On December 24, 2023, Leapmotor celebrated the brand's 8th birthday.
At the same time, Leapmotor announced an important milestone recently reached - the cumulative delivery volume officially exceeded 300,000 units.
If you look at the development history of Leaprun, you will find that it has developed rapidly. From June 2019, the first production car rolled off the assembly line, achieving a leap from 0 to 1;By June 2022, the 100,000th production vehicle will roll off the assembly line, and the phased "small goal" will be completedIn June 2023, the milestone of 200,000 production vehicles rolled off the assembly line will be unlocked, and the development momentum is very strong. Today, Leapmotor has successfully entered the 300,000-unit production car club, and the scale effect is becoming increasingly significant.
Behind the great strides in the development of Leapmotor is the rise of the "new joint venture" led by the new forces of car manufacturing, which is rapidly sweeping the entire industry.
Volkswagen Group's hand-in-hand with Xpeng and Abu Dhabi's investment in NIO have all been focused on by the industry, among which the cooperation between Stellantis Group and Leapmotor is particularly eye-catching. Leapmotor and Europe's largest auto giant Stellantis Group officially announced the latest, but the fastest action, from the signing of the strategic cooperation agreement to the completion of the completion of only 25 days, becoming the first new power car company to reach cooperation with multinational giants, and Stellantis also has a luxury car halo, its brands include Maserati, Citroen, Peugeot, Chrysler, Jeep and so on.
Compared with Stellantis, Leapmotor has lost money year after year since its establishment, and has lost 12.2 billion yuan in four years, and it has still failed to make a profit. Why did Stellantis look at Zero?
According to Jimu News, at the end of November, Leap announced the completion of the cooperation with Stellantis Group and received HK$8.5 billion remitted by Stellantis Group. At the same time, the two parties will establish a joint venture company called "Leapmotor International", which will have the exclusive right to export and sell to all other markets around the world, as well as the exclusive right to manufacture Leapmotor products locally.
With Stellantis' shareholding, Leap has also ushered in its own highlight moment. Since the completion of the transaction, Leaprun has been unanimously recognized by value investors, and the stock price of Leaprun has been used for many consecutive working days**, and the market value has repeatedly reached new highs. In the latest sales list of new power brands in the Chinese market released in December, Leap ranks among the top three, with a steady and sustained growth trend, and is expected to break through the 20,000 mark this month, setting a new record high.
As a famous European car company, Stellantis Group owns 14 car brands such as Maserati, Jeep, Alfa Romeo, Citroen, and PeugeotThroughout 2022, Stellantis sold about 6 million vehicles worldwide, and its revenue in 2022 ranked third among global car companies.
As for why it is partnering with Leapmotor, Stellantis Group said that it hopes to help it achieve the electrification goals in its 2030 strategic plan with the help of Leapmotor's "excellent innovative technology and cost-effective electric vehicle ecosystem".
In this way, Stellantis shook hands with Leapmotor because of expectations for its technology and ecological chain.
According to the People's Daily Online article, in the early 80s, China's largest industry because there is still a big gap from the world level, domestic mainstream car companies began to take the market for the development of technology, FAW, Dongfeng, Changan, SAIC, GAC, etc., and the world's Japan, South Korea, Europe and the United States and other mainstream car companies have established new joint ventures, began to take the market for the development of technology.
According to the data of the passenger association, in recent years, the share of joint venture car companies has been declining, and some joint venture car companies such as: Changan Suzuki, Dongfeng Renault, Changan Dioex (DS), GAC FCA, GAC Acura, GAC Mitsubishi and other joint venture brands have to withdraw from the Chinese market because of dismal sales, taking the first half of 2023 as an example, most of the top ten car companies with joint venture brand sales are showing a trend. Among them, SAIC-GM, Guangqi Honda, Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, Beijing Hyundai, and Changan Ford all fell in double digits.
