Original link: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1237
Who did the Ningde era work for?
The most expensive component of an electric vehicle is the battery, which accounts for 40-60% of the cost. Last year, CATL, the world’s largest power battery factory, made a net profit of 17.8 billion yuan, about three times that of 2019.
This is what Zeng Qinghong, chairman of GAC Group, said at the World Power Battery Conference on July 21, “GAC seems to be working for the Ningde era.”
- In the Ningde era, people were also working. From 2019 to the first quarter of 2022, the profit scale of CATL continued to rise, and the gross profit margin continued to decline, from 32.78% to 14.48%. There is absolutely no momentum for TSMC to continue to record high profits and profit margins under the chip shortage cycle.
The electric vehicle industry chain is working for big mine owners. The price of battery raw materials such as lithium carbonate has risen more than 10 times since 2021, with a price of 500,000 yuan per ton. Industry insiders told LatePost that the global electric vehicle industry chain will absorb about 100 billion yuan in price increases in 2022.
- Zeng Yuqun, chairman of CATL, and Li Bin, chairman of NIO, have publicly criticized battery raw material suppliers for price gouging several times.
- Tianqi Lithium, one of the world’s largest lithium mining companies, has seen its gross profit margin increase from 56.56% to 85.28% in the past three years.
- However, a person from a battery raw material manufacturer once said to “LatePost”: “What people (material manufacturers) earn is the cycle of money, making a year and losing three years. When you starve to death, why don’t you know how to spend more money to buy it?”
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The past two years have been an upward cycle for power batteries, chips, and shipping. Their common feature is that they have a slow supply response time and cannot cope with the explosive growth of immediate downstream demand. The difference may be that different industry barriers determine that companies in different positions make the most money.
The chip factory expansion cycle starts from one year, plus tens of billions of dollars in scale investment; it takes about three years for an ocean-going ship order to be launched; but lithium carbonate expansion takes 18-24 months (battery factory expansion also requires 9 months). Therefore, once the production capacity is full, no matter how much the downstream is out of stock and how high the price is willing to pay, the suppliers will not be able to meet it, and the industry profits will continue to flow to the strongest party amid the skyrocketing demand. (Li Zinan and Gong Fangyi)
WeChat internal test aggregation taxi
Ten years ago, Tencent and Alibaba each backed a ride-hailing company and quickly burned a market with money. Now, they are thinking of going together again in the taxi business.
Several media reported that Tencent Travel Service, one of WeChat’s “Jiugongge”, is testing taxi services and is an aggregation service provider like AutoNavi. You can also enter by directly searching for “Tencent Travel Service” in the WeChat applet.
- Tencent Travel only provides instant travel services and cannot make reservations. AutoNavi has more functions, including reservation, airport pick-up, and enterprise version.
- Tencent’s models include economy (Cao Cao, T3, Sunshine, Shouqi), preferred (Sunshine) and comfort (Cao Cao, Shouqi, Shouqi). There are no options for rentals, private cars, or luxury cars.
- The Shanghai section is 3.3 kilometers long and takes 14 minutes to drive. The estimated base prices for economy, optimization and comfort are 17 yuan, 24.4 yuan and 34.85 yuan respectively (take the lowest value, excluding coupons, and the impact of morning and evening peaks).
According to the online car-hailing order data released by the Ministry of Transport this week, 277 online car-hailing companies across the country reported 635 million orders in June, down 9.4% year-on-year. (Gong Fangyi)
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Tencent may not exit the digital collectibles market
This week, it was rumored on social media that Tencent would close down its digital collection distribution platform, Huanhe. Later, a screenshot of the circle of friends of the person in charge of Huanhe was released. “I don’t know how to dispose of the assets that users have purchased, and where Huanhe will go.”
A few days ago, Phantom officially responded to the matter, saying that it has not received any relevant notice of the abolition. Currently preparing a new version of the app and upgrading the experience of old collections, the release of new collections will be delayed.
- Magic Core Tencent PCG was incubated internally, a large-scale digital collection distribution platform in China. It was launched in August last year, and the issued collections were priced at more than 100 yuan.
- Eight months after its launch, Magic Core released 270,000 digital collections with a total transaction volume of 21 million yuan. Ali’s whale finder has a transaction volume of about 50 million yuan in the eight months since its launch.
- Released in late June, “Master Hongyi’s Calligraphy Motto Screen Digital Premium” has accumulated over 20,000 unsold items.
- As mentioned in Article 2.4 of the Magic Core Service Agreement, if Tencent will update, adjust or even terminate the provision of all or part of the services as needed due to adjustments in technology, services, business strategies or regulatory requirements, the above actions will not be deemed a breach of contract.
