Since the popularity of Weibo in the automobile circle, I feel that there is no secret in this industry! In particular, many of the senior executives of various companies have begun to let themselves go, and they are not at all as cautious as they were in the interview.
No, at the beginning of the year, Nezha Automobile was concerned by the outside world because of the delay in the payment of employee year-end bonuses, and the various replies of the CEO of Nezha Automobile triggered speculation about Nezha's layoffs. In our opinion, the internal problems of the enterprise can be solved secretly, but once the matter is made public, the direction of development will often become uncontrollable.
In the past year, Nezha Automobile's total annual sales volume increased by about 16% year-on-year, which made it rank last among the five mainstream new car-making forces, becoming the only car company with a sharp year-on-year decline. In contrast, several other new players have achieved double-digit sales growth. In the face of the decline in sales, at the end of last year, Daniel Zhang made a careful review and summary on Weibo with a large paragraph, and almost at the same time, Nezha issued a series of personnel appointment and dismissal notices, and the most conspicuous of them is that Daniel Zhang is personally responsible for marketing.
After Daniel Zhang's active self-help, Nezha's sales in January this year returned to the "10,000 club" again, reaching 11,009 units, a year-on-year increase of 668%, an increase of 954%。In particular, it is worth mentioning that of Nezha's 11,009 sales in January, 2,821 units were sold in overseas markets.
Probably because he has some achievements again and is a little relaxed, Daniel Zhang recently "quarreled" with netizens everywhere on Weibo about the incident of "Gaohe Automobile suspension of production", and this episode inadvertently broke out more inside stories of Nezha Automobile and Daniel Zhang, such as the employee year-end bonus has not been issued until now.
According to Daniel Zhang's reply to netizens, Nezha may then optimize layoffs. The emergence of many phenomena also seems to indirectly reflect Nezha's current embarrassing situation. Some netizens commented on the comments: The reason why Daniel Zhang spoke up for Gao He's Ding Lei on Weibo may be that he saw his own shadow in Ding Lei!
made a fuss and finally set himself on fire
Recently, the incident of Gaohe Automobile "suspending work and production for 6 months" can be said to have earned enough popularity on the Internet, and when it comes to Gaohe, people can easily think of Nezha Automobile, which was also in sales difficulties. However, this time Gaohe fell into the storm of "suspension of production and work", which was not about Nezha, everything stemmed from Nezha's CEO Daniel Zhang's "fun".
On February 19, Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang posted on Weibo for Ding Lei, the founder of Gaohe Automobile, saying: "Seeing the comments on Gaohe on the Internet, I don't know what these people think, isn't Ding Lei worthy of respect and admiration?" As a result, a netizen thought was curious, thinking that the reason why Daniel Zhang said this was just to see his own shadow from Ding Lei, so he commented under Daniel Zhang's Weibo: "Is this paving the way for himself in advance?" ”
I thought that Daniel Zhang, who was the CEO of Nezha, "has a lot of adults", would not pay attention to such comments, but who knew that Daniel Zhang was on the bar, and immediately-for-tat, replied: "What are you talking about!" If there are more people like you, can the entrepreneurial atmosphere get better? There was a strong sense of irony in the words.
As a Nezha employee who eats melons, he just watched silently, but now it's okay - the boss didn't give us a year-end bonus, and he didn't keep a low profile, and he even chatted with people everywhere on the Internet. As a result, the already angry employee shook out the inside story on the Internet, the employee said: Daniel Zhang originally promised to pay the year-end bonus "the first week of work after the year" years ago, but now the employee is told that he is still going through the process, and the specific will wait until March, and the coefficient ratio is not informed, and the specific date has not been determined. The employee then added below the post that "the provident fund for January is also in arrears".
Daniel Zhang is honest now, and in response to the year-end bonus, he specially posted a long Weibo to explain. The key point is that "the employee's annual performance payment coefficient and amount will be paid in March in the final review and confirmation". Daniel Zhang added at the end of Weibo: "Since 2016, Nezha employees' salaries, bonuses and social security have not been cashed out one day late, last year was so difficult, we did not think about salary cuts, layoffs, maybe a small number of employees in the company are not used to living a hard life, it seems that it is necessary to pass the cold to everyone." ”
On this occasion, other executives of the company are not easy to speak, because if they help the boss speak, they will offend the employees below, and if they help the employees speak, they will offend the boss. But sometimes there are "conspicuous bags" in the world, and I have to come out to make a sycophant - the vice president of Nezha Automobile Marketing Company commented under the blog post: As an employee who is about to be four years old, I can say in good conscience that the company has never defaulted on deducting employees' salary performance, and colleagues with strong ability and good performance have salary increases years ago. The problem may lie in the construction of our corporate culture, individual employees do not know the blessing in the blessing, and there is no gratitude.
