Looking back at 2020, the "story" of the new power of car building in the capital market has attracted more and more attention. Due to the general positive trend of new energy and US stocks, Tesla, Inc. once became the fifth listed company in the United States by market capitalization. At the same time, the market capitalization of three domestic enterprises listed on US stocks, NIO Inc., ideal and XPeng Inc., have also risen one after another, even surpassing a group of established traditions.

A few days ago, two domestic car-building new power enterprises handed in their transcripts one after another. as a result, the two new car-building enterprises showed revenue growth, narrowing losses and improving gross profits. NIO Inc. released its results for the fourth quarter of 2020 and unaudited results for the whole year after the close of US stocks on March 2. According to the financial report, NIO Inc. 's annual revenue in 2020 surged by more than 100% compared with the same period last year, and its gross profit margin became a regular employee for the first time.

Compared with NIO Inc., who has started delivery for nearly three years, Li Auto Inc., who has achieved delivery for only one year, also handed over his first full annual financial report a few days ago, and set a number of records for new forces in China: the fastest to achieve positive gross profit, the fastest to achieve cumulative delivery of more than 40,000, and the first to achieve a positive net profit. As a result, Li Auto Inc., as a latecomer, has the potential to catch up with and surpass NIO Inc..

NIO Inc. 's delivery volume increased at the same time.112.6%，Ideal2Push pure electric models after the end of the year

According to the financial report, NIO Inc. delivered more than 43700 cars in 2020 and about 20500 in 2019, an increase of 112.6% over the same period last year.

Compared with 2019, NIO Inc. 's car sales have increased significantly.

At the beginning of 2020, affected by the epidemic, NIO Inc. sold 3838 cars in the first quarter, down 3.7 percent from the same period last year. With the improvement of the epidemic, NIO Inc. car delivery soared one after another, including 10331 units in the second quarter, an increase of 190 percent over the same period last year, 12206 units in the third quarter, an increase of 154 percent over the same period last year, and 17353 units in the fourth quarter, an increase of 111 percent over the same period last year.

According to the analysis, there are three key factors behind NIO Inc. 's strong market performance: first, NIO Inc. has EC6, ES6 and new ES8 delivery, its product matrix is relatively rich and occupies more market segments; second, in the context of consumer upgrading, NIO Inc. focuses on the high-end luxury route, which is more in line with market demand and more competitive. Third, with Tesla, Inc., NIO Inc. and other new power brands in sales, after-sales and other aspects of the new model has been more and more recognized by the market, and even attracted many traditional car companies to emulate.

In addition, NIO Inc. automotive products continue to expand. On January 9 this year, NIO Inc. released its first volume product brand flagship sedan ET7. Li Bin, chairman of NIO Inc. Automobile, said: "ET7 will be delivered next year, of course, there is still a lot of preparatory work, especially in the part of AD, we have to do enough testing and development." "

Judging from the current delivery volume, Li Auto Inc. follows NIO Inc. closely.

According to Li Auto Inc. 's financial report, the ideal One delivered a total of 32600 vehicles in 2020, which is second only to NIO Inc. and ranks second in sales among start-up companies. On February 18, 2021, the total delivery volume of ideal One exceeded 40, 000 vehicles. Compared with NIO Inc., the ideal is a latecomer, which only began to deliver the ideal One at the end of 2019. According to officials, the ideal delivery scale has set a record for the fastest delivery of a start-up.

However, it is worth noting that the ideal One is an add-on electric vehicle, which belongs to the category of plug-in hybrid vehicles. After the beginning of this year, a new rule issued by Shanghai has brought some instability to Li Auto Inc..

On February 10, 2021, the Shanghai government issued the Shanghai measures for encouraging the purchase and use of New Energy vehicles, saying that from January 1, 2023, free special licenses will no longer be issued to consumers who buy plug-in hybrid vehicles. In other words, the ideal add-on model will no longer enjoy a license-free discount. In addition, Beijing new energy vehicle indicators are only issued to pure electric models.

Next, Li Auto Inc. will change his single technology path.

It is understood that Li Xiang, founder of Li Auto Inc., has sent an internal letter, in which Li Auto Inc. will promote the two technical routes of Zengji and pure electric in parallel in the next ten years. Li Xiang said in an earnings call on Feb. 25 that the company will launch two models a year from 2022. Li Auto Inc. is currently revamping the Changzhou plant to meet the needs of a new SUV model, which will be launched in 2022. The first all-electric vehicle will be delivered in 2023, and the all-electric model will consider carrying lithium iron phosphate batteries.

Why NIO Inc. 's net loss is higher and closer than ideal34倍？

From the perspective of profit and loss performance, revenue and delivery are bundled, ideal and NIO Inc. have both achieved substantial revenue growth, but at the same time, the two enterprises have not yet completely got rid of the current situation of losses, and from the financial data in 2020, NIO Inc. 's net loss is nearly 34 times higher than Li Auto Inc..

Is it possible that NIO Inc., who is better at selling cars, will make money not as good as his ideal?

In addition to the breakthrough in delivery volume, the ideal strong profit is a bright spot. According to the financial report, the annual revenue in 2020 is 9.3 billion yuan, and the annual gross profit margin of the company is 16.4%. NIO Inc. 's annual revenue in 2020 was 16.2579 billion yuan, with a gross profit margin of 11.5% and a bicycle gross profit margin of 12.7%.

Compared with NIO Inc., Li Auto Inc. 's total revenue is less, but the ideal gross profit margin is 4.9% higher than NIO Inc.. To put it simply, it is ideal to make more money. Although the ideal has not yet achieved full-year profit, the loss has improved, with a net loss of 152 million yuan in 2020, which is much smaller than the loss of 2.44 billion yuan in 2019.

