The saturation of the online car market and the intensified price war have made GAC Ai ‘an under attack.
When Guangzhou Automobile Aian New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Guangzhou Automobile Aian") with a valuation of over 100 billion yuan was split and listed became a mystery.
On August 6th, Beijing Equity Exchange issued the announcement of "Equity Transfer of Guangzhou Automobile Aian New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd.". According to the announcement, the investor is China Xinda Asset Management Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Xinda), and the start and end date of disclosure is from August 1, 2024 to January 22, 2025, and the reference price is displayed as "negotiable".
It was mentioned in the same announcement that GAC Ai ‘an is preparing for the IPO listing of Hong Kong stocks in the near future, and various listing preparations are being carried out as scheduled.
This makes the above news of equity transfer somewhat puzzling.
In this regard, GAC Ai ‘an responded to China Entrepreneur, saying, "This equity transfer is an asset disposal process within the’ indirect’ shareholders of Ai ‘an, not released by Ai ‘an, and the company’s IPO progress is subject to the announcement of Guangzhou Automobile Group."
According to the reporter’s understanding, the "indirect" shareholder refers to Yingke Capital, a shareholder who strategically invested in Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an in 2022. One of the investors of Yingke Capital is China Cinda. According to national business daily’s report on August 6th, it was originally expected that Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an would conduct an IPO within two years. However, because the IPO time has been delayed, Cinda needs to make a procedural asset disposal process, that is, this stock withdrawal. In this regard, "China Entrepreneur" made a verification to GAC Ai ‘an, but no reply was received as of press time.
Guangzhou Automobile Aian has been planning an IPO for a long time, and has released listing information many times in the past two years. In response to the rumors of listing, in March this year, Gu Huinan, general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, responded that Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an was not short of money. "IPO is not to finance a sum of money, but the core is to solve the problems of institutional mechanisms." He also stated: "Now is not a good time for IPO. The whole capital market is not good, including the mainland and Hong Kong markets. The IPO process of GAC Ai ‘an depends on whether the market can pick up next."
From the point of view of sales volume, the pressure of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an is not small.
The data shows that except for January this year, the sales volume of GAC Ai ‘an from February to July decreased year-on-year. In the first seven months of this year, the cumulative sales volume of GAC Ai ‘an was 154,600 vehicles, down 39.21% year-on-year, and only 22% of the annual sales target of 700,000 vehicles was achieved.
The saturation of the online car market and the intensified price war have made GAC Ai ‘an under attack.
It won’t roll.
"Now it’s all about the price, and it really can’t move," said a sales representative of an Ai ‘an store in Guangdong. "You can quote a bottom price for which car you need."
The sales of another Ai ‘anmen store in Changping District, Beijing have the same distress. "In the past two years, the market was relatively good, and about 200 units were sold a year, but less than 60 units were sold in the first half of this year." According to the reporter’s understanding, compared with last year, the store’s preferential strength is also greater. For example, the AION Y 2023 Plus 610 smart collar version with a price of 143,800 yuan is currently doing special car activities in the store, with a cash discount of 20,000 yuan. If you choose to buy a car with a loan, the discount will exceed 30,000 yuan.
In August, the reporter visited several Ai ‘anmen stores in Chaoyang District and Changping District of Beijing, and found that two best-selling models of Ai ‘an brand, AION S and AION Y, had different discounts. The lowest discount for naked cars was 10,000 yuan, and the highest discount was 40,000 yuan. It was an inventory car produced at the end of last year.A number of sales said that this year’s cars are difficult to sell.
Founded on July 28, 2017, Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an is "the strategic core carrier for Guangzhou Automobile Group to develop intelligent networked new energy vehicles". In the past few years, Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an has grown rapidly. From 2019 to 2022, the sales volume of GAC Miko Wu was 42,000, 59,500, 120,200 and 271,200 respectively. In 2023, the annual sales volume of GAC-AE Safety reached 480,000 vehicles, up 77.02% year-on-year, second only to BYD and Tesla China in the sales list of new energy vehicles.
The rise of sales of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an is closely related to the market segments targeted by its products. With two models, AION S and AION Y, GAC Aian was once the "darling" of the online car market. According to the data of Geshi Automobile Research Institute, from January to November, 2021, the proportion of B-end sales of GAC Ai ‘an was 43%. Among them, the sales of key sales models AION S and AION Y in the B-end market accounted for 63.01% and 20.33% respectively.
