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author | li li

produced by zhigu trend | id: zgtrend

is the “xiao” in “nio, xiaoli” xpeng or xiaomi?

in the first half of the year, xiaopeng, which was competing head-on with xiaomi su7, had a hard time. in the notorious ideal weekly ranking, xiaopeng was either overtaken by xiaomi or squeezed out of the top 10.

the first echelon of new car-making forces is almost no longer able to accommodate xiaopeng.

the turning point was the launch of mona m03, which received over 10,000 orders in 52 minutes, allowing he xiaopeng to experience the story of the protagonist in lei jun's epic novel.

the mona m03, with a maximum price of less than 160,000 yuan, has entered byd's impregnable territory. its biggest weapon is he xiaopeng's slogan:"xpeng mona m03 max, the only high-end intelligent driving car under 200,000 yuan."

xiaopeng has used the sincerity of making a 200,000-level car to make the 110,000-yuan mono m03, which is an equal opportunity for intelligent driving.

however, there are many cases where new cars reach their peak as soon as they debut.

with the support of didi, can mona continue to sell well and allow the lagging xiaopeng to "shine" again?

before the release of mona m03, xpeng motors was the one that lagged behind the most among the three electric car companies, nio, xiaopeng and li auto.

in terms of sales, in the first seven months of this year, xpeng delivered a total of 63,173 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 20%. it seems that sales have recovered steadily, but this growth rate is not enough compared with nio and ideal.

after all, in terms of achieving annual targets, in the first seven months of this year, ideal next door completed 42.9%, nio completed 46.9%, while xpeng only completed 23% of the annual delivery target of 280,000 vehicles.

in the ranking, the xiaomi su7, which came out halfway, not only impacted xiaopeng's sales in the first half of the year, but alsothe "xiao" in "wei xiao li" has been replaced.

i still remember that at the xiaomi press conference, li bin, he xiaopeng and li xiang, who were sitting in a row in the audience, looked at lei jun, who was "strongly persuaded" by them to build a car, with smiles on their faces and got the last ticket to the new energy vehicle industry.

but that night, he xiaopeng disappeared before lei jun announced the price of xiaomi su7. some people joked that he was in a hurry to rush back overnight to discuss countermeasures with senior executives.

because from the perspective of product positioning, xiaomi su7 has caused the most damage to xiaopeng's main model xiaopeng p7. ideal focuses on extended-range and daddy cars, and weilai plays high-end, both of which have avoided the attack range of xiaomi su7. only xiaopeng, which is also a pure electric car and costs about 200,000 yuan, hits xiaomi's bull's eye.

after the release of xiaomi su7, it was very close to xiaopeng in terms of sales. according to the severely criticized ideal weekly ranking, xiaopeng ranked eighth with a slight gap of 300 units behind xiaomi in the week before the release of mona m03. in the week when mona m03 was released, stimulated by the release of the new car and the 10th anniversary celebration, xiaopeng surpassed xiaomi with an advantage of 700 units and ranked seventh.

but it is worth mentioning that xiaomi has not yet used all its strength. the delivery volume of xiaomi su7 is affected by production capacity. if the production capacity of the second phase factory is added, the delivery volume should be far ahead of xiaopeng.

from the performance point of view, xpeng "seems" to have shown signs of improvement. according to xpeng motors' 2024 semi-annual report, during the reporting period, xpeng's revenue increased by 61.2% year-on-year to 14.66 billion yuan, its losses narrowed to 2.65 billion yuan, and its gross profit margin was restored to 13.5%.

at first glance, revenue is increasing, losses are narrowing, and everything seems to be thriving.

however, after the mid-term report card was handed in, investment institutions such as goldman sachs, citigroup, and bank of china international successively lowered their target price for xpeng motors. why is that?

first, xpeng's above-expectation performance in gross profit margin was not contributed by its core automobile sales business, but came from a service and other income expense of up to 1.3 billion yuan.

this fee comes from the cooperation between xpeng and volkswagen, and the two automakers will jointly develop two b-class electric vehicles. although the two cooperative models will not have a share based on sales until 2026, xpeng will still charge volkswagen a technology licensing fee that is not related to sales, with a gross profit of more than 90%, which is equivalent to tesla selling carbon credits. both are pure profit transactions outside the core car sales business.

second, xpeng's sales are indeed sluggish, with only 52,000 vehicles delivered in half a year, nearly one-third of ideal and more than 30,000 fewer than nio. moreover, nio and ideal, both in the same echelon, have more expensive cars than xpeng.

how to make a comeback in the core automobile business and prove that the "small" of "nio, xiaoli" is still me, he xiaopeng. the stakes fall on mona m03.

can mona m03 really shoulder such a heavy responsibility?

xpeng motors is very optimistic about mona m03, as can be seen from the company's internal business expectations for the third quarter.

official data revealed that xpeng motors expects total vehicle deliveries in the third quarter to be between 41,000 and 45,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 2.5% to 12.5%; total revenue will reach 9.1 billion yuan to 9.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.7% to 14.9%.

in terms of delivery volume, xpeng sold 11,145 vehicles in july. according to the ideal weekly ranking data in august, xpeng delivered 7,300 vehicles in three weeks, and it is roughly estimated that xpeng's delivery volume in august was around 10,000. in other words, to complete the third quarter sales, 20,000 vehicles must be sold in september.

if the sales of existing models remain unchanged, it means that mona m03 will have to support a sales volume of 10,000 vehicles.