However, some clues point to Tencent’s move to better integrate its underlying blockchain, Zhixin Chain, rather than withdraw from the emerging business. Tencent has not publicly responded to the matter. Tencent News stopped its digital collection business earlier this month.
- The digital collection industry chain is divided into the infrastructure layer, the trading platform layer and the project creation and distribution layer. Basically, several large domestic Internet companies are involved.
- Infrastructure layer: In China, there are Ant Chain of Ant, Zhixin Chain of Tencent, Zhizhen Chain of JD.com, Blockchain of Baidu, etc.
- Trading platform layer: In China, there are Ali’s Whale Scout, Tencent’s Magic Core, JD.com’s Lingxi, Baidu’s Xiyang, etc.
- Project creation and distribution layer: mainly from museums, artists, designers, content creation, copyright, etc.
Zhixin Chain was established in 2019 and was jointly developed by Tencent, China Net Security and Feng Tiao Shun. and other official institutions to establish cooperation. The insiders of Zhixin Chain once introduced on the public platform that the services of Zhixin Chain mainly have two parts:
- Realize the cross-application flow of digital assets through Zhixin Chain ecology. For example, migrating digital collections purchased on Xiaohongshu to the Magic Nucleus platform.
- In the case of ensuring that Zhixin Chain does not know the specific privacy information of users, it issues identity certificates with digital signatures to users through decentralized technology, aiming to provide technical support for government affairs platforms and medical platforms other than digital collections. (intern Xue Yujie)
Ford’s fuel vehicle business to lay off 8,000 people, sprinting all-out electric vehicles
According to media reports, people familiar with the matter said that Ford plans to lay off about 8,000 jobs in the next few weeks, focusing on the fuel vehicle division, involving multiple functions, most of which are expected to be U.S. employees. The total number of employees in the United States is currently about 31,000. Ford declined to comment on the layoffs, but said it was reshaping the organization to focus on electric vehicle growth.
- “We have too many people”. Ford CEO Farley has said layoffs are the key to improving profits, while rising production and after-sales costs have eaten into profits from electric and other plug-in models.
- Mass layoffs are largely a testament to transformational determination. Ford is shifting its focus to electrification starting in 2020. In March this year, it announced the spin-off of the electric vehicle (Ford Model e) and the fuel vehicle (Ford Blue) business , and mentioned that it will invest $50 billion in the electric vehicle business in the next five years, all of which will come from the fuel vehicle sector.
The effect is not yet visible. Ford sold 64,000 electric vehicles globally last year, accounting for less than 2 percent of total sales. China sales were not disclosed, but are not expected to be too high.
- On the one hand, there are only two models: the “oil-to-electric” Ford Territory EV, which was launched in 2019, priced at 180,000 yuan, and the Ford Electric Horse released in the middle of last year, priced at 316,000 yuan.
- In addition, limited by the traditional distribution model, the brand volume and sales efficiency of Ford electric vehicles are not as good as those of new electric vehicle companies. However, Ford said that by the end of last year, China had opened 25 stores specializing in high-end smart electric vehicles.
Several peers fared better. Volkswagen sells more electric models in China, including the Volkswagen ID series, Lavida pure electric, Audi e-tron, etc., but only delivered 93,000 vehicles last year. In contrast, Tesla sold nearly 300,000 vehicles in China last year with two models, and Wei Xiaoli’s monthly deliveries also exceeded 10,000 at the end of last year.
Porsche may be the most successful electrification of the traditional car companies. The Taycan, a pure electric sports car starting from 880,000 yuan, sold 412.96 million units worldwide last year, accounting for 13.7% of the total sales. Mercedes-Benz also announced in May that it would be a luxury in the automotive world , in part because electric vehicles have higher variable costs and it is difficult to guarantee profit margins. (Lin Guangying)
Who and how will the US $76 billion in chip subsidies be distributed?
The US Senate initially passed the “Chip Act” with 64 votes to 34 on July 19. The core is to provide tens of billions of dollars in subsidies to promote the development of the domestic chip industry in the United States. It is worth noting that this is a preliminary vote, and additional voting rounds are required to be passed by the Senate; after that, the bill will be submitted to the House of Representatives, which is expected to propose its own version, and the two houses will discuss and confirm the consensus before submitting it to the President for signature. , and finally landed.