In 2023, a set of data released by the Association showed that in 2023, the national online car market sold a total of 848,000 new cars, of which GAC Ai ‘an sold about 219,000 cars, accounting for 25% of the market. BYD followed closely, with sales of 191,000 vehicles. This means that in 2023, the sales volume of the online car market will account for about 50% of the total sales volume of GAC Ai ‘an.
According to the sales introduction of an Ai ‘anmen store in Beijing, in July, the store just delivered more than 50 AION Y 2023 Plus 610 smart collar versions, and the buyer was a leasing company in Beijing.
However, the market dividend of the network car is peaking, and the pressure of GAC Ai ‘an is obvious.
The data shows that the proportion of pure electric vehicles in the online car market has risen sharply from 10.4% in 2016 to 84.9% in 2023.
Since 2023, dozens of cities, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Sanya, Shanghai and Zhuhai, have successively issued risk warnings for the online booking taxi industry, suggesting that the number of cars in the relevant cities has reached saturation and the industry prosperity is close to the warning line. Sanya, Shanghai and Guizhou even suspended the acceptance of the network car transport license.
According to the insurance amount data of Ai ‘an brand compiled by Gaspar Automotive Research Institute, in the first four months of this year, the cumulative sales volume of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an in the B-end and C-end markets dropped sharply compared with the same period of last year. In the B-end market, the cumulative sales volume of Ai ‘an brand was 47,000 units, down 26.6% year-on-year. In the C-end market, the cumulative sales volume of the Ai ‘an brand in the same period was 39,000 units, down 26.4% year-on-year. Specific to the sales volume of various provinces and cities, the sales volume of Ai ‘an in Guangdong Province, the base camp, dropped significantly. The cumulative sales volume of Guangdong Province from January to April last year was 44,000 vehicles, but this year it was reduced to 30,000 vehicles. Except for Guangdong Province, the cumulative sales of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an brand in other provinces and cities in the first four months did not exceed 10,000.
Kelly, senior analyst of Analysys, pointed out that,The decline in sales volume of Ai ‘an also has a certain relationship with brand positioning."Ai’ an has always been the representative of the online car. At present, the online car market is basically saturated. Ai’ an can’t make efforts on the online car, and the long-term brand awareness and brand image are relatively low-end, so the family car is rarely considered."
Why does the network become a shackle?
According to Gui Lingfeng, director of Kearney Management Consulting Greater China, Ai ‘an is a typical example of the whole independent brand, that is, it does not touch the essence of building a luxury brand: brand tonality, group endorsement and system support.
In the past few years, Ai ‘an has crossed the scale threshold in a short time by relying on the online car market, and has become the only state-owned new energy automobile brand with successful market transformation. According to the announcement of Guangzhou Automobile Group on the evening of October 20, 2022, its subsidiary Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an Series A raised 18.294 billion yuan and released 17.72% shares. Based on this calculation, the valuation of GAC Ai ‘an at that time had exceeded 100 billion yuan.
But up to now, there is still no car company that is highly dependent on the B-end market and has achieved real success in the commercial sense. BYD has a long history of new energy taxis in the past, but with years of technology accumulation, it has changed consumers’ inherent cognition of the brand.
In order to get rid of the dependence on the online car market, since 2021, Ai ‘an has taken a series of measures to reduce the proportion of B-ends, such as launching Ai ‘an S Plus to replace the original market of Ai ‘an S labeled as online car, and launching Ai ‘an Y and Ai ‘an V,In order to drive the proportion of C-end of Ai ‘an brand to increase.
In September 2022, GAC Ai ‘an launched Haobo, a luxury pure electric brand, and simultaneously unveiled the first electric supercar Hyper SSR with a price of more than one million. Subsequently, the company successively launched two production models, namely Haobo GT and Haobo HT. Among them, the official price of Haobo GT is 219,900 ~ 339,900 yuan, which is against Tesla Model Y；; The official price of Haobo HT is 213,900 ~ 329,900 yuan.
From a technical point of view, Haobo brand is highly valued, including 800V 5C ultra-fast charging, magazine battery 2.0 technology, zoom lidar, and NOA, a city that can cover the whole country. Haobo brand is also actively building a charging and replacing power station network. As of April 2024, Haobo has 1,200 super charging and replacing power stations nationwide, which is second only to Weilai automobile charging and replacing power network.
However, the investment in new models and the construction of charging and replacing infrastructure have not brought about a significant increase in sales. The data shows that the total sales volume of Haobo brand in 2023 was 8087 vehicles. In June this year, the sales volume was only 904 vehicles, and the cumulative sales volume in the first half of this year was more than 6,000 vehicles.