Lv Chaowei, a practitioner in the new energy vehicle industry, pointed out that foreign giants took the initiative to find new forces to establish joint ventures, or valued their new energy technology, which also shows that China's new energy vehicle technology has been at the world's leading levelFrom actively seeking joint ventures from foreign companies 40 years ago to being approached by foreign companies for cooperation, Chinese car companies are shifting from exchanging the market for technology to exchanging technology for the market.
According to "Jimu News", the main reason for Stellantis' handshake with Leapmotor seems to be its accumulation of related technologies in the field of new energy, such as its "four-leaf clover" body architectureAt the same time, the complementary relationship in the market can also allow the two sides to cooperate better.
Leapmotor's new energy technology has been repeatedly mentioned in reports, which may also confirm this view. According to Hexun.com's December 5** road, Leapmotor officially disclosed that Leapmotor C10 enabled the second-generation CTC technology of Leapmotor, with a higher degree of integration, and a large number of high-strength and high-performance materials, and its torsional rigidity of the vehicle is as high as 42500N·m DEG, surpassing the top luxury cars such as Rolls-Royce Phantom, BMW 7 Series, and Mercedes-Benz S-Class.
According to the data, the so-called torsional stiffness of the car body (torsional stiffness), which refers to the ability of the car body to resist elastic deformation when subjected to external forces, is an important indicator to measure the structural strength of the automobile body.
In terms of vehicle architecture, Leapmotor has achieved its own native vehicle architecture, with a generalization rate of 88%.In terms of electric drive system, Leapmotor was the first to mass-produce an eight-in-one electric drive, and the first 200kW oil-cooled electric drive in ChinaIn terms of intelligent driving, Leapmotor released the first self-developed intelligent driving chip in China: Lingxin 01;In terms of battery technology, Leapmotor took the lead in mass production of CTC battery chassis integration technology.
Not long ago, Leapmotor also released the industry's first-of-its-kind, first-class integrated electronic and electrical architecture: "Clover", which realizes the integration of the cockpit domain, intelligent driving domain, power domain, and body domain, so that the core components of electric vehicles can collaborate more efficiently.
Technical reserves, thanks to investment in research and development. From 2019 to 2022, Leapmotor's investment in R&D was 35.8 billion yuan, 28.9 billion yuan, 7400 million yuan, 141.1 billion yuan.
In terms of patented technology, Leapmotor also has advantages. According to the Tianyancha app, Zhejiang Leap Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 2015 and is an enterprise mainly engaged in the automobile manufacturing industryIn terms of intellectual property rights, it has 2,256 pieces of patent information.
This shows that China has been at the forefront of the international market in terms of technology, products and industrial chain on the track of new energy vehicles. Zhou Ying, general manager of the marketing department of Leaprun Technology, said to "Zhejiang**". Before the advent of new energy vehicles, China was a "market" in the world's automotive industry, but it did not occupy a dominant position. However, after the emergence of new energy vehicles, China has vigorously promoted the development of new energy vehicles and embed them more deeply in the global industrial chain.
There are other ideas for the cooperation between Leaprun and Stellantis, such as complementarity in the market, and the cumulative delivery of Leapmotor on its 8th birthday can exceed 300,000 units, which may be a plus behind it.
Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Leapmotor, also said frankly: "At present, 98% to 99% of Leapmotor's sales are in China, and we need a good partner to expand the global marketStellantis is doing very well in other areas around the world, whether it is efficiency, products, services, sales network, service network. ”
Zhejiang**" article pointed out that if Leapmotor wants to "go global", it needs to choose a partner in the international market, and as a long-established car company, Stellantis Group, which owns brands such as Maserati, can not only enable Leapmotor to embrace the international market, but also help enhance its brand value.
However, in the face of going out, Leapmotor does not seem to have much confidence in terms of business performance.
According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2023, Leapmotor achieved revenue of 565.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 319%, an increase of 294%；Realized a loss of 102.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 247%, down 127%。
It can be seen from the financial report that today's Leapmotor has continued to grow in operating income and narrowed its profit loss, but the company is still in a state of loss and is still a long way from profitability.