Since the bill has not been announced and the details are still being negotiated, based on information from various parties, what is currently known is:
- The subsidy is approved by the U.S. Congress and paid for by the Treasury Department;
- About $52 billion will be allocated to chipmakers through a new Commerce Department fund to encourage them to build factories in the United States;
- Other links in the chip industry chain, such as IC designers Qualcomm and Nvidia, are not covered by the subsidy;
- $2 billion for the defense component to set up a university-based national system for semiconductor technology research and development;
- A five-year 25% investment tax credit may also be added for investments in semiconductor manufacturing equipment, expected to be $24 billion;
- There may be restrictions, such as subsidized chipmakers cannot produce advanced chips in “unfriendly areas” for 10 years, and traditional chips may not be restricted.
Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have previously proposed their own versions of the “Chip Act”, wanting to use the “chip” to strive for more conditions, but the bill has stalled due to too many differences. Chipmakers such as Intel and Micron Technology have begun to threaten to cancel plans to build factories in the United States. Therefore, the two houses decided to first pass a version with a smaller amount that is acceptable to all parties, and then increase the conditions little by little.
- In June last year, the Senate packaged “chip subsidies” into the US$250 billion “American Innovation and Competition Act”. In addition to subsidizing the chip industry by more than US$50 billion, it also supported cutting-edge research such as quantum computing and artificial intelligence, which was not passed by the House of Representatives;
- Earlier this year, the House of Representatives proposed a larger $350 billion version of the US Competition Act, which added jobs and climate protection to chip subsidies. It also failed to pass.
- Regarding this vote, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer called it a “test vote” and said that since the bill passed easily (minimum 51 votes), it would try to add more provisions, including measures for water systems, technology, Agricultural financial support.
However, it is still the consensus of the US political circles to consolidate or even expand the advantages of the US chip industry through subsidies. Outside Congress, chip IC designers such as Qualcomm and Nvidia want subsidies, while manufacturers such as Intel are lobbying for permission to produce more advanced chips in certain regions.
- At present, US chipmakers are prohibited from producing chips below 28nm in some regions, but local manufacturers in these regions can already produce 14nm chips, while advanced process chips are 7nm/5nm.
- Although the global chip manufacturing share of the United States has dropped from 37% to 12% in recent years, it is the world leader in chip design, manufacturing equipment, raw materials, etc., with more than half of the share, and 7 of the world’s top 10 semiconductor companies are in the United States. (Lin Guangying)
CHART OF THE DAY
- This year, KWEB, the China concept stock index fund most concerned by international investors, fell 15.05%, and Nasdaq fell 23.95%.
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OTHER NEWS
Didi was fined 8.026 billion yuan.
The Cyberspace Administration of China announced on July 21 that Didi Global Co., Ltd. violated the Cybersecurity Law, the Data Security Law, and the Personal Information Protection Law with clear facts, conclusive evidence, serious circumstances, and vicious nature. On July 21, the Cyberspace Administration of China imposed a fine of RMB 8.026 billion on Didi Global Co., Ltd. in accordance with the “Network Security Law”, “Data Security Law”, “Personal Information Protection Law”, “Administrative Punishment Law” and other laws and regulations. Cheng Wei, chairman and CEO of Didi Global Co., Ltd., and Liu Qing, president of Didi Global Co., Ltd., were each fined RMB 1 million.
NetEase’s “Diablo: Immortal” national server may be launched on July 25.
“Diablo: Immortal” is an annual game masterpiece jointly developed by NetEase and Blizzard. NetEase announced on the 19th of last month that the original launch plan for China on June 23rd was postponed, but did not specify the launch time. The overseas version was launched in early June. Although it was criticized for being too expensive, according to Appmagic data, the number of downloads in the first month of the launch exceeded 10 million, and the revenue was nearly 49 million US dollars, not including the 30% commission from Apple and Google.
BYD will sell 3 pure electric models in Japan next year.
BYD held a brand press conference in Tokyo on July 21, announcing its official entry into the Japanese passenger car market. Previously, its business in Japan was mainly commercial vehicles, batteries, and energy storage systems. The first three models are pure electric vehicles, including Yuan PLUS (SUV), Dolphin (small car), and Seal (medium-sized car), which will be sold in cooperation with local dealers. Japanese car companies such as Toyota and Honda have leading hybrid technology, but they are conservative in electrification . Toyota only launched its first pure electric car in May this year.
Nezha Auto completed the D3 round of financing of 3 billion yuan.
Nezha Auto announced on July 21 that it has completed the D3 round of financing of over 3 billion yuan. Investors include more than 10 investment institutions such as Shenzhen Venture Capital, Qianhai Fund of Funds, and Ark Internet. The funds will be used for product research and development, factory expansion, operations, etc. . According to public information, Nezha has raised nearly 10 billion yuan in its D round, and with the previously disclosed financing information, the total amount raised is nearly 18 billion yuan. Nezha delivered 13,000 vehicles in June this year, second only to Xiaopeng.
