In the past 2022, China’s new energy vehicle market can be said to be surging. With the increasing penetration rate of new energy, the automobile market has become a scuffle. Independent, joint venture, luxury and new power brands have crossed their respective fiefs and encroached for market share. The boundary between fuel vehicles and new energy market has become increasingly blurred and the competition has become increasingly fierce. In addition, with the cancellation of state subsidies, superimposed economic expectations make consumers highly sensitive to prices, and the profit pressure of car companies is increasing. Especially for new power brands, it is a victory to minimize losses, and LI’s 2022 answer sheet can be said to be a staged victory.
A few days ago, LI released a financial report, showing that its revenue in the fourth quarter of last year was 17.65 billion yuan, making a single-quarter profit again, and its net profit reached 265 million yuan. Due to the unexpected revenue performance in the fourth quarter, LI rose more than 6% before the US stock market. However, in the face of increasingly fierce competition in the domestic new energy auto market, from the data of last year’s financial report, LI’s R&D, sales and other expenses increased by over 60% year-on-year, and its net loss increased to 2.03 billion yuan, more than six times higher than the 320 million yuan in 2021.
Revenue increased greatly and gross profit margin declined.
Last December, the ideal delivery volume exceeded 20,000, setting a new record for LI and China. Excellent sales volume is also reflected in the financial report data. LI turned losses into profits in the fourth quarter of last year, ending the loss trend of the previous three consecutive quarters, which, of course, is also the dream of the new domestic car-making forces. In addition, the annual revenue of 45.29 billion yuan also set a record for ideal revenue.
However, behind the excellent revenue performance, it is the decline in gross profit margin. In terms of gross profit margin, the gross profit margin of automobiles in LI in 2022 was 19.1%, while in 2021 it was 20.6%. Ideally, the decrease in gross profit margin of vehicles was mainly due to the loss of inventory preparation and purchasing commitment related to Li ONE models in 2022, which partially offset the higher vehicle profit margin delivered by the ideal L9 series from the third quarter of 2022.
Although it is slightly lower than itself, such gross profit margin still exists as a leader in the new energy market. For example, Weilai’s gross profit for bicycles in Q3 in 2022 is 16.4%, Tucki’s gross profit for bicycles in Q3 in 2022 is 11.6%, and Tesla’s gross profit for bicycles in 2022 is 28.5%.
Regarding the decline in gross profit margin, Li Tie, chief financial officer of LI, said that our gross profit margin is healthy. At present, most of the sales volume comes from L9 and L8, both of which are in the production climbing stage. It will take some time for our supply chain to complete the capacity climbing, and the gross profit margin and cost reduction will be announced in the next quarter. In the future, considering the monthly delivery of materials, the overall gross profit margin of our L series products will be around 25%.
In 2021, there was only ONE model of Li ONE in LI. In 2022, two models, L9 and L8, were delivered successively. At the beginning of this year, L7 was launched, and the introduction of three new cars undoubtedly further increased the investment in R&D. In this regard, LI believes that LI has always attached importance to the ratio of R&D investment to income, insisting that more than 10% of R&D investment is used to support the long-term self-developed technology development of enterprises.
Liu Qiang, an auto industry analyst, said that after the annual sales exceeded 100,000 vehicles, it was urgent for LI to further seize the market share and continue to improve the product layout, which also made its R&D investment only increase.
From the perspective of the whole year, the R&D expenditure in 2022 was 6.78 billion yuan, accounting for 15.0% of the annual expenditure, which doubled the R&D investment expenditure in 2021 and increased by 106.3% year-on-year. In terms of cost management, LI is as stingy as ever. LI’s sales, general and management expenses in the fourth quarter of 2022 were 1.63 billion yuan, accounting for 9.2% of the quarterly expenses, an increase of 44.8% compared with 1.13 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2021 and an increase of 8.1% compared with 1.51 billion yuan in the third quarter of 2022.
While new products are speeding up, LI continues to speed up the research and development of intelligent driving. Li Xiang said that LI plans to expand its navigation-assisted driving capability to urban scenes, and it is expected that in the fourth quarter of this year, the ideal AD Max will open the internal test of early bird users in NOA. In addition, LI plans to build a complete systematic capability in the field of artificial intelligence (software 2.0) by 2030.
Cui Dongshu believes that with the gradual popularization of expressway-assisted driving and the acceleration of urban-assisted driving, the market competition has also switched from functional popularization to interaction and user experience, and LI’s "make-up lessons" intelligently improved the delivery volume and finally made a profit.
The task this year is to grab the market.
Huge R&D investment has brought brand-new product matrix and technology, which also makes Li Xiang set new goals for LI:In 2023, LI will challenge the 20% market share of all luxury SUV markets in the price range of 300,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan.
Li Xiang said that in 2022, LI’s market share of 300,000-500,000 SUVs will be 9.5%, and our forecast for the market this year will probably be between 1.4 million and 1.5 million. Our requirement for ourselves is to double the market share. Based on this calculation, the ideal will hit the delivery target of 300,000 vehicles this year.
At the same time, Li would like to add that the market of 200,000-300,000 is relatively difficult for us, and we need to have a stronger scale effect before entering the price range of 200,000-300,000.
Li Xiang previously said on social media: "Without L8 Air and L7 Air, 25,000 vehicles/month will be guaranteed, and after Air starts to deliver, 30,000 vehicles/month will be guaranteed." At the conference call after the earnings report, Li wanted to reveal that the above-mentioned goals were to be achieved in the second quarter of this year.
LI said that the current sales volume of the ideal L7 will take some time to climb. As for the sales guidance in the first quarter, it is expected to include thousands of L7 vehicles, and more deliveries will mainly focus on L8 and L9. Although there are some orders for L7 Air models, the test drive has not yet entered the store, and many consumers will not place orders until after the test drive.
It is reported that the delivery volume of LI in January this year was 15,141 vehicles. After the L7 series and non-suspended versions of the Air were opened for delivery, the delivery volume of the L789 three vehicles should be stable at more than 20,000 vehicles. At the same time, facing the supply chain problem, LI said that with the gradual improvement of industrial maturity and upstream and downstream supply, he will maintain confidence in the supply of spare parts this year, and at the same time, he will further strengthen the perception and planning of supply strategy, risk management and cost management to actively respond to their potential supply challenges and risks.
According to LI’s financial report in 2022, LI’s ideal financial profit is classic and logical with its high gross profit of 20%, explosive strategy, efficient direct marketing system and extremely low proportion of marketing expenses.
And with the continuous investment in research and development, the new products and technologies it brings will also enter the harvest period in 2023, and its delivery data this year should also be very good. However, the ideal "big single product" strategy also has its limitations, the most obvious of which is the singleness of its product line. As the market rolls up, the first-Mover’s ideal is bound to face the challenges of many competitors. Whether consumers can maintain a continuous freshness and brand stickiness in the future will be more important than realizing profitability.