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Image source: AI generated

Even though faced external doubts, Ideal Auto still released its weekly sales list as usual.

Just now, Ideal Auto released its weekly sales list as scheduled (every Tuesday). In the 7 days of last week (July 22-July 28), Ideal's weekly sales reached 12,800 vehicles, making it the top-selling new force brand for 14 consecutive weeks.

Wenjie continued to rank second, with sales of 10,500 vehicles last week. Weilai ranked third, with sales of 5,400 vehicles last week. Xiaomi ranked fifth, with sales of 3,900 vehicles last week. In tenth place was Arcfox, with sales of 1,500 vehicles last week.

Image source: Ideal Auto

Ideal's weekly sales chart publicly released the sales data of other brands in the past week, which has been questioned by many in the industry. The latest to publicly "bombard" the weekly sales chart is NIO.

On July 27, NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong publicly questioned the weekly sales chart at the "NIO IN 2024 NIO Innovation Technology Day". Qin Lihong questioned the chart for two reasons. First, he believed that the data was not serious and had not been approved by NIO; second, NIO did not authorize it, so why should it release NIO's sales?

"If it is a state institution, there is nothing we can do. But why should another car company use our brand for promotion? Can they cut us out? Of course, we can also feel the society's concern for us. It is right for them to catch us at every minute, just like the school said that the ranking of each exam score is not allowed to be posted on the wall. The relevant departments can still take care of these things." Qin Lihong said.

Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, said, "Only four or five people inside NIO know the weekly sales figures." As we all know, listed companies generally announce sales on a quarterly basis, and Tesla does this. But in China's current competitive environment, it has become an unwritten rule for new forces to announce the sales of the previous month on the 1st of each month. If they choose not to announce it, it is generally considered that they performed poorly in the previous month.

In this regard, Li Bin said that monthly ranking is already very cruel. "If we are the first, we will never publish weekly rankings." Li Bin added.

So, are Weilai's doubts justified? Is Ideal's behavior of publishing the weekly ranking inappropriate?

Ideal has suspended the release of the list twice

Ideal has been actively publishing weekly sales charts since April last year, and it has been doing so for more than a year. During this period, it has suspended the release twice, one due to external doubts and the other due to its own initiative.

On July 11, 2023, Ideal released its weekly sales ranking as usual. The ranking showed that Xpeng's sales from July 3 to July 9 were 1,200 units, which was the hot selling period of the Xpeng G6. Xpeng officials said that G6 received more than 35,000 orders in just 20 days of pre-sale, which was equivalent to 12,000 orders per week. However, Ideal's weekly ranking showed that Xpeng only sold 1,200 new cars a week, which immediately made Xpeng lose face.

In response, two executives of Xiaopeng immediately questioned Ideal's weekly ranking, believing that the data in it was unreliable and pointed out that the data related to Xiaopeng in the ranking was fake. At that time, Huang Honglin, general manager of product marketing of Xiaopeng Motors, posted a message on WeChat Moments: "Please pay attention to official information. Lubianshe is indeed not very reliable." He also said, "We don't need to bluff and show off our muscles by showing off our battle reports. The automobile industry is an industry where long-termism wins and opportunism dies. We should still work hard on products, quality and supply, and deliver high-quality products to users."

Liu Yilin, who was then senior director of autonomous driving products at Xpeng Motors, also said that we do not need to announce sales every day or every week to hype. Please pay attention to the official data released every month, which is the most authoritative.

Li Xiang’s response to the weekly rankings last year has now been deleted.

In fact, Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Ideal Auto, responded to Ideal's weekly ranking on May 2, 2023, before Xiaopeng executives questioned it. At that time, Li Xiang wrote that due to reports from peers, it was very regrettable that the real insurance data could not be released after May. But only two weeks later, Ideal resumed the release of the weekly ranking.

The second time Ideal stopped publishing the weekly ranking was in late March this year, and this time it was a voluntary suspension. At that time, Ideal MEGA failed to go public, and Ideal's sales were completely overtaken by Wenjie. But more than a month later, on May 7, Ideal started publishing the weekly ranking again. The weekly ranking showed that in the 18th week of 2024 from April 29 to May 5, Ideal achieved sales of 5,300 vehicles, ranking first among new forces, and Wenjie ranked second with 4,800 vehicles.