By contrast, NIO Inc. 's loss seems to be much more severe.

In 2020, NIO Inc. made a net loss of 5.304 billion yuan. Although its net loss is quite large compared with Li Auto Inc., it is much narrower than that of the previous two years. Data show that from 2017 to 2019, NIO Inc. 's net losses were 4.985 billion yuan, 9.639 billion yuan and 11.298 billion yuan respectively. Due to a net loss of more than $10 billion in 2019, Li Bin was rated as "the worst person in 2019". NIO Inc. has made a cumulative net loss of 33.7 billion yuan since 2016.

According to the analysis, market, sales and management expenses as well as R & D expenses are still important expenses for NIO Inc., but they all decreased in 2020. This is also an important reason why NIO Inc. 's loss narrowed in 2020.

According to data, NIO Inc. 's marketing, sales and management expenses were 3.932 billion yuan in 2020, lower than 5.451 billion yuan in 2019, and R & D expenditure in 2020 was 2.488 billion yuan, nearly half less than 4.428 billion yuan in 2019.

The analysis points out that the narrowing of the ideal loss and the breakthrough of the positive net profit are precisely due to its strict control of operating expenses and a large amount of additional income from interest and investment. However, the gross profit margin, which can better reflect the cost management and efficiency control of the ideal car-building link, has actually declined.

From a positive point of view, Li Auto Inc. did not invest a large amount in marketing, but still achieved a sharp rise in sales, such as the ideal extremely pay attention to efficient management style. for example, with the enhancement of economies of scale, it is possible to further share costs and expenses. But in the long run, it is not a long-term solution to offset the decline in gross margins by spending cuts and higher investment returns alone.

In addition, in terms of R & D, NIO Inc. 's R & D investment is higher than that of Li Auto Inc..

Data show that Li Auto Inc. 's R & D investment expenditure totaled 1.1 billion yuan in 2020, a decrease of 70 million yuan compared with 1.17 billion yuan in 2019, accounting for about 11.6 percent of total revenue. NIO Inc. 's annual R & D expenditure in 2020 reached 2.49 billion yuan. NIO Inc. spent as much as 23.814 billion yuan on research and development in the past five years from 2016 to 2020.

In addition, Li Bin said at the 2020 Q4 earnings call held a few days ago that Ulai will firmly increase its R & D investment, speed up the research and development and mass production of core technologies and new models, and is expected to double its R & D investment in 2021 to about 5 billion yuan.

Expand the channel有BBAThere must be NIO Inc. in every place.

Next, NIO Inc. Automobile will continue to expand the market territory.

"We will start sales and service in Europe this year, and the team is in the process of building, and is currently moving forward according to the plan. The preparation of the product, the preparation of the sales and service network, the preparation of the team, and all aspects of preparation are being done," Li Bin said. "this is not done in one day. In terms of NIO, we set up our R & D team in Europe and the United States on the first day. We have the management ability of the global team. We still know that entering the global market to consume services is a big job. "

In addition, NIO Inc. Automobile will continue to build an additional NIO House. However, NIO Inc. said last year: the cost and efficiency of NIO House is relatively low.

In the view of NIO Inc. CFO Fengwei, the brand influence that NIO House brings to NIO Inc. is more important than cost. Fengwei said: "NIO House is an important order conversion channel, which helps to enhance brand awareness, expand user contacts and promote sales transformation; at the same time, it has a very strong brand communication function. Under the background of the rapid growth of sales revenue, we think that increasing a certain amount of brand communication investment is beneficial to the long-term interests of brands and sales." NIO House is also an important place for user system and community operation, providing activity space for users' offline connection and brand promotion. "

At the same time, the cost of NIO House is gradually under control. Fengwei said: "We have accumulated rich experience in the process of operating offline network in the past, and we have a stronger ability to control location, planning and cost-effectiveness. the amount of investment and operating costs required for a single store are much lower than the original level. One reference figure is that the average per-store investment is 40% of the original investment, while the rent and operating costs are 50% of the original. "

It is reported that NIO Inc. Motor increased its NIO Space coverage last year and now covers 121 cities across the country. Li Bin revealed: "this year, we will add 20 more NIO House and 120 NIO Inc. spaces. We have a basic strategy. Cities with Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi 4S stores will build an offline store. This is our basic strategy." "

At the same time, Li Auto Inc. is also strengthening the construction of sales channels. According to Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Li Auto Inc., channel construction has entered the second strategic stage and is adjusting the retail store expansion strategy, which is planned to cover 100 cities by 2021.

According to the financial report, as of January 31, 2021, Li Auto Inc. has 60 retail stores, covering 47 cities, 121 service centers and authorized maintenance points in 89 cities.

At present, it is worth affirming that whether NIO Inc. or ideal, as the representative of the new power of car building in China, has come out of the era of PPT, mass production cars have begun to be tested by the market, and they have made good use of capital power to make waves in the stock market, in addition to creating better financing conditions for the new power enterprises themselves, for the capital market of "buying the future". The performance of its market value is actually the capital's affirmation of the development direction of the new power of car building.

From the current financial situation of the two enterprises, due to the differences in technological paths and business models adopted by the two enterprises, it is difficult to evaluate their advantages and disadvantages by virtue of their temporary financial performance. At the same time, the two are also facing different tests. For NIO Inc. Automobile, how to reduce operating costs and reverse losses under the premise of ensuring research and development is the key.

For Li Auto Inc., although he got a "ticket" through add-on cars, he also has to face the pressure of huge R & D investment if he develops pure electric vehicles afterwards. In addition, the pure electric products that Li Auto Inc. will promote in two years' time, how to achieve differential competition and compete with brands such as Tesla, Inc. and NIO Inc. is an ideal question that needs to be answered.