After a year of hard work, the loss at the end of the year was more than 2 billion yuan.
On the evening of January 24, Huawei's in-depth partner of smart car business, Celis Automobile, announced its 2023 performance forecast: operating income is expected to reach 35.5 billion yuan to 36.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 409% to 702%；The net profit loss was 2.1 billion yuan and 2.7 billion yuan, and the non-net profit loss was 4.6 billion yuan and 5 billion yuan.
This number surprised netizens. Everyone didn't expect that the question industry was selling so hot, and Cialis cars still couldn't make ends meet.
Just before the announcement of the performance forecast, on January 20, Yu Chengdong, chairman of Huawei's car BU, revealed on social media that the number of Wenjie M7 has exceeded 130,000 units in the 4-month market.
Some netizens love Wu and Wu, saying, "Cialis itself is a little-known car company, next to Huawei, with a market value of hundreds of billions, and sales have only improved a little in recent months." It can only be said that Huawei is too strong. ”
According to the performance forecast, since the official cooperation with Huawei to build the high-end new energy brand "AITO Wenjie" in 2021, the company's revenue has increased significantly, and at the same time, the net profit attributable to the parent company after deducting non-profits has been deducted, and in the past three years, Cialis has accumulated a loss of 1168.9 billion 120$8.9 billion.
Could it be that the better the world sells, the more Cialis loses?
Regarding the performance loss in 2023, Cialis explained: "Mainly due to the high R&D investment in the core technology and products of high-end smart electric vehicles, resulting in an increase in R&D expenses and labor costs, while sales in the first three quarters were sluggish, and fixed expenses and related expenses were also high. ”
In addition, in order to increase sales in the fourth quarter, Cialis increased its market efforts in the first half of the year, and the high cost of raw materials in the first half of the year, which affected the performance as a whole.
On February 2, on the question of when it will reach breakeven, Yicai called Cialis investor ** as an investor, and the staff said that there was no way to make **.
In the face of more doubts from the market, Cialis does not have much to explain. Zhang Xinghai, the founder of Cialis Group, who is over the age of six, doesn't have much to say. Since he decided to play the table, he had to keep playing.
In the past 2023, Cialis can be said to be surviving from the dead.
Since the company reached a market value of 100 billion yuan in July 2022, in May 2023, the share price of Cialis fell from the horse's back again, and the market value was only less than 50 billion yuan, which trapped many high-level investors, and also made Zhang Xinghai and Yu Chengdong sweat for the future of AITO.
In September 2023, after the release of the new M7, the smart car cooperated by Huawei and Cialis finally "came back to life", and the market value of Cialis also soared to 100 billion yuan, which made Huawei's car-making camp, which has been sluggish, suddenly become popular.
Tianyancha APP shows that Zhang Xinghai's family indirectly or directly holds about 28% of the shares of Cialis Group. In November 2023, the market value of Cialis will reach a peak of 120 billion yuan, and the assets of the Zhang family will soar to more than 33.6 billion yuan.
This business story of death and life has to start from three years ago.
In 2021, Zhang Xinghai, who has been in the business for more than 30 years, made one of the most important decisions in his life - to take the company to join Huawei's smart car model.
At that time, Cialis Group was still called Xiaokang Co., Ltd., which had been building cars for many years, and it was always a "small and transparent" rim. To the outside world, this is a company that only produces low-end cars. If its Dongfeng Fengguang, Dongfeng Xiaokang, Ruichi and other SUV models are still familiar, and the micro-surface commercial vehicles are also somewhat famous, but the industry generally believes that these are its dependence on the central enterprise Dongfeng Motor Group.
In 2019, Xiaokang shares could barely make a profit, but in 2020, the net profit attributable to the parent company lost 1.7 billion at once. That year, the annual income of Xiaokang was only 14.3 billion yuan, and the average sales price of bicycles was only more than 50,000 yuan.
If you are poor, you will think about change. Zhang Xinghai urgently needed a life-saving straw to pull him. I don't know how much of this world is a coincidence, but in 2021, Yu Chengdong, then Huawei's executive director and CEO of the consumer business, pulled a cart of straw.
Huawei needs a demonstration testing ground, and Zhang Xinghai needs money. Based on the common confidence in new energy vehicles, the two parties quickly finalized the cooperation. In April 2021, during the Shanghai Auto Show, the two parties announced that the smart car jointly built by Huawei and Xiaokang Co., Ltd. provided the production line, the Celis SF5, was officially launched and pre-orders were opened at the same time.
