news

Tencent Auto "High Beam"

Author: Guo Yifei Editor: Liu Peng

This may be the longest press conference in Huawei's cross-border car-making career.

On August 6, the Enjoy S9 was officially unveiled. During the more than two-hour press conference, in addition to the speaker, Huawei's executive director Richard Yu,BAICThe group's new chairman Zhang Jianyong, Ningde Times chairman Zeng Yuqun, actors Huang Xiaoming and Gao Ye all appeared on the stage. Such a luxurious lineup has never been seen before in Huawei's past.Hongmeng Intelligent DrivingThe only purpose of their visit was to promote the Enjoy S9.

As the first model of the Xiangjie brand jointly created by Huawei and BAIC, the Xiangjie S9 is fully equipped and debuts Huawei's most advanced ADS 3.0 advanced intelligent driving solution, Huawei Yuezhang Excellence series car audio, CATL's 800V giant whale battery, and the D-class sedan-exclusive Tuling platform.

BAIC Group has exerted its utmost efforts to jointly create with Huawei this top-level model that symbolizes its transformation into new energy.

"This time, we have joined hands with Huawei at the height of core strategy and first priority strategy, and gathered all the advantageous resources of the entire industrial chain of BAIC, including vehicle R&D and production, parts, and service trade, ALL IN Enjoy S9." Zhang Jianyong said bluntly at the press conference.

WithAsk the worldThe explosive popularity of the series has turned the loss-making Seres (601127.SH), which was on the verge of death, into a profit. Whether the Xiangjie S9 can sell well not only tests Huawei's multi-brand management capabilities, but also is more critical for BAIC, which "got up early and arrived late" in the new energy battle, whether it can replicate the "Seres miracle".

copyQJM9Miracle, the sales volume of Xiangjie S9 is expected to reach 480,000 units

In order to avoid internal competition, under the Hongmeng Intelligent Travel model led by Huawei, products of different brands strive to differentiate themselves.

Seres' "Wenjie" is a major SUV series that directly competes with the Ideal L series.CheryThe first car of the cooperationSmartS7The price is 249,800 yuan to 349,800 yuan. As a pure electric sedan, the newly launched Xiangjie S9 is positioned as a high-end flagship. While its size is larger, its price is raised to 399,800 yuan to 449,800 yuan, making it the most expensive "Huawei sedan" currently on sale.

Amid the industry price war, the final listing price of the Enjoy S9 is still 50,000 yuan lower than the previously announced pre-sale price of 450,000 yuan to 550,000 yuan. Yu Chengdong said frankly: "We have shown absolute sincerity to BAIC this time."

In Huawei's product planning, it hopes that the Enjoy S9 and the Ask M9 will form a "double 9 flagship" to jointly impact the high-end luxury market of 500,000 yuan.BMW 5 Series、Audi A6、Mercedes-Benz E-Class。

Industry data shows that in 2023, the total sales of the three "56E" series products will be about 465,000 units, with a market share of nearly 50%. In the first half of 2024, the average monthly sales will be 6,600 units, 16,900 units and 10,700 units respectively.

In a research report, China Cinda Securities believes that domestically produced new energy mid-to-large-sized vehicles basically follow the competitive strategy of "low-price cross-level". Compared with competing products at the same price, such models often have a higher level of configuration advantages, which further affects consumer mindsets. From the perspective of replacement space, the competition between Enjoy S9 and "56E" is expected to follow the path of first electric competition and then fuel substitution.

"56E owners may not have high requirements for the economy of new energy. The main advantage of Enjoy S9 lies in the dimensionality reduction of intelligent high-end sedans. Business purposes often do not require ultra-long-distance travel, and pure electric vehicles can meet the endurance requirements." The above research report judged that Enjoy S9 still has the opportunity to occupy the space of high-end luxury new energy sedans with a total monthly sales of about 5,000 units.

However, BAIC's sales ambitions do not stop there. According to BAIC BluePark's official forecast, the sales of the Xingjie S9 are expected to total 480,000 units within its life cycle (5 years), and the sales from 2024 to 2028 are expected to be 60,000 units, 120,000 units, 120,000 units, 96,000 units and 84,000 units respectively.

In August 2023, BAIC Group spent 1.612 billion yuan to buyFoton MotorThe Miyun factory will be built and the production line technology will be transformed to upgrade the existing BE22 platform in all aspects, specifically for the production of Xiangjie products. The planned annual production capacity for the first phase is 50,000 vehicles.

