Title image | IC PhotoWelcome to the WeChat subscription number of “Sina Technology”: techsina
Written | Edited by Zhang Yu | Yang Bocheng
Source: DoNews
After the AITO question series exploded, Celis (formerly Sokon Co., Ltd.) and Huawei once again joined forces to set their sights on high-end unmanned autonomous vehicles.
Recently, according to the revelation of the digital blogger “The factory director is classmate Guan”, the top unmanned models of AITO Wenjie series models have been in preparation for a period of time, and the new AITO Wenjie unmanned vehicles have stronger capabilities. It is the best among all Huawei-series driverless models.
With Huawei’s Dongfeng, Celis has jumped directly from a marginal role to a sweet pastry in the new energy vehicle market. If the revelations are true, it means that Celis will become the new energy vehicle manufacturer with the highest “hua” content.
In fact, Celis has already tasted the sweetness of cooperation with Huawei. According to the September 2022 production and sales report released by Celis, its new energy vehicle sales reached 17,596 units, a year-on-year increase of 341.33%, of which AITO sales reached 10,142 units, achieving more than 10,000 monthly deliveries for two consecutive months.
It is worth mentioning that at the AITO M7 conference, Yu Chengdong said: “Huawei and Celis will continue to leverage their respective resource advantages to carry out longer-term cooperation, and we will launch more and better models in the future. .”
The internal development of new energy vehicle products has already been raised to a strategic height within the company, “Investment in the field of new energy is the key to the company’s sustainable development in the next ten years, twenty years, and even further in the future, and it is also the key to the company’s sustainable development in the future. It is the core foothold of the strategic transformation of Lisi’s intelligent ecology.” Zhang Zhengping, chairman of Celis, said in the first internal letter issued after taking office.
From the Celis SF5 to the AITO M5 to the AITO M7, what exactly did the Huawei-bound Celis get? Can it usher in the “turnover battle” with new energy vehicles?
01.
What did Celis get?
In January 2019, Celis and Huawei held a comprehensive cooperation signing ceremony. The two parties stated that they would further promote cooperation in the field of new energy vehicles, and carry out comprehensive cooperation in the fields of industrial Internet, ICT infrastructure, new energy vehicle intelligence, and network connectivity. Huawei will provide all-round assistance for Celis to build new energy vehicles.
In April 2021, Celis officially reached a cooperative relationship with Huawei, and the two parties signed a memorandum of cooperation in the field of new energy vehicles.
It was followed by the new Celis SF5 equipped with Huawei Drive one.
The Celis SF5 is the debut of Huawei Smart Mode. According to the degree of participation, the cooperation models between Huawei and new energy vehicle manufacturers are mainly divided into parts supply mode, HI (Huawei Inside) solution integration mode, and smart selection mode. Design, and open Huawei’s sales channels to new energy vehicle manufacturers. In terms of the ownership of core property rights, the ownership of related models still belongs to new energy vehicle manufacturers, and Huawei only makes profits through the supply of parts and vehicle sales.
Since the cooperation with Huawei, the share price of Celis has soared, with a cumulative increase of more than 10 times, and the total market value even reached 110 billion yuan at the highest.
However, the Celis SF5 received a mediocre response after its launch, and its performance was not dazzling. In the whole year of 2021, the sales volume of the Celis SF5 is about 8,169 units, which is not enough among the sales of new energy vehicles.
With the experience of Celis Huawei’s smart selection of the SF5, Xiaokang and Huawei once again jointly created the AITO M5, the first model in the AITO industry, which is also the first smart car equipped with the Harmony OS cockpit. In December 2021, the AITO M5 was officially launched, and the delivery was officially started after 72 days. When the cumulative delivery of this model reached 11,296 units, it only took 87 days. This speed even broke the domestic record of the fastest delivery of a single model of new energy vehicles exceeding 10,000. Subsequently, AITO M7 accelerated again, started delivery 51 days after its release, and completed the delivery of the first batch of users at the end of August.
In stark contrast to Celis’ sales, its performance is hard to say.
According to the financial report for the first half of 2022, Celis achieved a total revenue of 12.416 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68.14%; a net profit loss of 2.316 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 226.29%; a net profit loss attributable to the parent of 1.727 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 259.79%. Among them, the new energy business achieved revenue of 7.701 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 380.8%, accounting for 62.03% of the total revenue, surpassing the proportion of the fuel vehicle business for the first time.
