On December 5, NIO's third-quarter financial report was long overdue. It has been more than 20 days since Xpeng released its financial report for the same period, and nearly a month has passed since the ideal financial report.
Let's take a look at NIO's fundamentals in the third quarter. Revenue in the third quarter was 190700 million yuan, an increase of 117 percent month-on-month4%, a year-on-year increase of 466%；Deliveries were 55,432 units, up 135 percent from the previous month7%, a year-on-year increase of 754%。NIO used two "record highs" in a row to describe the growth in revenue and deliveries.
Compared to the second quarter (0.99%), with a gross profit margin of 110%。R&D expenditure exceeded 3 billion yuan for four consecutive quarters. The net loss was 462.9 billion yuan, compared with the second quarter (-61.2.2 billion yuan) narrowed significantly, but the year-on-year (net loss in the third quarter of 2022 was 41.4.2 billion yuan) is still expanding.
Overall, NIO's fundamentals improved sequentially in the third quarter as new models continued to increase. However, compared with car companies such as Ideal, Xiaopeng, and Cialis, NIO is still the car company with the most losses in China. As of the first three quarters of 2023, NIO has accumulated losses of 15 billion yuan. On the other hand, the first game is ideal, and it has made a net profit of 5 billion yuan in the first three quarters.
At the third quarter earnings meeting, NIO communicated on battery swap business, brand and product planning.
The battery swap business may be split and separated
There are some investors interested in NIO Power's spin-off financing, and we do not rule out the possibility of such a thing," said Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, adding that profitability has already been seen in some regions.
According to the data, NIO launched the NIO Power one-click power-up service in June 2018. NIO Power is based on a network of charging and swapping facilities to build a "rechargeable, swappable and upgradeable" energy service system. As of December 5, NIO has deployed a total of 2,226 battery swap stations around the world, including 3,492 charging stations (including overcharging + memocharging), 20,479 charging piles (including supercharging + memocharging), and 1,460,000+ third-party charging piles.
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According to the plan, the second brand Alps will also share the charging and swapping network with the NIO brand. However, sales are separated, and there will be no shared stores, but part of the service network will be shared. Li Bin also revealed that Alps' first model has recently completed the trial production of the VB car, "It should be said that the state is very good, and there is still enough time to continue to optimize and improve." ”
According to Li, NIO Power's charging business has basically broken even, with more than 80% of the electricity being used by brand users other than NIO. He believes that the battery swap business model will definitely be sustainable in the long run, and it will also have very good profitability.
In Li Bin's view, compared with high-end market users, the proportion of mass-market brand users who can install home charging piles is low. This is the reason why NIO is opening up the battery packs of the mass-market brand to its partners, and it is also a big positive for increasing revenue. In November this year, Changan Automobile and Geely Holding Group successively reached a battery swap business cooperation with NIO. "There are still a few more in the process of negotiation," Li Bin revealed.
NIO accepts various ways to carry out battery swap business cooperation. For example, when a partner builds a battery swap station, NIO is responsible for operating it, or the other party holds the battery swap station according to the purchase method, and then integrates it into NIO's energy replenishment network and operation system. "We already have dozens of battery swap stations that have adopted this cooperation method," Li Bin said.
However, the battery pack standards of various car companies are not uniform. Therefore, if a car company joins NIO's battery swap and energy replenishment network, it needs to redevelop the model based on NIO's battery pack. If more car companies join the "battery swap alliance" in the future, NIO is expected to become one of the setters of battery pack standards.
Those things that reduce costs and lay off employees
At this financial report meeting, issues such as organizational structure adjustment, business adjustment, and independent production qualification were also the focus of discussion. In the final analysis, the above problems are related to reducing costs and increasing efficiency.
The first is organizational restructuring, especially layoffs. Those who have a certain understanding of Weilai should know that at the end of last year, Li Bin also promised in an internal speech that "as long as wages can be paid, it is easy not to do layoffs". A year later, NIO announced a 10% reduction in jobs, citing "difficult decisions that had to be made in the face of fierce market competition." In order to improve the efficiency of the organization, NIO merged the departments and positions that were redundantly built, changed the inefficient internal workflow and division of labor, and eliminated the inefficient positions.
Due to the need to pay additional compensation to departing employees in the fourth quarter, there will be little financial impact. But Li Bin stressed, "For next year's cuts, we have also postponed certain projects, saving about 2 billion yuan in 2024." ”
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At the same time, NIO has also made adjustments to its business. For projects that cannot improve the company's financial performance within three years, NIO will reduce or postpone it. For example, the self-made battery project was changed to research and develop battery cells and materials, and commissioned the production of manufacturers.
Li Bin once again emphasized three high-priority goals: 1. Long-term investment in core and key technologies to ensure NIO's leading edge in technology and products; 2. The network expansion of sales and service has increased sales personnel and sales outlets, and the goal is to turn sales into sales; 3. Ensure that 9 core products of NIO's three brands are launched as scheduled.
Finally, when it comes to the transfer of some assets of JAC, NIO believes that it will help reduce costs. On October 19, JAC Motors publicly listed and transferred some assets, including the two factories cooperated by JAC and NIO, the JAC NIO Advanced Manufacturing Base and the NIO Second Advanced Manufacturing Base. NIO cost a total of 315.8 billion yuan to acquire two major assets, and obtained production qualifications.
NIO said that if it is fully in-house, the overall manufacturing cost will be reduced by 10%.
2024: Profit margins can increase to 15%-18%.
At the moment, NIO's profit margin is not optimistic, at only 11%. However, NIO said that it will not reduce gross profit margin and eventually exchange price reductions for sales. NIO's fourth-quarter sales target is 470,000 4The total monthly sales of 90,000 units reached 320,000 vehicles, with a high probability of achieving this goal). NIO believes that the target for the fourth quarter is still 15% gross margin, considering higher market production efficiency, lower lithium carbonate** and lower parts costs. By 2024, NIO's profit margin is expected to increase to 15%-18%. NIO's long-term goal is to exceed 20%.
Obviously, for 2024, NIO remains optimistic. "Overall, the company thinks 2024 will be a little better than this year. ”