Daniel Zhang, CEO of Nezha Automobile, later mentioned in his reply: "At this critical moment, maybe everyone is more sensitive and more concerned about this matter." ”The "critical moment" here obviously refers to the suspension of work and production of Gaohe, and the "everyone is more sensitive" refers to the employee's fear that Nezha, like Gaohe, will not be able to issue a year-end bonus because of financial constraints.
Later, in the comments on Weibo, some netizens said that Nezha's management personnel were a little bloated, and suggested that he sort out the organizational structure and management staffDaniel Zhang replied: "It's time to start rectifying and streamlining institutions and personnel!" This seems to indicate that Nezha will lay off employees next. It seems that Daniel Zhang really wants to fulfill his promise and pass on the cold of the industry to everyone.
Sales**, frequent measures to save themselves
It is reported that the sales volume of Nezha cars in 2023 will be about 12740,000 units, down about 16% year-on-year, and this sales volume is also far from the sales target of 250,000 units set at the beginning of 2023, and only 51% of the sales target has been achieved. Among them, it is especially worth mentioning that in December 2023, Nezha's sales in December will only be 5,135 units, a year-on-year decrease of 341%, down 589%, which is the only car company among the five mainstream new car-making forces to decline year-on-year.
In addition, Nezha Automobile's annual sales in 2023 are not only at the bottom of the five new car-making forces, but also the only car company among the five new forces to have a significant year-on-year decline in annual sales, and several other car companies have basically achieved double-digit growth, especially Li Auto, which sold 37 for the year60,000 units, a significant increase of 182 year-on-year21%。
As a comparison, Nezha Automobile's annual sales in 2022 will be 1520,000 units, which was the sales champion of the new car-making forces that year. There are many reasons why Nezha's sales will decline sharply in 2023, but one of the main reasons may be that the 100,000 yuan price track where its main sales model is located will already have too many strong competitors in 2023.
According to official data, among the 152073 total sales of Nezha Automobile that won the sales championship in 2022, the Nezha V, which has a guide price of around 100,000 yuan, sold 98,847 units, accounting for 65%, while the Nezha U, which is about 150,000 yuan, contributed 33% of the sales, accounting for 98% of Nezha Automobile's total sales that year.
In 2023, the car companies led by Tesla have set off a "** war" that lasted for almost a whole year, and this round of "** war" has made the ** of more models of other brands drop to 150,000 yuan or even below 100,000 yuan, which makes Nezha, who started with the low-end and won the sales championship by focusing on cost performance, at a loss, and the advantages that he was once proud of are gone.
In addition, the core technology of its products is not too strong and the brand positioning is not clear is also an important reason. For example, the "Wei Xiaoli" on the current market all have their own characteristics: Li Auto is the first choice for daddy cars, Xiaopeng focuses on intelligent driving, Weilai highlights battery swap services, and when it comes to Nezha, in addition to low prices, few consumers can immediately think of its brand positioning.
In fact, Nezha is not unaware of the crisis caused by the erosion of its market share, which is why it will launch two mid-to-high-end models, Nezha S and Nezha GT, in July 2022 and April 2023 respectively.
According to Nezha's official information, the guide price of Nezha GT was 17 when it was listed88-22.680,000, Nezha S guide price is 1998-33.880,000 yuan, basically in the middle and high-end price. According to Nezha's official data, from April to June 2023, the sales of Nezha GT were 295, 1716 and 1298 respectively, while Nezha S's sales in the first half of 2023 were only 11965 units, with a monthly average of less than 2000 units.
In the face of sluggish sales, at the end of 2023, Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang wrote a "review book" on Weibo with a large paragraph of text, analyzing the reasons for Nezha's sales decline in 2023, expressing his dissatisfaction with his own marketing team, and more importantly, clearly giving the next adjustment plan.
Previously, Nezha Automobile also announced a series of personnel appointments and dismissals on December 29Among them, the most conspicuous is the dismissal of Jiang Feng, who is in charge of marketing, and the CEO Daniel Zhang is personally in charge. In addition to paying close attention to marketing, Daniel Zhang said that after two years of development, Nezha has the foundation to accelerate its progress in overseas markets in 2024. At present, Nezha's sales in overseas markets have reached 20,000 units.
I have to say that after this series of operations, the sales of Nezha Automobile have indeed improved. In January this year, Nezha's sales returned to the 10,000 club, reaching 11,009 units, a year-on-year increase of 668%, an increase of 954%。In particular, of the more than 10,000 units sold in January, 2,821 units were sold to overseas markets.
Daniel Zhang said at the Value Chain ConferenceIn 2024, Nezha Automobile's annual sales target is 300,000 units, of which 200,000 units are targeted for domestic sales and 100,000 units for overseas sales. This sales target means that Nezha's sales this year need to increase by 135 year-on-year compared with last year's actual sales29%, which is not a lot of pressure.
