I still remember that on the first day after the start of work during the Spring Festival this year, Xiaopeng Motors CEO He Xiaopeng sent a start-up letter to all employees of the company. He Xiaopeng wrote, "2024 is the first year that Chinese automobile brands will enter the 'bloody sea' competition, which is also the first year of the knockout rounds" to remind employees of the upcoming market challenges. As for Xpeng Motors’ expectations in 2024, He Xiaopeng said, “This year marks the tenth year of Xpeng Motors’ establishment. Our goal is to double our performance while making up for all shortcomings in the organizational structure to ensure Our business activities can move towards a stage of high-quality development."
It didn't take long for Gaohe Automobile to become popular. Many netizens said "He Xiaopeng God predicted". Then a few months passed, and the knife predicted by He Xiaopeng fell on Xiaopeng Motors' own head.
Judging from the sales rankings of new car-making forces in April, Xpeng Motors has only delivered 9,393 units in total, falling out of the first echelon. Compared with the sales data in the second half of last year, Xpeng Motors' sales have also sounded the alarm. The reason for the decline in Xpeng Motors' sales can be attributed to the fact that the monthly sales of models such as g6, p7, p5 and g9 that were originally expected to "take off" failed to exceed 2,000 units. At present, Xpeng Motors' sales mainly support the x9 model.
For a pure electric MPV model priced at more than 300,000, the performance of Xpeng x9 is indeed commendable, but for a car company, sales rely on a single model, and it is also a new energy MPV model. The ability to withstand market risks is undoubtedly somewhat fragile.
Regarding this, He Xiaopeng recently posted a reflection late at night, "Unlike Internet entrepreneurship, my experience in the automotive industry is: Don't overthink yourself as smart and awesome when it's good, but when it's bad, most of the problems are actually not competition. With others, the core is self-reflection and pdca. "
In addition, He Xiaopeng also mentioned that building a car is a long-distance race. One foot on the accelerator and one foot on the brake is a taboo. Steady progress and the pursuit of compound interest growth for polygon warriors are the big opportunities. "Recently, Many of our classmates have repeatedly discussed these views, and we have gone through the headwind cycle to welcome tailwind growth. "
The reason why I posted this late at night is that in addition to the decline in sales, Xpeng Motors' financial situation has also been facing challenges. Xpeng Motors' financial report data shows that in the first quarter of this year, Xpeng Motors' revenue was 4.03 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 45.9% and a month-on-month decrease of 21.5%. In addition, the company's gross profit was 70 million yuan, down 92.6% year-on-year and 84.9% month-on-month; gross profit margin was 1.7%, down 10.5% year-on-year and 7% month-on-month, with a net loss of 2.34 billion yuan.
In fact, Xpeng Motors has not made changes. After "Iron Lady" Wang Fengying joined Xpeng Motors, she also carried out a series of reform measures, including anti-corruption, personnel changes, and product/sales model adjustments. The actions are quite significant. Despite this, Xpeng Motors' sales and financial status are still in decline.
Looking back on the glorious days of Xpeng Motors, the two key factors for its success are intelligence and cost-effectiveness. Although Xpeng Motors still maintains its leading position in the country in the field of intelligent driving, with the continued efforts of competitors such as Huawei, Xpeng Motors no longer has an absolute advantage. As for cost performance, both the Xpeng p7, which is trying to compete with the model 3, and the Xpeng g6, which is targeting the model y, have gradually lost their advantage in the fierce price war. How does
turn the situation around? Xpeng Motors' new brand mona is seen as a key strategy in 2024. It's a bit similar to Ledao's and Weilai . It seems to be opening up new markets with another concept. In fact, it just wants to eat a bowl of rice in the low-end market, but can't lose face.
Regarding the mona brand, He Xiaopeng once optimistically predicted that the brand's annual sales volume is expected to reach 100,000 units. However, trying to compete with traditional car companies such as BYD HT28 and Geely HT30 for the 150,000 yuan market is a bit of a "tiger's mouth".
In fact, the situation on Ideal’s side is somewhat similar to that of Xpeng Motors. After the launch of Mega, Li Xiang, the “King of Weibo”, was forced to shut down his Weibo account for a long time. He only came back after riding on Lei Jun’s wave of traffic. Of course, Li Xiang also reflected, "We mistakenly regarded the 0 to 1 stage (commercial verification period) of ideal mega as the operation from 1 to 10 stages (rapid development period)." This sentence is similar to He Xiaopeng's late night Reflection is somewhat the same thing.
Uncle Che summarizes
The pressure of financial data and the difficulty in improving gross profit margin make it difficult for Xpeng Motors to withstand the price war. Coupled with the chaos in product planning and internal organization and management, Xpeng Motors has never had the characteristics of an excellent company from beginning to end. Mona may be a hope, but it is also full of dangers.
In addition, whether Li Xiang and He Xiaopeng are really reflecting or posting articles for show, there is a saying that is very good, "Don't pretend to work hard, or you won't be able to act with you!". Building a car is a long-distance race, and it is also a conscientious job.