This decision saved the well-off shares that were in dire straits at the time, but it also made Zhang Xinghai question it since then - "Isn't this the 'soul' handed over to Huawei" "Can the well-off build a good car?" This is not only the voice of some netizens, but also the unspoken opinion of many people in the industry.
Zhang Xinghai is very practical, compared to who to give the "soul", this body can be alive. During that time, Zhang Xinghai talked to Yu Chengdong more than his family, and sometimes the two would talk at one or two o'clock in the middle of the night.
In order to further deepen the determination of Xiaokang to enter the new energy market, at the beginning of August 2022, he directly changed the name of the listed company to "Cialis Group", and became a "Huawei concept stock" in the new energy vehicle industry.
Since then, the stock price of Cialis, which hugged Huawei's thigh, has increased from 15 at the beginning of the year within half a year$64 The stock rose to a high of 83 in mid-June83 yuan shares, more than 5 times. In March 2022, Zhang Xinghai and Yan Min ranked 1864th in the "2022 Hurun Global Rich List" with a wealth of 12.5 billion yuan.
After having money, how to make money become a new problem. As soon as the Cialis SF5 was launched, it was poured cold water on the market. If the product is not recognized, it is useless to say how much.
In December 2021, the two sides renamed the car produced by the cooperation - AITO Wenjie, which came. The first mid-size SUV, the M5, is regarded by the outside world as an upgraded version of the Cialis SF5, but it has more Huawei flavor than the SF5. In 2022, this car will also become the main sales force, helping AITO to win more than 7The performance of 50,000 vehicles has become a "dark horse" in the car circle.
For a time, Cialis was surrounded by capital. In the first half of 2022, Cialis has been surveyed by at least nearly 150 institutions, and Zhang Xinghai has personally participated in many first-class meetings of institutional research. In July 2022, Cialis launched a new round of private placement, of which 17 institutions were 51The issue price of 98 yuan shares has helped Cialis to transfuse more than 7 billion yuan. In the same month, the market value of Cialis reached the peak of 100 billion.
The stock price change chart of Cialis in the past year, the screenshot comes from Xueqiu. ）
In this game, not only the company's brand image has been greatly improved, but the stock price and market value have also been repeated. But in 2023, the market gave Zhang Xinghai a hammer.
At the beginning of 2023, "Catfish" Tesla started the first battle of domestic car companies, and Wenjie became the first car company to follow up on price reductions, and used the logo of "Huawei Wenjie" in publicity, intending to rub off on a wave of Huawei's popularity, but unfortunately it was half the effort.
Soon, an even bigger crit came. In March of the same year, Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, internally reiterated that "Huawei will not make cars" within five years, that the combined use of Huawei brands and car trademarks is not allowed, and that the logos of "Huawei Wenjie" and "Huawei AITO" are banned.
In April 2023, Cialis announced its production and sales report: the sales volume of new energy vehicles in the month was 6,917, a year-on-year decrease of 1912%；Among them, the sales volume of Cialis Automobile was 2,953, a year-on-year decrease of 1413%, with a total of 1470,000 units, a decrease of 2649%。From January to June 2023, the cumulative sales of Sailis Automobile will be 25,761 units. Compared to the same period last year, sales fell by 197%。
Since the sales of Cialis cars mainly rely on the world, the trough in the first half of the year made Cialis and Huawei very anxious. On August 26, 2023, the new M7 with an investment of more than 500 million yuan officially opened for pre-sale, and Zhang Xinghai and Yu Chengdong decided to fight against the water.
As it turned out later, the new M7 saved everyone. During the 2023 National Day holiday, the new M7 received large orders of more than 10,000 units on October 5 and 6. Only then did Yu Chengdong dare to breathe a sigh of relief: "It's not easy to come back to life!" ”
Looking back on the past year, Cialis has had a lot of ups and downs. Entering February 2024, the company's latest market value fell back to about 88.3 billion yuan, and the wealth of the Zhang family also shrank to about 24.7 billion yuan.
About Cialis and Zhang Xinghai, there is such an impressive picture on social **.
On May 27, 2023, the Liangjiang Smart Factory in Chongqing, the base camp of Celis Automobile, located at No. 101 Yukang Avenue, Jiangbei District, is celebrating the official launch of the 100,000th production car of AITO.
On May 27, 2023, Chongqing, the 100,000th production vehicle of AITO Wenjie officially rolled off the assembly line. Source: aito Automobile's official WeChat).
This day marks the 15th month of the birth of AITO. This year, Zhang Xinghai turned 60 years old. Sitting next to Yu Chengdong, who is 6 years younger than him, he looks like a guest.
