 stage, and enter a more segmented family user range of 200000 to 250000 yuan."
As for the plan for the next 5-10 years, Li Xiang said that the future products will still be aimed at home users, but the audience should be more segmented. At the same time, the ideal car still has a lot of work to do in the field of intelligent cars to make products more reliable and bring home users a better car experience. Ten years later, it is hoped to reach the level of "Apple" in the field of intelligent cars.
Industry insiders said that Apple's position in the mobile phone field not only depends on perfect products, but also its software system has formed an ecological chain. In the future, electric vehicles are more likely to act as carriers, and intelligence is the key to success or failure.
In fact, in order to make a breakthrough in intelligence, the self research of the whole stack of intelligent driving has been started for the ideal car in 2021, and will gradually increase the self research of electronics, electrics, domain controllers, etc. The personage of Ideal Auto said, "Last December, Ideal Auto launched OTA 3.0 car engine software to users. This upgrade includes the navigation assisted driving NOA developed by Ideal Auto and the complete AEB function combined with visual perception algorithm, making driving safer and more convenient. This makes Ideal Auto the third brand in the world with the ability of NOA full stack self research. This year, the ideal car will continue to invest in research and development to further improve its capabilities. ".
However, the expansion of the ideal car is not smooth. At the financial report meeting, Li Xiang said that the negative factors such as batteries and chips still had a severe impact on the ideal car. At the same time, the ideal car is also faced with the cost problem caused by the rise in the price of raw materials. However, with the further improvement of vehicle delivery, the scale effect will to some extent smooth the pressure of rising costs, and I believe that the gross margin will further increase.
In addition to the pressure brought by the external environment, Ideal Auto announced that Wang Kai, its chief technology officer, left for personal reasons, and Ma Donghui, its chief engineer, will be responsible for the research and development of smart car related technologies. Wang Kai will continue to serve as the senior consultant of Ideal Auto until the end of this year.
According to public information, Wang Kai took the post of Chief Technology Officer of Ideal Auto in September 2020, fully responsible for the R&D and mass production of intelligent car related technologies, including electronic and electrical architecture, intelligent cockpit, automatic driving, platform development and Li OS real-time operating system. Industry insiders said that the last two years were the key period for the launch of the new ideal automobile products. As the ideal chief technology officer, Wang Kai has also participated in the planning and research and development of products and technology routes for more than a year, and his resignation at the key stage of the launch of new products will inevitably have some impact on the ideal automobile.
Beijing Business Daily reporter Liu Xiaomeng
