In 2022, NIO's full-year net loss was 14437.1 billion yuan. I thought this was already a loss ceiling, but what I didn't expect was that there was no highest only higher.
In NIO's latest financial report released on March 5, NIO's revenue in 2023 will be 55.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 129%, a new high. However, the net loss widened by 45% year-on-year to 207200 million yuan.
From 2018 to 2022, NIO's annual net loss was 2332.8 billion yuan, 1141.3 billion yuan, 561.1 billion yuan, 1057.2 billion and 1455.9 billion yuan. If you add the loss amount in 2023, the cumulative loss in 6 years has reached 86.4 billion. Other car companies are "profit generators", and NIO can really be called a "banknote crusher" among car companies.
Where's the loss?
The annual revenue hit a new high, but the net loss also increased significantly. A closer look at NIO's financial report will find that the expansion of losses mainly comes from two aspects.
The first is the huge R&D and infrastructure costs. For the full year of 2023, NIO's R&D investment will be 134300 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 239%, exceeding 10 billion for two consecutive years. NIO has the only battery swap mode in the industry, and the construction of battery swap stations is a continuous investment, and NIO is still a well-known "non-business" car company, making batteries, chips, and mobile phones, and these projects are being done by NIO. Any one of these is an investment of billions of yuan, and the return cycle is long and uncertain.
For example, in 2023, NIO will build 1,035 new battery swap stations, and if the construction cost of 3 million yuan per station is calculated, this item is more than 3 billion yuan. NIO also launched its own mobile phone, Niophone, in 2023, which is widely seen as a waste of money and resources. And just to buy part of the factory assets from JAC, NIO spent more than 3 billion yuan.
On the other hand, NIO's selling, general and administrative expenses have also increased significantly, and NIO's selling, general and administrative expenses in 2023 will be RMB128800 million yuan, an increase of 22 over the previous year3%。This part of the speculation is mainly due to the increase in marketing costs caused by the ** war in 2023. NIO's gross profit margin for the full year was only 55%, and it only rebounded to 11 in the fourth quarter9%, apparently dragged down by price cuts.
Therefore, if it weren't for the excessively high R&D investment and the first war, maybe NIO's losses would not be so exaggerated.
Sales are collapsing
However, even so, NIO's performance is still worrying.
The biggest problem is sales. In 2023, NIO will deliver 160,000 vehicles, ranking second among new forces. However, the ideal that ranks first is not only far behind other new forces in terms of sales, but also has an annual net profit of more than 10 billion yuan. In contrast, NIO not only achieved only 65% of its full-year sales target, but also suffered a significant loss.
In 2023, NIO will release three new cars, the EC7, ET5T, and ET9, while the old ES8, ES6, and EC6 will all switch to the second-generation platform, which is equivalent to six cars released in one year. But in fact, the only models that can really go can go are ES6 and ET5, which are relatively low. This is due to the fact that Li Bin has always stubbornly adhered to the high-end luxury positioning, set the bottom line of Weilai's products at more than 300,000 yuan, and refused to reduce the price. It wasn't until June last year that NIO cut prices by 30,000 yuan in disguised form by stripping off the rights and interests of free battery swaps, and its sales performance improved.
It can be said that although the NIO brand has established a high-end luxury positioning to a certain extent, the price paid for this is that it is difficult to increase the scale of sales quickly, which in turn affects profitability. This also led to NIO having to rely on the blood transfusion of Middle Eastern funds to continue its life in 2023, and Li Bin even finally made the decision to lay off 10% of its staff, cancel some positions, and focus on its core business.
Suffering from the Alps "rescue".
Now it seems that Li Bin's insistence on the main brand of NIO in the product ** is to leave room for the sub-brand "Alps". In short, the matter of pretending to be forced is left to NIO, and the task of sales and fighting the ** war is left to Alps.
At the same time as NIO announced its 2023 financial report, spy photos of Alps' first model began to circulate on the Internet. It is not difficult to see from the spy photos that the rear window of the vehicle is plastered with the slogan "Better than the Model Y", which is a model that completely benchmarks the Tesla Model Y, and the main feature is that it is bigger, cheaper, and more powerful than the Model Y. Judging from the average monthly sales of the Model Y of 40,000 units, if Alps can grab a share of it, it will definitely be a big boost to NIO's sales.
But here's the problem. According to the plan, Alps will not be released until the third quarter of this year, and mass deliveries will begin in the fourth quarter. And the NIO brand will not launch a new model in 2024. This means that for most of 2024, NIO will need to rely on existing models to survive the Alps to achieve a reversal. Of course, this is still based on the premise that the first battle will not disrupt the pricing strategy of Alps, and the Alps can become a popular model according to NIO's expectations after its launch.
In addition, Alps needed to build a sales network independent of the NIO brand. This means that there will continue to be a lot of investment. Don't look at NIO's cash reserves, there are still more than 50 billion yuan, but in the current market, money can't stand burning. It has been calculated that the total amount of borrowings, accounts payable, and current liabilities due within one year has exceeded 50 billion yuan. Therefore, whether it can survive until the Alps "rescue" is a huge test for NIO's cash flow.
Conclusion:
Among the three Wei Xiaoli at the beginning, Weilai was the most high-end luxury brand. However, NIO is the most ill-fated. In 2019, NIO narrowly escaped life, and finally survived by relying on Hefei**. In 2023, NIO will have to rely on financing and layoffs to continue its blood transfusion. In 2024, NIO, which insists on not fighting the first war, will be a phoenix nirvana, or will collapse again, perhaps by the end of the year.
Text: Youshi Automobile, Old Cannon).
Note: The picture comes from the Internet, the rights belong to the original author, thank you too! This article only represents the author's personal views and does not represent the position of Youshi Auto.