On the occasion of many new car launches last year, Yu Chengdong was the absolute protagonist, the flash lights of the first class were lit for him, and the guns of friends were fired because of him. On the other hand, Zhang Xinghai has an image of an "honest man" who does not fight or grab.
In July 2022, Zhang Xinghai praised Yu Chengdong for the first time for the public platform of Wenjie M7: "Mr. Yu participated, that is the real productist here, personally end, personally guided, and personally defined the ...... of the car."These words made Yu Chengdong a little embarrassed, and bluntly said, "I have won the award, I have won the award."
So much so that until the company's stock price soared in 2023, some people still looked down on Cialis, thinking that it was by relying on Pong Huawei that it gained market attention, and Zhang Xinghai relied on Yu Chengdong to raise his value.
However, a source close to Huawei told the city that Zhang Xinghai is highly regarded within Huawei, and they believe that Zhang has a deep understanding of the automobile industry, "It's not how much Huawei has done, Zhang Xinghai already understands (the industry) very well." ”
The most important thing is that, compared with other partners, Zhang Xinghai has a very high degree of cooperation with Huawei. Zhou Lin, general manager of the automotive product line of Cialis, once mentioned to ** that after the two sides studied the new model of Cialis, Huawei engineers put forward many suggestions for improvement. If they feel that their colleagues at Huawei have a point, they will change it, and if there is an engineering difficulty that they do not understand, they will communicate and discuss a solution together.
What kind of person is Zhang Xinghai who is Huawei?
In 1963, Zhang Xinghai was born in a rural family in Shapingba District, Chongqing, and he had two older brothers, Zhang Xingming and Zhang Xingli. In 1986, at the age of 23, he and his brothers raised 8,000 yuan to establish "Chongqing Baxian Phoenix Electric Spring Factory" and started their first business.
At that time, the square wire springs used in household appliances on the market were imported from Japan, which was expensive. Zhang Xinghai's research and development of the square wire holding spring, breaking the situation of foreign technology monopoly. With its technical advantages in the field of springs, in 1996, Zhang Xinghai founded Chongqing Changan Shock Absorber, which mainly produces automobile shock absorbers and provides auto parts for Changan Automobile and Dongfeng Motor. Subsequently, it entered the field of motorcycle manufacturing and established Chongqing Yu'an Innovation Technology (Group)** referred to as "Yu'an Group").
Unfortunately, within a few years of engaging in the motorcycle business, Zhang Xinghai caught up with the "motorcycle restriction order" across the country, forcing him to transform from a two-wheeled business to a four-wheeled business. And just like that, his second venture began.
Source: aito Automobile's official WeChat).
But building a car is very different from building a motorcycle. At the end of the 90s of the 20th century, Li Shufu's Geely Group's first car, Geely, was discontinued after two years of being listed, which shows that it is not easy to build a car. Zhang Xinghai's second venture also had a rough start.
At that time, he needed to find an opportunity to enter the automotive industry, just as he needed to enter the new energy vehicle track through Huawei 20 years later.
In 2002 the opportunity came. At that time, Dongfeng Motor, which had lost tens of millions of yuan, wanted to make a joint venture with an automobile factory to produce mini cars. Although Dongfeng has losses, after all, there are still people who want to climb the relationship with the background of central enterprises.
At that time, Dongfeng put forward two conditions: one was to ask the other party to bear its debts, and the other was to build a new factory in Hubei, Dongfeng's base camp.
Originally, Zhang Xinghai thought that he was late, but he heard that Dongfeng and the intended partner had a disagreement on the location of the factory, and finally broke up unhappily, and he immediately expressed his sincerity to Dongfeng: I will bear tens of millions of debts; Build a factory in Hubei**, yes.
Half a month later, the two sides negotiated the details of the cooperation. "You won the battle. After signing the contract, a person in charge of Dongfeng Motor said to Zhang Xinghai.
In June 2003, Dongfeng Motor Company, Dongfeng Industrial Co., Ltd. and Yu'an Group jointly established Dongfeng Yu'an, which mainly produces Dongfeng Xiaokang brand micro cars. Zhang Xinghai paid 50 million yuan to Dongfeng, and he took half of the shares in the joint venture and served as the general manager.
