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involution is not the goal, making money is the way to go!

in 2024, no one could have imagined that the auto market would become like this. the whole industry is in a state of involution, with involution on technology, involution on prices, involution on costs, involution on sales, and the only thing that is not involution is revenue. the reason is also very clear: you can't have your cake and eat it too.

in the involutionary market, people have different perspectives on the development of the automotive industry. some people think that doing everything possible to occupy the market is the right way, while others think that rapid expansion and building a business empire is the ultimate destination of car companies. others believe that no matter how the auto market continues to involve, only steady profits that follow a routine approach can last for a long time.

various automakers have released their semi-annual financial reports. among chinese automakers, byd's revenue and profits are still far ahead, but what is more worthy of attention is great wall motor's financial report.

in the first half of this year, great wall motor's revenue reached 91.429 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30.67%; net profit was 7.079 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 419.99%; net profit attributable to shareholders after deducting non-recurring items reached 5.651 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 654.04%.

in terms of single-vehicle data, great wall motors' average revenue per vehicle was 164,800 yuan, an increase of 29,900 yuan year-on-year; the net profit per vehicle was 12,800 yuan, an increase of 10,100 yuan year-on-year; the gross profit per vehicle was 34,200 yuan, an increase of 50.37% year-on-year; the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 129,800 units, an increase of 44.89% year-on-year; and the overseas sales volume was 199,800 units, an increase of 62.09% year-on-year.

balanced sales structure is one of the core elements to maintain growth

looking at the sales structure of great wall motors, from january to june, great wall motors sold a total of 554,856 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 6.95%. nearly 200,000 of them were sold overseas, equivalent to a domestic and foreign sales ratio of nearly 2:1. on the other hand, the sales of new energy vehicles of nearly 130,000 vehicles accounted for nearly 25% of the total sales.

in contrast, great wall motors has a more balanced sales structure. looking at its competitors, geely auto sold 956,000 new cars in the first half of this year, of which the penetration rate of new energy vehicles reached 33.5%, and the ratio of fuel to new energy vehicles was close to 2:1. geely auto also achieved a revenue of over 100 billion yuan in the first half of the year, a net profit of 10.6 billion yuan, and a gross profit of 16.2 billion yuan. in terms of export volume, geely auto achieved an overseas export performance of 197,000 vehicles in the first half of the year, which is also very impressive.

the two companies have one thing in common: the penetration rate of new energy vehicles has been steadily increasing, but fuel vehicles still account for the majority; second, the number of cars exported is balanced and considerable.

another automaker with the same development model is chery. according to chery's first-half sales report, its new car sales in the first half of the year reached 1,100,621 units, new energy sales reached 180,000 units, and exports reached 532,158 units. the ratio of new energy, exports and overall sales is also very balanced.

we know that the two major development focuses of china's automobile industry are new energy and globalization, which is equivalent to the two going hand in hand. the contradiction is that the average development speed of the global new energy vehicle industry is not as fast as that of china. in addition, due to a series of policies, it will take some time for china to open up the global market with new energy. at present, it still needs to rely on the export of fuel vehicles to increase global market sales. this is why car companies such as great wall, geely, and chery, which still account for the majority of fuel vehicle sales, can further open up overseas markets.

looking back at great wall, the profit and gross profit per vehicle have increased significantly, including the average selling price of a single vehicle. one reason is that great wall's high-profit brands, including tank and wei, can stabilize the selling price through product strength and reputation in the face of a collapse in vehicle prices, and there is no shortage of users to buy them. second, the increase in sales in overseas markets has also brought it great profit margins.

this is also the reason why while joint ventures and luxury brands are lowering their prices, chinese brands need to move upward and outward. after all, compared with global automakers such as toyota, honda, mercedes-benz, volkswagen, and bmw, the profitability of chinese automakers is still slightly lacking.

has great wall solved the problem of "survival" that wei jianjun was worried about?

it has been almost four years since wei jianjun raised the issue of "survival". during this period, great wall has experienced a trough, but facing the most involutionary era in china's history, great wall is getting better and better.

great wall motors has always adhered to long-termism and bottom-line thinking, which can be seen from the fact that haval h6 can become a popular car. great wall has always been committed to creating high-quality products. in fact, this is contrary to the overall trend of the current auto market. the most typical example is that volkswagen has shortened the vehicle development cycle from the original three to five years to the shortest within two years. this is indeed the case. volkswagen's new products are emerging in an endless stream, especially in terms of electrification and intelligence, which continue to bring surprises.

but in fact, accelerating r&d is tantamount to taking a gamble, and this tactic only works in the chinese market. at present, chinese automakers are vying to become global automakers, but the real rise of chinese automakers has only been in the past five years. compared with "old stores" such as volkswagen that have been fully globalized for decades, they are still too immature. therefore, the most important thing at the moment is to start with products and create high-standard products so that brand power can be recognized.

at present, many brands of great wall motors have entered different markets. weipai alpine mpv was exported to dubai, hoping to get a share of the "tycoon" market; ora good cat was launched in chile, accelerating the transformation of new energy in the south american market; great wall pickup shanhaipao landed in australia and mexico, emerging in the market that really needs pickups; tank suv also landed in australia and mexico, in addition to south africa, eurasia, the middle east and other markets, gradually becoming a force that cannot be ignored in the global market of hard-core suvs. in addition, the haval brand has been thriving in the russian market for many years. it is not difficult to see that great wall motors' overseas expansion plan is very organized. according to the characteristics of its sub-brands, it will go to different markets with demand to achieve precise layout.

just from great wall's global layout and its corresponding sales performance, it is not difficult to see that great wall's "survival" problem has been at least half solved.

the other half of the problem is still in the domestic market. apart from some public reasons, the problem that great wall needs to solve may still be how to restore its brand image and bring the brand favorability back to the heyday of haval h6. starting this year, wei jianjun has frequently appeared in the public eye. at the same time, he has also created a personal ip, live-streamed test drives of intelligent driving systems, released great wall brand motorcycles, and filmed various technical and thinking videos, which received very good social response. it seems that the internal management and decision-making problems of great wall reported in the industry will ultimately rely on president wei to personally take action to maintain the brand image.

in any case, great wall has delivered a very outstanding answer in the first half of this year. what great wall should consider now is how to maintain a considerable profit margin while selling as many cars as possible and maintaining a steady pace.