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With an annual output of 750,000 vehicles, Tesla’s largest factory is in Shanghai.
According to Tesla’s second quarterly report, the Shanghai plant’s annual production capacity has exceeded 750,000 vehicles, a significant increase from 450,000 vehicles at the end of the first quarter, making it the first vehicle factory with the highest production capacity in Tesla. However, the overall proportion has declined, because the Berlin and Texas Gigafactories have been put into operation in the first half of this year. The current annual production capacity is 250,000 vehicles. Tesla’s earliest production capacity in Fremont, California, has a latest annual production capacity of 650,000 vehicles. For more reports, see ” Tesla is finally about to pay off its debt .”
ByteDance’s valuation has shrunk to $300 billion.
With the IPO on hold and investors cashing out, ByteDance’s valuation in the private market in recent weeks has fallen far below $300 billion in recent weeks, down by at least a quarter from last year, according to media reports. Investors have been buying ByteDance shares at valuations as low as $275 billion, people familiar with the matter said.
People from Beihai City, Guangxi need to report 12 hours in advance when going out.
- On July 20, 148 new confirmed cases were confirmed locally, including 52 in Guangxi and 49 in Gansu; 678 new asymptomatic infections were reported locally, including 314 in Gansu, 135 in Guangxi, 77 in Anhui and 76 in Henan.
- Guangxi added “52+135”, and the confirmed cases were all in Beihai City.
- Guangxi Beihai City issued a notice that during the epidemic prevention and control period, people must report 12 hours in advance when going out.
- Gansu added “49+314”, and Lanzhou added “41+191”.
- Affected by this round of epidemic, at least 13 counties and districts in Gansu have extended or implemented a new round of temporary control in recent days.
A preliminary estimate of the total national health expenditure in 2021 is 7.5 trillion yuan.
According to preliminary estimates by the National Health Commission, the total national health expenditure exceeded 7.5 trillion yuan last year. Compared with 2019, it increased by about 1 trillion yuan, and the proportion of GDP dropped slightly to 6.5%. China uses the financing source method to calculate the total cost of health care. It only counts the funds invested in the current year, and does not count the details of use. A large part of the expenditure on nucleic acid testing and anti-epidemic equipment during the epidemic came from financial subsidies.
Five rural banks in Henan and Anhui started the second batch of advance payment to customers.
According to the official announcement, starting from July 25, the second batch of principal payments for off-book business customers of 5 village and township banks will begin. Customers need to go through the WeChat applet “Village Bank Advance Payment”. Henan Rural Credit Union said that currently registered customers below 50,000 yuan (inclusive) have basically completed the advance payment.
UBS analysts said iPhone shipments in China tripled in June.
According to UBS estimates, iPhone shipments in China have rebounded strongly from May, and shipments in June may exceed 42 million units, an increase of 227% year-on-year, and it is estimated that the iPhone’s share of the Chinese market will rise to 11.4% . Industry analysis is that due to the increase in the price of domestic high-end mobile phones, the iPhone’s cost-effectiveness has led to higher sales. Due to the impact of the epidemic, China’s overall smartphone shipments fell by about 12% year-on-year in the second quarter.
20% fewer Nissan vehicles were sold in China in the first half.
Affected by the shortage of chips and related parts, Nissan sold 546,000 units in China in the first half of the year, down 22.7%. Nissan’s sales in China have declined for three consecutive years, and this data exceeds the decline (-17%) in the first half of 2020, which was hit by the first round of the epidemic. Sales in June recovered slightly, with Nissan’s sales in China increasing by more than half month-on-month.
Armani’s sales growth slowed to 20% in the first half of the year, fearing an economic recession.
Italian luxury goods group Armani’s sales in the first half of this year increased by 20% year-on-year, which was slower than the 26% growth rate last year. Among them, China’s sales slowed down, Europe improved, and the United States was good. Armani’s goal is to return to pre-pandemic revenue this year, but said it faces risks such as geopolitical events and economic recession. Giorgio Armani, the 88-year-old chairman and chief executive, said the group is currently financially healthy and could provide some relative breathing space even if the situation worsens.
Kuaigou Dache’s share price fell for 10 consecutive days, with a market value of less than HK$4.8 billion.