in terms of revenue, dolphin research believes that if the other revenues in the third quarter are the same as those in the second quarter, based on the expected revenue in the third quarter, the unit price of xiaopeng motors in the third quarter is expected to be around 190,000 yuan, slightly lower than the market expectation of 200,000 yuan. this also means that the expected proportion of mona m03 deliveries will increase, which will lower the unit price of the car.

how likely is he xiaopeng’s expectation to become a reality?

the fact that the order volume exceeded 10,000 in 52 minutes has already explained the answer. at least, as long as the existing models do not lag behind,50% of the delivery target of 40,000 vehicles has been achieved.

and it is very likely that the sales boost brought by mona m03 to xiaopeng motors will be sustained.

because one of the biggest buyers of mona m03 is didi.

after didi failed in its cooperation with byd and ideal, it established an independent team to build cars, and the project was codenamed mona. later, due to the financial pressure, it found xiaopeng and transferred the hot potato to xiaopeng. therefore, the current mona m03 is actually a joint research between xiaopeng and didi, and the electrical architecture is not xiaopeng's own, so the max version cannot copy xiaopeng's xngp at present.

but after xiaopeng took over mona, it also kept a trick and added a gambling clause in the agreement with didi:

within 13 months after the delivery of mona m03, if the sales volume of didi ecosystem reaches 100,000-180,000 vehicles, xiaopeng will deliver a maximum of 14.05 million class a common shares to didi; within 12 months after reaching the first phase milestone, if the sales volume of didi ecosystem reaches 100,000-180,000 vehicles again, xiaopeng will again deliver a maximum of 14.28 million class a common shares to didi.

in other words, as long as didi helps, the annual sales of xiaopeng mona m03 will be at least 100,000 units. compared with xiaopeng's sales of 141,600 units last year, didi alone can bring xiaopeng back to the first echelon.

however, even if mona m03 solves xiaopeng’s lagging sales problem, can it also solve xiaopeng’s brand problem?

ten years into his entrepreneurial career, before he xiaopeng “swims until the sea turns blue”, let’s get back to the most fundamental question:

what kind of car brand is xiaopeng motors?

brand positioning is related to a company's strategic deployment and development plan.

for example, ideal’s positioning as a family car and a dad’s car is reflected in its product design, which is the unchanging nesting doll strategy and the interior assembly of “refrigerator, color tv and large sofa”.

for example, nio's positioning as a high-end pure electric vehicle and its learning of xiaomi's "business religion" made it willing to make mobile phones and battery swap stations no matter how much money it lost. when the price war was raging, it insisted on not "directly" reducing prices and tried its best to protect the rights and interests of old car owners.

because their goal is to penetrate the minds of users. so in the end, although nio was in a huge debt, there was still a steady stream of bba car owners who became nio's loyal fans. some people even bought 6 nios in a row and joined other nio car owners to set up a "nio 4s store" in a small county town.

so what is the first thing that comes to your mind when you mention xiaopeng?

intelligence.

xiaopeng motors, including he xiaopeng himself, gives the outside world the impression of being a typical science and engineering man.great at technology, but not sociable.

indeed, xiaopeng's flying car "land aircraft carrier" and the "robot ordering" demonstrated at the press conference are the best proof of intelligence.

but unfortunately, as a car owner, i am afraid i don’t have much appreciation for these awesome technologies.

after all, it is the land aircraft carrier that can take off, not the xiaopeng g6.

in terms of intelligent driving technology, xiaopeng's xngp is indeed in the first echelon, and mona m03 is the only car in the same price range that removes lidar and can provide assisted driving functions based on pure vision solutions.

however, judging from the market situation, the two indicators that consumers who buy cars with a price range of 100,000 to 200,000 yuan are most concerned about are energy consumption and battery life. the biggest attraction of mona m03 is "smart driving equal rights".

this brings us back to the old question: although the competition in new energy vehicles is already in the second half, what really influences consumers' purchasing decisions is battery life or intelligence?

this question is a matter of opinion.

at least for most consumers in this price range, especially first-time car buyers, battery life and energy consumption should be the top priority.

from this perspective, mona m03 does not bring more incremental value to xpeng's brand positioning. xpeng motors is still telling the same old story.

moreover, when it comes to "intelligence", there is tesla abroad and huawei in china, so xiaopeng's "intelligence" is not the most outstanding.

the most outstanding xiaopeng xngp has remarkable performance on the highway, but its intelligence level in urban scenes is still equivalent to that of a novice driver, requiring the driver to pay attention at all times, which is even more tiring than driving by yourself.

is this the performance that a car company that claims to be “intelligent” should have?

maybe, maybe not. because no one can give a comprehensive and clear definition of the concept of "intelligent car", so if there is no standard to realize this brand positioning, everyone will stick to their own opinion.

however, in order to highlight its leading position, xiaopeng upgraded its brand positioning by changing its company name to"xpeng ai automobile company".

how should i put it? after all, it takes time to iterate on intelligence. but now mona m03 is deeply tied to didi, and there is a risk of becoming a "online car-hailing service". before the brand image of xiaopeng motors is lowered, it is better to use ai first.

three or five years ago, in the first half of electrification, xiaopeng launched the label of "intelligent" earlier than its peers. but today, to borrow a phrase from aunt liu xiaoqing:"the times used to lag behind me, but now they have caught up with me."