Kelly believes that there are two key factors affecting the sales of Haoplatinum: First, the marketing offensive is not fierce enough; Second, some public opinion events were not handled properly, such as basketball players’ public speaking and failure to fulfill their promises, and Zhou Hongyi’s being pinched, which all affected Haobo.
In addition, in 2024, the competition in the new energy market is becoming increasingly fierce. In the face of industry involution, Kelly believes that Ai ‘an needs to further "enhance product strength and strengthen marketing promotion".
Transformation is imminent.
Behind the stall of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an is that Guangzhou Automobile Group is facing a dilemma in the strategic transformation of "oil to electricity".
At the 2024 China Auto Chongqing Forum, Ceng Qinghong, the chairman of Guangzhou Automobile Group, criticized the current "involution" phenomenon in the automobile industry, and called on the automobile industry to adhere to long-term doctrine and avoid falling into endless price wars. At the same time, when the proportion of pure electricity in new energy vehicles reaches 50%, it should promote "oil and electricity have the same rights", that is, new energy vehicles should enjoy the same rights as traditional fuel vehicles in government procurement, automobile license plates, car purchase restrictions and consumption subsidies.
In 2023, Guangzhou Automobile Group sold a total of 2.505 million vehicles, up 2.92% year-on-year, and the sales volume has been increasing for three consecutive years, and it broke through the 2.5 million vehicle mark for the first time. By this year,From January to July, the cumulative sales volume of Guangzhou Automobile Group was 1,004,200 vehicles, down 25.83% year-on-year.Among them, Guangqi Honda sold a total of 241,200 cars, down 27.34% year-on-year; GAC Toyota sold a total of 522,800 vehicles, down 25.48% year-on-year.
As the main sales and profits of Guangzhou Automobile Group come from the joint ventures of Guangzhou Automobile Toyota and Guangzhou Automobile Honda, the group’s performance is also under significant pressure. The financial report shows that in 2023, GAC achieved revenue of 129.706 billion yuan, up 17.62% year-on-year, but its net profit was only 4.429 billion yuan, down 45.08% year-on-year. By this year, the company’s operating income and net profit have both declined. In the first quarter, GAC achieved revenue of 21.566 billion yuan, down 18.79% year-on-year; The net profit was 1.22 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 20.65%.
The decline in the market share of joint venture products also forced Guangzhou Automobile Group to carry out comprehensive transformation.
Take GAC Toyota as an example. According to the data of the Association, its market share was 4.2% in 2023, and in July 2024, this share fell to 3.4%.
Guangqi Toyota and Guangqi Honda have already started the strategy of electrification in an all-round way. At the performance briefing in 2023, Ceng Qinghong said that the joint venture is an important part of Guangzhou Automobile Group. On the one hand, the company’s joint venture strengthens the competitive advantage of fuel, especially HEV, and gains a larger share in the fuel automobile market; On the other hand, it is actively promoting the transformation of new energy.
As an independent brand of Guangzhou Automobile, Ai ‘an shoulders the heavy responsibility of developing new energy vehicles of Guangzhou Automobile Group.
In response to the continuous decline in sales of Ai ‘an this year, Gu Huinan once admitted: "In the first half of this year, neither Haobo nor Ai ‘an listed new cars, and the technical route has not covered PHEV yet. It is normal to encounter difficulties temporarily."
He said that in the second half of the year, a new car will be launched every two months, and the products will enter an intensive launch period. REV (electric-oil hybrid vehicle), plug-in hybrid and extended-range models will be launched in 2025.
At the end of July this year, GAC Ai ‘an launched a brand-new pure electric A-class SUV model, Ai ‘an V Tyrannosaurus Rex. As the first global strategic model of Ai ‘an, the price of Tyrannosaurus Rex is 129,800 ~ 189,800 yuan, mainly for the mainstream home SUV market.
In addition, the product code-named "AY3" will be unveiled in August and listed in September; The code name "AH8" is Haobo’s first full-size six-seat flagship SUV, which will be unveiled in September; The product code-named "AY2" will be unveiled at Guangzhou Auto Show in November this year.
In order to seek new increment, Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an also began to expand into overseas markets. In the first half of this year, GAC Ai ‘an entered 19 countries and regions. Among them, on July 17th, Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an Thailand Smart Factory was officially completed and put into operation, with an estimated annual output of 50,000 units, and the capacity will be gradually expanded to 100,000 units in the future. During the year, the Indonesian factory will also be put into production. Next, GAC Ai ‘an will also enter Qatar, Mexico and other countries.
In the critical period of IPO, can GAC Aian overcome the difficulties and break through the dilemma?