Since the listing of the Hong Kong stock market on June 24, Kuaigou Dache has only risen on one trading day, and all other trading days have fallen. Today, it fell another 3.95% to HK$7.79 per share, which is down nearly 64% from the first day of listing. Intra-city freight is different from online car-hailing. Shippers will not ship more goods because the service is more convenient and cheaper. The platform can only compete for stock share in the short term, and depends on the natural growth of the market in the long run.
Ant’s “Golden Selection” fund users hold an average of 401 days, an increase of 67% from a year ago.
According to the semi-annual report of Ant Financial Gold Selection, which is owned by Ant, as of the end of June this year, the average holding time of Christian Democrats has increased to 401 days, of which nearly 40% of users hold long-term holdings by fixed investment, and 1/3 hold partial stocks and shares at the same time. Debt Fund. There is a view that market volatility has changed user behavior. The semi-annual report emphasizes that users who have held the “Golden Choice” partial stock fund for more than 3 years are 53% more profitable than those who have held it for less than 3 years.
In the first half of the year, the overall output of the photovoltaic industry increased by nearly 50%, and the export volume and price rose.
According to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the domestic photovoltaic industry continued to grow in the first half of this year, and the output of major links such as polysilicon, silicon wafers, cells, and modules grew by more than 45% year-on-year. Overseas demand grew faster. In the first half of the year, the domestic module export volume was 78.6 GW, a year-on-year increase of 74.3%. The total export value of photovoltaic products was about 25.9 billion US dollars, a year-on-year increase of 113%. In addition to the global green transition megatrend, it is partly driven by the European energy crisis.
Blackstone increases real estate investment, and the size of the new fund may exceed 30 billion US dollars.
Blackstone Group’s new real estate fund has received more than $24.1 billion in capital commitments, and it is said that the final size may reach $30.3 billion. Blackstone has been active in real estate of late, buying a real estate investment trust for $7.6 billion in April and buying U.S. campus condo portfolio ACC. It also plans to sell Mileway, a European logistics portfolio, and buy Atlantia, an Italian infrastructure group that operates airports and highways. The transaction amount exceeds 10 billion US dollars.
The deed tax can be fully subsidized for the purchase of new houses during the Harbin Housing Fair.
During the housing fair from July 22nd to 31st, Harbin City will fully subsidize the deed tax for individuals who purchase new commercial housing in the 9th district of the main city, and half of the deed tax subsidy for purchasing second-hand housing. policy. It is reported that Harbin City has issued a policy to increase the personal loan amount of the provident fund, and plans to provide a one-time housing subsidy of 15,000 yuan and 20,000 yuan to the second and third child families whose household registration conforms to the fertility policy.
Boeing struggles to restore 737 MAX sales.
On the third day of the Farnborough Airshow, Boeing has sold hundreds of 737 MAXs, of which Delta Air Lines has ordered 100 and Miami-based 777 Partners has ordered 30, but it is far less than the number that has been cancelled in the past three years . Airbus has won 56 narrow-body aircraft orders from EasyJet and 12 A220 orders from Delta. It is said that airlines in Germany, Poland and other places are also interested in ordering. Both are currently vying for a $50 billion deal from Air India, including 70 wide-body jets and more than 300 narrow-body jets.
Legend: Boeing 737 MAX orders and deliveries since 2017. Click to see larger picture
Japan recorded its largest trade deficit since 1979 in the first half of the year.
In the first half of this year, Japan’s trade deficit reached 7.9 trillion yen (about 385.5 billion yuan), the largest deficit in the first half of the year since 1979. Japan is highly dependent on foreign energy sources. Due to the rising prices of crude oil and coal due to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine and supply disruptions, Japan’s crude oil imports more than tripled and coal imports more than tripled in the first half of the year. As of June, Japan had run a trade deficit for 11 consecutive months.
Tesla sold 75% of its bitcoins and used some of the money to pay off debts.
Tesla sold about 75% of its bitcoins in the second quarter for $936 million, some of which was used to pay down debt. Musk said the sale of bitcoin is to maximize the cash flow situation, and the uncertainty caused by the epidemic lingers.
Microsoft cuts hiring in key businesses.
Microsoft is canceling hiring for some open positions, including its fast-growing Azure cloud business and security software division. Microsoft said that business and personnel adjustments will still be made in the future. In addition, Google also announced that it will suspend hiring for the next two weeks. Other tech companies, including Uber, Meta and Twitter, have similarly announced layoffs or hiring suspensions.
Text | Gong Fangyi, Lin Guangying, and intern Xue Yujie Li Zinan Intern Zeng Xing
Editor | Gong Fangyi
The title picture comes from the movie “On the Road”
This article is reprinted from: https://www.latepost.com/news/dj_detail?id=1237
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