According to the financial report, since the establishment of the company, Leap has been trading losses for the market. The financial report shows that from 2019 to 2022, Leapmotor will lose 90.1 billion yuan, 1.1 billion yuan, 284.6 billion yuan, 510.9 billion yuan, and in the first half of 2023, the zero run loss was 227.6 billion yuan, a total loss of more than 12.2 billion yuan in more than four years.
On the other hand, the performance loss occurred at the same time as the increase in its operating costs.
The financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2023, the cost of sales of Leapmotor will be 558.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 196%, up 215%。
The financial report data also shows that at the same time, its R&D expenditure in the third quarter was 47.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 173%, an increase of 154%；Selling expenses were 44.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 131%, an increase of 33%；Administrative expenses are 21.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 33%, a decrease of 1 month-on-month9%。
It can be seen that in terms of R&D, sales and other costs, Leapmotor is still investing heavilyTherefore, it seems that it is not easy to make Leaprun profitable in the short term.
In fact, in order to prove its own strength, Leapmotor has made relevant efforts in terms of profitability, not only the continuous growth of car sales, the increase in vehicle prices, the reduction of costs, but also the gross profit margin from negative to positive, closer and closer to the goal of profitability. According to the third quarter report of Leaprun, during the reporting period, the company's gross profit margin turned positive for the first time to 12%。
The article pointed out that in the eight years since the car was manufactured, this is the first time that Leapmotor has achieved positive gross profit. This inflection point occurred nearly 100 days earlier than originally planned. This means that after a long period of "bleeding" with most new car companies, Leapmotor has entered the camp of self-hematopoietic car companies in the eighth year of its establishment and the second year after the IPO.
If you want to marry with European giants, you have to be reasonable in your own strength, and Leapmotor, which has been losing money year after year, is also working hard to make a profit.
The financial report shows that in the third quarter of 2023, the gross profit margin of Leapmotor will be 12%, the gross profit margin was positive for the first time, an increase of 101 percentage point, an increase of 64 percentage points.
The reason why the gross profit margin of Leapmotor can turn from negative to positive seems to be due to three reasons:
First of all, car sales have increased.
According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2023, Leapmotor delivered a total of 44,325 new vehicles, an increase of 24 compared with 35,608 in the same period last year5%。Among them, 27,378 C11 vehicles were delivered, an increase of 58 from 17,257 units in the same period last year6%；C01 delivered 8,325 units, an increase of 1,384% from 561 units in the same period last year.
Secondly, the unit price of cars has increased.
According to the financial report information, the average price of a single car of Leapmotor has increased from 10 last year70,000 yuan, an increase to 12 this year90,000 yuan, an increase of 220,000 yuan, an increase of 206%；Among them, in the third quarter of 2023, the average price of a single car of Leapmotor is 1280,000 yuan, an increase of 070,000 yuan, an increase of 58%。
Third, the cost of automobiles has fallen.
In this regard, Zhu Jiangming, CEO of Leapmotor, revealed: "From September 2022 to the present, the cost of materials for a single vehicle has decreased by more than 3,000 yuan, and the manufacturing cost of a single vehicle has decreased by more than 1,000 yuan. "Judging from the financial report, the cost of a single car of Leapmotor is now about 1260,000 yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4%.
The increase in sales, unit price, and cost have caused the performance of Leapmotor to improve. According to the financial report, in the third quarter of 2023, Leapmotor's operating cash flow was 1.4 billion yuan, compared with 16.9 billion yuan, an increase of 156.9 billion yuan.
At the same time, in order to make Stellantis more at ease, Leapmotor is also prepared with sufficient sincerity. As of September 30, 2023, Leapmotor had a total of 116 cash and cash equivalents300 million yuan, of which free cash flow was 10$1.8 billion.
It can be seen that in the process of cooperation with Stellantis Group, Leapmotor is not a completely weak party, although there is a large gap between the two in terms of market size, but there is a complementarity in business.
