The year 2024 has just begun, and Xpeng Motors is a bit "difficult".
In the delivery list in January, Xpeng Motors achieved a sales volume of 8,250 vehicles, down 59% month-on-month, which was the biggest drop among the new car-making forces. In February, sales in Xpeng Motors continued to decline, and only 4,545 new cars were delivered in February.
For the reason of the sales slump in February, He Xiaopeng attributed the reason to the production capacity of the new car X9. He said, "Due to too many orders, the production capacity has not kept up. In January, Tucki accumulated tens of thousands of orders for X9. At present, the difficulties faced by X9 have been solved, and the Spring Festival will fully work overtime to quickly improve the production capacity guarantee delivery."
In other words, the decline in sales is only temporary, and sales will gradually pick up in the future.
Although He Xiaopeng is still optimistic about the future of Xpeng Motors, the capital market does not see it this way. According to Kan Jian Finance, since 2024, Xpeng Motors’s share price has been falling continuously. As of the close of March 5, Xpeng Motors’s Hong Kong stock market closed at HK$ 35.95 per share. Although it has rebounded recently, its share price fell by as much as 36% in 2024.
Why did Xpeng Motors’s share price plummet by 36% in more than a month, and its performance was so bleak? In addition to the reason for the sharp drop in sales, what is the capital market still worried about?
Tucki’s "sleepy"
Xpeng Motors’s sales volume in January really fell far short of expectations.
According to official data, Tucki X9 delivered 2,478 vehicles in the first month, and the total sales of the remaining models were only 5,772 vehicles, including the main models-P7I and G6.
Of course, the production capacity of the new car X9 may have some problems, but the core of the problem at present is that even if the production capacity of the X9 can keep up, the sales volume in Xpeng Motors will not change much. After all, before the X9 was listed, the sales volume in Xpeng Motors could still exceed 10,000, but now after the new car is listed, the sales volume can’t even reach 10,000.
At present, it’s not easy for Xpeng Motors to increase sales again. After all, Xpeng Motors has been reducing prices and promoting sales since last December. According to media reports, Xpeng Motors has started several rounds of price cuts since December. For example, in early December, the maximum discount for all models of Tucki P7i was 26,000 yuan, and the maximum discount for Tucki G9, which was listed less than three months ago, was 19,000 yuan. In mid-December, Xpeng Motors announced that all G6 departments in Tucki would continue to reduce or exempt 10,000 yuan in a limited time. In January of this year, Xpeng Motors even announced that it would purchase the P7i Pengyi Performance Edition, and enjoy a limited-time subsidy of 50,000 yuan.
So many rounds of price cuts can’t move Xpeng Motors’s sales, which shows how much pressure Xpeng Motors is under now. This may also explain why Xpeng Motors’s share price performance has been so poor recently.
In fact, such a large-scale and continuous price reduction has brought many hidden dangers to Xpeng Motors’s performance. After all, Xpeng Motors is still at a loss.
According to the financial report, as of the third quarter of last year, the accumulated net profit of Xpeng Motors was-9.028 billion, the gross profit margin of the company as a whole was -2.7%, and the gross profit margin of the automobile business was -6.1%, which shows that Xpeng Motors is still in a situation of "selling one car and losing another". According to the recent price reduction, Xpeng Motors’s losses will further expand in the fourth quarter.
However, in order to stabilize sales, Xpeng Motors has neglected so much. According to media reports, since February, Xpeng Motors has launched a new round of price reduction promotion.
According to media reports, from February 1, 2024 to February 29, 2024, the 2024 Tucki G9 will receive a maximum of 10,000 yuan in cash during the Spring Festival, and a maximum of 11,000 yuan in limited-time optional discount, starting from 253,900 yuan for the whole department. At present, the official normal guide price of the 2024 Tucki G9 is 263,900-359,900 yuan.
However, the "drug effect" of price reduction tends to be smaller and smaller, and it can be predicted that the price reduction of ——G9 will have very limited sales promotion effect in Xpeng Motors.
How does Tucki "break through"?
For Xpeng Motors, the decline in sales is not the biggest problem. What is more serious is that its moat is becoming more and more fragile.
Previously, Kan Jian Finance had repeatedly analyzed Xpeng Motors, a car company. Among the three new forces, Xpeng Motors has the strongest scientific and technological attribute, and Xpeng Motors also wants to build its own scientific and technological moat. According to the financial report, in the past five years, Xpeng Motors’s R&D expenditure was about 15 billion, and it was this huge R&D expenditure that led to its losses year after year.
About two years ago, when the new energy vehicle market was still in the state of automation transformation, Xpeng Motors succeeded in creating scientific and technological attributes by virtue of its first-Mover advantage. However, with the competition of new energy vehicles entering the second half, more and more car companies are now making intelligent transformation, and the advantages of Xpeng Motors are becoming less and less obvious, especially with Huawei’s massive entry into the new energy vehicle market.
As far as the most important intelligent driving technology is concerned, Huawei has a tendency to surpass Tucki from three aspects: algorithm, computing power and data.
In terms of algorithm, Xpeng Motors chose NVIDIA Drive series chips and developed operators in software development, but Huawei is a self-developed chip, and only Huawei in China has realized mass production using network algorithms; In terms of computing power, Huawei’s current computing power on autopilot training is 1800P, which is three times that of Xpeng Motors’s 600P. From the data point of view, it is in sharp contrast to the sharp drop in sales in Xpeng Motors-Huawei’s world, with better intelligent software and hardware, became the new force "sales champion" in January. Obviously, in the field of intelligence, the world of inquiry has replaced Xpeng Motors’s former position, and with the growth of Huawei, when more and more car companies begin to use Huawei’s technology, Xpeng Motors’s future will become more and more difficult.
Of course, for the road of intelligence, although more and more strong enemies have emerged, Xpeng Motors obviously does not intend to give up. During the launch conference of Xpeng Motors Spring Festival, He Xiaopeng set a new timetable for NGP intelligent assisted driving: in 2024, the "full range" and "point-to-point" XNGP will be promoted in China, including scenes such as paths, internal roads and parking lots; Promote worldwide research and development of XNGP this year and next-research and development of high-speed NGP worldwide in 2024 and XNGP worldwide in 2025, which shows that Xpeng Motors will continue to invest in research and development in the future.
At present, in the face of increasingly fierce competition in the new energy vehicle market, there is not much Xpeng Motors can do but insist. But can Xpeng Motors really "survive" in the face of Huawei, a powerful competitor who has achieved good results in intelligence?