While sinking deep into losses, it is still expanding expenditures. In the first half of 2022, the sales, management, R&D, finance and other expenses of Celis totaled 2.808 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 113.17%, of which sales expenses increased by 247.09% year-on-year, and management expenses increased by 73.8% year-on-year.
In this regard, Celis stated in the announcement that the change in sales expenses was mainly due to the increase in high-end new energy vehicle advertising expenses, sales and service fees, etc., while the change in management expenses was mainly due to the increase in the business volume of high-end new energy vehicles. Costs and daily operating expenses increased.
There are also bright spots in the financial report. For example, in the first half of 2022, Celis’ gross profit margin was 7.27%, an increase of 4.27 percentage points year-on-year, and its gross profit margin in 2021 was 3.77%. However, although the gross profit margin level has improved, there is still a gap between Li Auto’s 22.1% and Xiaopeng Motors’ 11.6%.
It cannot be ignored that the increase in sales of new energy vehicles has driven the growth of the gross profit margin of Celis to a certain extent, especially the big sales of the AITO series, which has brought a great contribution to its performance.
A person in the new energy vehicle industry told DoNews that the reason why the sales of the AITO Qjie series has risen rapidly is because Huawei dominated the AITO brand’s early planning, design, and later marketing and sales processes, “almost a car. On the other hand, Huawei has a strong reputation and offline sales network. At present, the AITO series has been settled in about 500 Huawei experience centers and user centers.
02.
Leveraging on Huawei, there are still hidden concerns
The hidden worries of Celis binding Huawei are emerging.
First of all, Huawei claims that it does not build cars, but it cooperates with more and more car manufacturers, such as GAC Jihu Automobile, Changan Automobile, Great Wall Motor, GAC Group and so on. Recently, there are rumors that Huawei’s smart car has been rolled out on a large scale in the industry, and it has successively finalized smart car business cooperation with Chery Automobile, Jianghuai Automobile, and Jihu Automobile. Among them, there are at least two models of cooperation with Chery Automobile, and at least one car cooperation with Jianghuai Automobile. In addition to the HI program cooperation with Jihu Automobile, there will also be cooperation with a smart car.
For Celis, the smart selection mode is scarce and unique, but this is not the case for Huawei. Huawei can cooperate with Celis, and it may also cooperate with other new energy vehicle manufacturers, which means that at present Huawei’s all-round technical support for Celis may not be “exclusive” for Celis in the future. In other words, Celis has not only lost its core competitiveness, but also has many more competitors.
Secondly, the sales of Celis cars have skyrocketed, which is inseparable from Huawei’s huge offline sales network. However, it is certain that in the future Huawei’s offline sales network will not be the only brand of Celis. According to Huawei’s plan, follow-up other The brand cars empowered by Huawei will also enter the Huawei Smart Selection platform one after another. It is expected that at least 2-3 Huawei Smart Selection cars will be displayed in future stores. At that time, can Celis still rely on its own strength and its own sales channels to stabilize Existing sales?
Finally, the reason why many consumers choose Celis cars is to a large extent because of Huawei’s influence. “The car logo was buckled and the “Huawei” related logo was affixed, which once caused heated discussions on the Internet. In the future, if more and more new energy vehicle manufacturers cooperate with Huawei, it is still unknown how much the brand influence of Celis can play, and how many consumers are willing to pay for the brand of Celis. matter.
Some people in the industry believe that Celis is currently more of a “foundry” role. Under this cooperation model with an extremely unequal relationship between the strong and the weak, the initiative is almost entirely in the hands of Huawei.
There is no doubt that the original intention of Celis and Huawei to jointly build a car is good, and both sides are trying to achieve a win-win situation. However, at present, Celis relies heavily on Huawei in terms of brand, channel and core technology. If it is separated from Huawei’s protection, its market value of 100 billion may even return to before liberation overnight. In terms of the wave of new energy vehicles, there are many giants and enemies are waiting. Can Celis standing in the spotlight stand firm and continue to grow? I’m afraid Celis still can’t give a definite answer at the moment.
(Disclaimer: This article only represents the author’s point of view and does not represent the position of Sina.com.)
This article is reproduced from: https://finance.sina.com.cn/tech/csj/2022-10-27/doc-imqmmthc2303311.shtml
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.