Sales volume and gross profit, NIO's 2024 struggle guidance.
On March 5, 2024, NIO (hereinafter referred to as "NIO") held its fourth quarter and annual 2023 results conference. At the meeting, Li Bin, CEO of NIO, summarized the performance of the whole year of 2023 and elaborated on the new plan for 2024.
In the past year, NIO has delivered more than 160,000 new vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 307%；The increase in sales volume has raised NIO's revenue to 556200 million yuan, creating the highest operating income in the history of NIO. However, revenue only increased by 12 percent year-on-year9%, which is lower than the sales growth rate (price reductions in 2023 are the main reason for the lower revenue).
While sales and revenue are still in positive growth, NIO's expenses are also expanding in 2023, with SG&A expenses at 128 in 2023800 million yuan, an increase of 22 percent year-on-year3%；R&D investment was 134300 million, an increase of 239%, the growth rate is higher than the revenue growth.
In the context of such income and expenditure,NIO's net loss in 2023 reached 207200 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 435%, which means that NIO's cumulative spending in 2023 has reached 763400 million。But Li Bin was not pessimistic about this at the earnings conference. Facing 2024, it has put forward more rational target expectations and formulated more comprehensive strategic initiatives.
What are NIO's goals for 2024? And how will it be achieved?
Fangde Automobile Analysis and Interpretation.
To sell volume, but also to gross profit
In 2024, Li Bin is rational and restrained, and his sales target for NIO in 2024 is lower than the target for 2023.
In March 2023, Li Bin at NIO's 2022 full-year earnings conference expected that the sales volume for the full year of 2023 would double (24.).50,000 units), and at the same time, it put forward a high target guidance for monthly sales of more than 30,000 units. For the whole year of 2023, NIO has not achieved the above two goals (actual annual sales of 160,000 units, and the highest monthly sales of 20,462 units).
Entering 2024, NIO's annual sales target is 230,000 units, which is 1 lower than the 2023 target50,000 units; At the press conference on March 5, Li Bin announced the monthly sales target: the maximum monthly sales volume sprinted to more than 20,000 units, which is 10,000 units lower than the 2023 target
However, the low target sales volume does not mean that NIO will adopt a "defensive" posture in 2024, but Li Bin knows that the current NIO has many internal problems that need to be adjusted. In an internal letter at the beginning of the year in January, Li Bin clearly emphasized: ".Every colleague should be mentally prepared to give up illusions and face challenges head-onThe lowering of the sales target is only the first step for NIO to give up illusions and recognize reality.
In the first two months of the year, NIO's cumulative sales reached 18,187 units, and NIO's sales in the first quarter are expected to be 31,000-33,000 units, which means that NIO's sales plan for March is 13,000-15,000 units. Quickly achieving sales growth, sales growth, and becoming NIO's No. 1 guide in 2024.
Sales volume is not NIO's only goal in 2024; During the year, NIO will also make a steady recovery in gross profit margin. In this regard, NIO's short-term target is 15%-18%, and the long-term goal is to stabilize at more than 20%.。In 2023.
In the third and fourth quarters, the gross profit margin of NIO's vehicle business has exceeded 10%.
In order to achieve the above two goals, Li Bin carried out detailed strategic planning.
Make the Alps a "small ideal".
2024 is a small year for NIO's products. This year, NIO's core task was to remodel the old model, and there was only one new product - the first model under the new brand Alps.
At the end of February, NIO has released a number of facelifted models at one time, and the task of the old facelift has basically been "more than halfway completed". This means,In 2024, NIO's product focus will actually only be on Alps' new productsThis is also one of the core topics discussed by Li Bin at the earnings conference.
Alpine road map on the Internet.
As a brand-new brand with a slightly lower positioning than the NIO brand, Alps has a clear positioning plan, and the target consumer group is home users, which is comparable to the ideal brand positioning, which can be called "small ideal". However, on the product planning side, the "richness" of Alps is even higher.