The success of the M9 has undoubtedly given BAIC greater confidence. In the first half of 2024, the sales volume of the M9 was 53,700 units, ranking first in the sales of luxury models priced above 500,000 yuan. Yu Chengdong revealed at the press conference that the M9 had been on the market for 7 months and had a total order volume of 120,000 units.

Domestic brands are collectively striving for growth, but most of them are SUV products, and the sedan market rarely breaks through. In 2023, the sales of new energy SUVs with a price of more than 300,000 yuan will reach 724,000 units, while the sales of sedans in the same period will only be 119,000 units.NIO ET7For example, the selling price is 428,000 yuan to 516,000 yuan, but less than 5,400 vehicles were sold last year.

By binding with Huawei, can BAIC New Energy catch up?

As the "eldest son" of Capital Auto, BAIC Group "got up early and arrived late" in the new energy war, which makes it look even more lonely, especially when compared with the hot new car-making forces such as Ideal and Xiaomi.

In the first seven years of 2019, relying on the advantages of B-end markets such as online car-hailing and taxis, BAIC Group has been far ahead in the new energy market, even surpassingTesla, with annual sales of 150,000 vehicles. However, in the process of transformation to To C, it has continued to lag behind. The passenger car business is heavily dependent onBeijing Benz、Beijing HyundaiOf the two joint venture brands, the independent brands’ voice is clearly insufficient.

In the planning of BAIC Group, BAIC BluePark (600733.SH) is responsible for its new energy transformation.Polar Fox, BEIJING. The former is regarded as the "No. 1 project" of the group's independent business development, positioned as high-end intelligence, and its products are jointly produced with Magna, a world-renowned luxury car manufacturer, while the latter continues to focus on the B-end market.

In fact, as early as 2017, BAIC cooperated with Huawei and launchedAlpha S HI version, this is the first mass-produced model equipped with Huawei's full-stack smart car solution. However, even with the aggregation of high-quality resources such as Huawei and Magna, the Polar Fox brand is still difficult to be successful.

In terms of sales, after two consecutive years of sluggish sales of 25,000 units, BAIC Blue Valley's sales climbed to 50,200 units and 92,200 units in 2022 and 2023, respectively. The low gross profit margin of mid- and low-end models, coupled with the difficulty in making big strides in sales, has led to the company's net profit attributable to the parent company of -6.482 billion yuan, -5.244 billion yuan, -5.465 billion yuan, and -5.39 billion yuan, respectively, in the past four years, with a total loss of 22.591 billion yuan.

As the price war continues to intensify, BAIC Blue Valley's performance has not improved in 2024. Although sales in the first seven months were 39,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 1.15%, it still suffered a net loss of 2.4 billion to 2.7 billion yuan in the first half of the year, compared with a loss of 1.98 billion yuan in the same period last year.

In this regard, BAIC BluePark explained that competition in the new energy vehicle market is becoming increasingly fierce, price wars are becoming increasingly intense, squeezing profit margins; in order to continuously promote the development of products towards high-end, the company continues to invest in technology research and development, brand channel construction, brand image sharpening, and operational efficiency improvement, which has a certain impact on short-term performance.

BAIC Blue Valley finally changed its leader after being mired in losses. In July 2024, with four months left in his term, Liu Yu, the company's chairman, resigned and was replaced by his deputy Dai Kangwei, a female leader born in the 1980s who previously served as the company's general manager. Dai Kangwei's new partner is Zhang Guofu, the executive deputy general manager, who was promoted to the position of general manager.

It is worth noting that this is also the first large-scale executive personnel adjustment of the group after Zhang Jianyong took over from Jiang Deyi and became the new chairman of BAIC Group at the beginning of the year.

"Look at Mercedes-Benz for joint ventures and look at Polar Fox for independent brands." This is the "double high-end" strategic goal set by Zhang Jianyong at the beginning of the year. To this end, BAIC Group announced that its R&D investment will exceed 100 billion yuan by 2030, focusing on new energy and intelligent fields to effectively support Polar Fox's long-term development.

At a time when Beijing Benz's profits are declining and Polar Fox is unlikely to make a breakthrough in the short term, binding Huawei's intelligent technology and brand reputation is undoubtedly a simpler and more effective way for BAIC Group. You know, in the first half of 2024, Seres expects its net profit attributable to its parent company to reach 1.39 billion to 1.7 billion yuan. In the previous four years, they lost 9.835 billion yuan.