However, it is not Leapmotor that cooperates with foreign car companies;In today's new energy vehicle industry, "reverse cooperation" seems to have become the mainstream.
For example, Volkswagen made a strategic investment in Xpeng and spent 5 billion yuan to purchase Xpeng 499% of the shares;Audi cooperated with Zhiji to obtain the license to use the Zhiji IO origin platformRenault and Geely have established a joint venture to export hybrid technology to Renault.
It can be seen that with the progress of domestic new energy vehicle technology, more and more old foreign-funded car companies have begun to take the initiative to contact domestic new energy in order to occupy a strong position in the future automobile market.
The reason why large international car companies have repeatedly targeted domestic new energy forces seems to be because in the international market, China's new energy vehicles have a strong development momentum.
According to the China Passenger Car Association, passenger car exports from January to November totaled 3.45 million units, reflecting a 64% y/y increase. In terms of categories, in November, a total of 890,000 units, up 8% y/y, accounting for 23% of total passenger car exports5%；Among them, pure electric vehicles accounted for 89% of the total new energy exports. 3330,000 units, up 75% y/y and 5% m/m.
At the capital market level, new energy vehicle companies represented by BYD have become a successful model for going overseas. According to BYD's latest production and sales data, passenger car exports in November were 30,629 units, a year-on-year increase of 1487%, ranking first among manufacturers in terms of export volume of new energy passenger vehicles in the month. In the first three quarters of this year, BYD's overseas sales exceeded 14550,000 new energy vehicles, far more than last year's 5590,000 units. In terms of financial performance, in the first three quarters of this year, BYD achieved operating income of 42227.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5775%；Net profit 213700 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12947%, becoming the car company with the highest revenue and net profit in the first three quarters.
"Go overseas" has become the common strategic layout of other leading enterprises in the current new energy vehicle industry chain.
According to the latest data from industry organization Infolink Consulting, the global energy storage cell shipment scale reached 143 in the first three quarters of 20238GWh, of which CATL ranked first in terms of shipments. In overseas markets, CATL secured about 47GWh of orders – including a 10GWh order from Quinbrook in November, more than 40GWh of cooperation agreements from nearly 100 leading companies during EES Europe in June, a supply agreement for HGP's 450MWh battery energy storage project and a future 5GWh energy storage project, and a contract signed with Western Australia** in September to supply 300 sets of ENERCs for each of the two projects Plus energy storage system, 650 sets of Enerc plus energy storage system supply.
It can be seen that whether it is a new energy vehicle or a first-class chain, Chinese brands have established obvious advantages, and their position in the global market is in the process of steady improvement.
The optimistic development momentum has also given domestic new energy brands confidence, making them more willing to go overseas for development and find a broader market space.
According to public reports, as early as May 2021, NIO entered the Norwegian market and gradually expanded to Germany, the Netherlands, Denmark and other European countriesIn 2022, after BYD entered the Japanese market, it launched three models: Yuan Plus, Dolphin, and Seal, which put a lot of pressure on Japanese car companiesAt the same time, in September this year, Leapmotor also unveiled its first global product, the C10, at the Munich International Motor Show, or made all preparations for going overseas.
In this way, it is not Leapmotor that is actively planning to go overseas, and many domestic new energy vehicle brands are consolidating the domestic market while actively laying out overseas markets, so as to gain more market advantages in the increasingly fierce competition.
Therefore, in the future market competition, it seems that Leapmotor, which is holding hands with Stellantis, cannot sit back and relax, and if it wants to break through in a red sea, Leapmotor must make greater progress in both technology and market.
It is worth affirming that the roles of Chinese and foreign automobile brands have been reversed, and the era of "reverse joint venture" has opened, which also shows that China's new energy vehicle technology has been at the world's leading levelFrom actively seeking joint ventures from foreign companies 40 years ago to being approached by foreign companies for cooperation, Chinese car companies are making great strides towards a leading position in technology.
Author |Stone
Kunpeng Project