Li Bin revealed,Alps' first model will compete directly with Tesla's Model Y, but it will be superior to Tesla in terms of product strength and cost control, and is expected to have a manufacturing cost 10% lower than Tesla's Model YThe new car will be officially launched and delivered in the second half of 2023; The competitor of the second model is Ideal, but considering that the price of Alps will not be higher than that of the NIO brand, the competitor of its second model is likely to be the Ideal L6 that will be released within the year, and the new car will be launched next year; A third model is still under development.
After the launch of Alps, it will become the core driving force for NIO's sales growth in 2024. Li Bin made it clear: ".Alps will focus on the home market, with the pursuit of volume as the priority, and the main goal is impulse
The original NIO brand will never exchange price for volume, but will focus on the high-end market, and it is impossible to launch a car that is cheaper than ET5, and its core task is to improve gross profit margin. This has formed a new development strategy that takes into account NIO's unique dual-brand sales volume and gross profit.
At the same time, NIO will invest diversified resources around Alps' brand building. On the channel side,NIO will develop no less than 200 new networks for the Alps brand within the coming year, and Alps will have a separate sales systemBut in other areas, it will not be completely separated from the NIO brand. On the sales side, NIO will transfer some sales personnel of the NIO brand to the Alps brand, and at the same time, Alps and NIO will share an after-sales service system and a partial charging and swapping network (some of the NIO charging and swapping stations are unique to the brand).
At the same time as the relatively low-cost Alpine brand is launched, NIO's channel layout will also sink in an all-round way. Li Bin revealed,At present, most of NIO's consumer users are concentrated in first-tier cities (accounting for more than 70%), which is actually a bottleneck for NIO's sales increase.
In 2024, NIO will accelerate its layout in the third- and fourth-tier markets, but the first march is neither products nor personnel, but an energy replenishment system.
A business other than selling cars
At the financial report meeting, the layout of NIO's charging and swapping stations was still the focus of Li Bin's discussion. As the car company with the most comprehensive charging and swapping layout system in China, NIO will make every effort to improve the efficiency of charging and swapping in 2024, and will also develop its "marketing potential".
Li Bin clearly emphasized this: ".In 2024, the deployment of NIO's battery swap stations will be more from the perspective of increasing sales。"In the penetration layout of the third- and fourth-tier markets, NIO will give priority to promoting the development of charging and swapping business, and it will undertake the task of "vanguard" advertising for NIO.
At the same time, Li Bin once again made a clear interpretation of the dispute between charging and battery swapping. In Li Bin's view, the current scale of charging is indeed higher than that of battery swapping, but battery swapping still has many advantages that charging does not have. The battery swap can realize both energy storage, users can experience it without getting out of the car, and at the same time, the battery can be maintained by battery swapping, which can greatly extend the battery life.
This is Li Bin's belief that the core advantage of NIO's battery swap business lies. It clearly emphasizedThe battery business has been solving the problems of battery safety and charging efficiency in the past, and these problems have been solved today, and the main problem facing the battery in the future is lifespan: the life cycle of the car is 15 years, and the current life of the battery is much lower than this, and this problem can only be solved by battery swapping
Adhering to the parallel charging and swapping mode has become one of NIO's unswerving strategic directions in 2024.
In addition, NIO will gradually expand its export business in 2024.
In the original five European markets, NIO will continue to explore and operate; At the same time, thanks to Abrabi's investment, NIO will consider entering the Arab market, but will adopt a more local strategic approach, and cooperation with local distributors may become the mainstream; In addition, exports will revolve around the Alps and Firefly brands, both of which will enter more overseas markets.
2023 will be a year for NIO to increase its losses. After 2023, NIO is gradually returning to the competitive thinking of the traditional automotive market, and brands, products, channels, and services have become the new focus of NIO's strategic layout in 2024.
At the same time, at the management level, NIO's internal organizational optimization and efficiency upgrading will also continue, which will become the internal driving force for NIO's strategic promotion.
In 2024, will NIO finally be able to get out of the trough?
Fangde Auto will continue to pay attention.