Losing money year after year, a penny is difficult to defeat a hero
Sluggish sales inevitably lead to the inability to dilute costs, making it difficult to achieve profitability. The annual report of 360 Group, one of Nezha's shareholders, shows that Nezha's net loss in 2020 is 132.1 billion yuan, a net loss of 2.9 billion yuan in 2021, and a net loss of 69 million yuan in 2022$1.9 billion. The loss has increased year by year, and the cumulative loss of Nezha Automobile has been as high as 111 in the past three years400 million yuan.
And Daniel Zhang seems to be aware of this problem, he once said: "If data growth comes at the expense of profits or even negative gross profits, this growth is worthless." "It is reported that at present, most of the new car companies are in a state of loss, and the only one that has turned a profit for the first time this year is Li Auto.
On February 26, Li Auto released its fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial report, which was officially said to be its best financial performance since its establishment in 2015. According to the financial report, Li Auto's revenue in 2023 will be 12385.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 17348%；Net profit was 1180.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 68106%。
The surge in revenue and profit must be related to its sales last year. It is reported that the delivery volume of Li Auto in 2023 will be 3760,000 units, a significant increase of 182% year-on-year, far ahead of several mainstream new power car companies. In addition, its target completion rate has reached 1253%, ranking first among domestic car companies.
Increasing revenue and profits may be the reason why Li Auto is "wealthy" in the 2023 year-end bonus. It is rumored that the maximum year-end bonus for employees of Li Auto is 8 months' salary, 2 months for general employees, and 4 months for medium employees, and if calculated according to the average monthly salary of Li Auto employees of 32,045 yuan, the 8-month year-end bonus is equivalent to 2560,000 yuan, the year-end bonus alone is more than the annual salary of ordinary employees in other industries.
Seeing the year-end bonus of Li Auto, I don't know how Nezha employees will feel about the year-end bonus until now. Years of losses, coupled with the burning of money in car manufacturing, have led to at least 10 rounds of financing since 2017, with a total public financing amount of more than 20 billion yuan, and investors include CATL, Shenzhen Venture Capital, 360 Group, Huading Capital, etc.
In addition to financing, listing is also a good way to obtain funds, previously, there have indeed been many news that Nezha is about to go public, but unfortunately it always died due to various reasons. For example, in July 2020, it was reported that Nezha Automobile announced that it would start the listing application of the Science and Technology Innovation Board, and planned to complete the listing in 2021. However, at that time, the Science and Technology Innovation Board required to strengthen the review of the "scientific and technological content" of listed companies, which led to Nezha Automobile terminating its plan to list on the Science and Technology Innovation Board.
In 2022, there was news that Nezha Automobile was preparing to IPO in Hong Kong, but it was once again denied by Nezha Automobile. In June 2023, it was reported that Nezha's parent company, Hezhong New Energy Vehicle, was considering submitting a $1 billion Hong Kong IPO application within a month, and then Nezha issued a statement saying that it was a rumor.
At the end of August 2023, Nezha announced the completion of a crossover round of financing totaling 7 billion yuan, with specific investors and details not yet disclosed. Industry insiders believe that crossover rounds of financing are usually equity investments made to make a company's IPO faster. It's just that until now, Nezha's listing still has no eyebrows.
On February 26, it was reported that Nezha Automobile had started preparations for its IPO in Hong Kong in the fourth quarter of last year, and the amount of cornerstone investment signed has exceeded 2 billion yuan. Industry insiders pointed out that in view of the previous crossover round of financing of Nezha Automobile, the news of its IPO in Hong Kong is likely to be more credible.
In the face of multiple failed IPOs, Daniel Zhang previously said in an interview with reporters that he did not need much money: "Now that the market is so cold, the probability of listing is relatively large, and the current listing may not be a good time." "At present, the company has more than 10 billion yuan on its books, and it is not so anxious to go public, and it has to follow its own pace." ”
Interestingly, in the face of declining sales and consecutive years of losses in profits, Daniel Zhang's attitude towards listing has changed significantly. For example, he later said: "The development of enterprises needs a lot of money, and it is false to say that we are not short of money, that is, enterprises that have now been listed and raised money also need to refinance, and for enterprises, the more money, the better." ”
The demand for funds may be the reason why Nezha has taken the initiative to participate in the "** war" recently. On February 19, in the face of BYD, 7The 980,000 yuan Qin Plus Glory Edition, Nezha CEO Daniel Zhang personally said: "We also took the initiative to open the volume." ”Subsequently, a full-range price reduction strategy was implemented for a number of major models. Among them, Nezha x has the highest drop of 2 in the whole system20,000 yuan, stepping into the range of less than 100,000 yuan, the price of Nezha Aya is reduced by 8,000 yuan, and the price of Nezha S is reduced by 5,000 yuan.
No one expected that Daniel Zhang, who was once so arrogant, now has a day to bend down.