With the "Dongfeng" of Dongfeng Motor, in 2007, Zhang Xinghai invited Wang Baoqiang, who was on fire due to the "Soldier Assault", to be the brand spokesperson, and the advertising slogan of "Open the East Wind, Ben Xiaokang" quickly spread all over the country. In that year, Zhang Xinghai changed Yu'an Group to "Chongqing Xiaokang Automobile Group", and later changed it to Chongqing Xiaokang Industrial Group Co., Ltd
In 2015, Dongfeng Xiaokang won the third place in the national mini car market share, and was known as the "three giants of China's micro car" and "three major car-pulling vehicles" together with Wuling Hongguang and Chang'an Star.
In 2016, the joint venture was listed on the A-share market under the name of "Xiaokang Shares". Later, Zhang Xinghai simply bought back the other half of the shares from Dongfeng Group, which also became the second largest shareholder of Xiaokang shares. After a big circle, it was not until 2019 that Zhang Xinghai finally built the Liangjiang Smart Factory in Chongqing.
Whether it was cooperating with Dongfeng Motor in the past or now working with Huawei, Zhang Xinghai has put his posture very low. He is an "honest man", and he is an entrepreneur who knows what he wants and is full of purpose.
Therefore, even if there is still a loss of more than 2 billion yuan in 2023, knowing that it costs a lot of money to build a car, in his New Year's speech on New Year's Day in 2024, Zhang Xinghai still said that Huawei is a cross-border business partner and will continue to strengthen cooperation with Huawei.
The older generation of entrepreneurs is much more diligent than many younger entrepreneurs.
While 70-year-old Wang Jianlin is still seeking a safe future for Wanda, Zhang Xinghai, 61, is guarding the window period for new energy vehicles, and there is no reason to take a back seat.
But unlike Wang Sicong, who was forced to become a Wanda ** person, Zhang Xinghai's son Zhang Zhengping took over the position of chairman of Cialis Group from his father very early.
Cialis is a typical family-owned business, and the elders often let their children enter the family business after social baptism, and support them at the right time.
In October 2020, Zhang Xinghai submitted his resignation, wanting to take off the burden of his four positions - chairman, chairman of the strategy committee of the board of directors, president and director. His two brothers, Zhang Xingli and Zhang Xingming, have also stepped down from the board of directors and the board of supervisors.
In November 2020, Zhang's three post-80s "second generations" began to appear: Zhang Zhengping, who was just over 30 years old, became the chairman of the company; His two cousins, Zhang Zhengyuan and Zhang Zhengcheng, entered the board of directors and the board of supervisors respectively, the former concurrently serves as the CMO of Cialis, and the latter serves as the chairman of the board of supervisors of the listed company.
On January 16, 2024, Sailis Group and Chongqing University signed a strategic cooperation agreement in Chongqing. Source: Chongqing University official WeChat).
However, the fight in the new energy vehicle market is bloody, and after the senior management of Cialis Group completes the transfer of rights, Zhang Xinghai still can't be completely assured, and he wants to help his son again. The board of directors also insisted that Zhang Xinghai stay and serve as the honorary chairman of the company.
Speaking of which, Cialis is moving towards the field of new energy vehicles, and Zhang Zhengping also has a credit.
In 2016, after the listing of Xiaokang shares, China's automobile market began to develop in the field of new energy, and overseas Tesla has begun to release the second-generation models Model 3 and Model Y. Zhang Xinghai spent nearly one million yuan to bring back a Tesla Model S from the port of Tianjin, and his goal is clear: to develop an electric car with performance comparable to Tesla. To this end, he invested 2.5 billion yuan to establish Jinkang New Energy.
Under his "instruction" and guidance, Zhang Zhengping went overseas to study, and after graduation, he established a new energy vehicle company called SF Motors in Silicon Valley, USA, and served as the company's founder and CEO. He acquired Martin Eberhard's (one of the co-founders of Tesla) Inevit and his team in the United States, and obtained complete electric vehicle technology.
Later, he returned to China** and participated in negotiations with Huawei. This is not only a good move, but also a dangerous move, and the fate of Cialis will be completely linked to Huawei.
At present, Cialis still faces many practical problems: the first is profitability; In addition, the number of friends in Huawei's smart car mode is gradually increasing, how should Cialis get along with friends?
The father and son of the Zhang family kept an eye on it and did not put all their eggs in the same basket. In the past year, Sailis has devoted a lot of energy to its original commercial vehicle business, going overseas and the newly established electric car brand "Blue Electric".
It's just that, compared with the popularity and sales of Wenjie, these can't bring Cialis to safety. "Creation of the first generation" Zhang Xinghai took the initiative to sit on the table and play a round, and then after that, it will be up to the "second generation" to see how the "second generation" moves.
Author |Yang Qiao.
Edit |Tian Yanlin.
Operations |Liu Shan.