Ideal's response this time is that after the list was stopped, many users would ask about Ideal Auto's sales when they came to the store to buy a car. Product sales are an important basis for many users to make purchasing decisions, and first-line partners need real data to explain to users.

Ideal also stated that during the period when we stopped publishing the rankings, various sales information appeared in the market, causing us to deal with many related inquiries. For the sake of consistency in external communication, we decided to resume publishing the sales rankings.

Ideal's latest sales ranking did not disclose the data source, only noting that "the sales volume referred to in this article is different from the delivery volume data released on the 1st of each month." Li Xiang himself previously revealed that the data source is the retail data of China Automotive Data Terminal, that is, the insurance volume. He also said that every car company will purchase this insurance volume data.

Therefore, it can be seen that since the data comes from a third-party authoritative statistical agency, the authenticity of the sales data of each brand in the Ideal Weekly Ranking should be guaranteed. However, it seems that many car brands have this data, and only Ideal Auto has made it public. As many netizens have said, if Ideal wants to stop publishing the ranking, it must be no longer the first.

Is publishing the results a form of vicious internal competition?

Ideal previously explained why it publishes the weekly rankings, saying that one of the important reasons is to correct errors and prevent data fraud. It is reported that the authoritative organizations that publicly release the sales rankings of auto companies are the China Passenger Car Association and the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. The number of compulsory traffic insurance insured vehicles is generally not disclosed, but auto companies or the media have channels to obtain insurance volume data.

The main difference between the sales volume and insurance volume announced by the China Passenger Car Association is that the former is reported by manufacturers, some of which report production data, while others report delivery data. Since the inventory of 4S stores and vehicles on the road are also included, these sales data always have a certain deviation from the actual delivery data.

The data on the insured volume comes from the data after each new car has obtained compulsory traffic insurance. Since there is no data delay and the data of inventory pressure given by manufacturers to dealers is not taken into account, the insured volume is considered to be closer to the actual sales volume.

A person related to Ideal previously told Titanium Media App that the weekly rankings can help users see whether the sales data released by car manufacturers are inflated. If there is a large deviation between the data released by the manufacturer itself and the insurance volume, it means that the manufacturer is suppressing inventory. In other words, vehicles that have not been sold to users but have been produced are also counted in the sales data.

However, even if the ideal weekly chart conveys a more realistic sales data, the behavior of publishing the weekly chart without fail is still considered to be too involutive. Previously, many industry insiders believed that the weekly sales volume was a sign of the involutiveness of the auto industry. It also reflects the unprecedentedly fierce competition in the auto industry.

NIO Ma Lin's latest statement, source: screenshot from Ma Lin's Weibo account

Shortly after Ideal released its latest weekly ranking, NIO PR Director Ma Lin specifically @Li Xiang on Weibo, saying that the weekly ranking is more or less a low-level involution, and that Brother Xiang @Li Xiang should stop. The current mission of Chinese automakers is to achieve technological breakthroughs through research and development. He asked in return: "Isn't it?"

Ma Lin also said that every month, each company will announce the audited delivery volume. This monthly figure can basically reflect the operating conditions of the car companies at that time, which is more effective for users to understand the market situation and help consumer decisions. Everyone has a curiosity mentality, which is particularly understandable. However, the weekly list will interfere with the normal operation of the company.

It is reported that the background of Ma Lin's remarks is that the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held a meeting on July 30, which pointed out that it is necessary to strengthen industry self-discipline and prevent "involutionary" vicious competition. Reflected in the automotive industry, this is considered to be a correction to the overly involutionary market environment.

However, some sharp-eyed netizens pointed out that NIO has previously drawn up sales rankings with many adjectives in front of them, such as "Blank Electric SUV Insurance Ranking", "Luxury Midsize SUV Insurance Ranking", "Luxury Pure Electric SUV Insurance Ranking", etc. In these rankings, NIO also included other brands, and NIO usually ranked first.

So, as the country begins to emphasize the need to prevent "involutionary" vicious competition, can the behavior of car companies spontaneously publishing sales lists be stopped?(This article was first published on Titanium Media App, author: Wang Ruihao, editor: Zhang Min)