＂Only Miao＂ Ian!
· Automobile shisanhang ID：wzhauto2023 ·
sixOne full year of life is when a person enters from childhood.The critical stage of school-age means that life begins to enter the society. For a car company,sixThe anniversary is also an important moment to test its maturity from childhood.
On July 28th, it was the 6th anniversary of the establishment of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an. Six years ago, on July 28th, 2017, Guangzhou Automobile New Energy Brand (predecessor of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an) was formally registered and established, and the first phase of factory construction with an investment of 4.697 billion yuan and a production capacity of 200,000 vehicles/year was started. At the Guangzhou Auto Show in 2020, the brand of Guangzhou Automobile Aian was officially independent, and it was renamed as Guangzhou Automobile Aian by Guangzhou Automobile New Energy.
As a representative of the new echelon of state-owned enterprises to build cars, after six years of development, GAC Ai ‘an has accumulated more than 800,000 consumers. Judging from the scale and volume standards, GAC Ai ‘an has been the first in the new energy echelon of state-owned enterprises, and its sales volume is second only to BYD. In addition, GAC Ai ‘an has set two records in the current new energy vehicle camp: the single financing amount is 18.294 billion yuan, making it the largest single private financing in the domestic new energy vehicle industry in recent years; The post-investment valuation is 103.239 billion yuan, which is the only unlisted new energy vehicle enterprise in China with a valuation exceeding 100 billion yuan.
As stated in the 6th anniversary letter, 6-year-old GAC Aian is still a teenager, and GAC Aian will continue to witness, record and participate in the development of new energy automobile industry in China. After six years’ cultivation, GAC Ai ‘an has become the "only seedling" of the market-oriented development of state-owned new energy vehicle enterprises, regardless of the sales volume or the valuation performance after financing investment. For Guangzhou Automobile Group, the six years of Ai ‘an is the result of a structural reform; For other state-owned car companies, Ai ‘an’s six years are also a spur to them.
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The only new energy of state-owned enterprises that has successfully transformed from policy to market.
As of July 28th, 2023, GAC Ai ‘an has accumulated over 800,000 users. In 2022, the sales volume of GAC Ai ‘an exceeded 270,000 units, making it the largest independent new energy vehicle brand after BYD.
Guangzhou Automobile Aian was established in 2017, when the penetration rate of China’s new energy market was only 2.8%. In the view of the capital market, when the scale penetration rate of the industry is less than 10%, it means that the development of the industry is still in the exploratory stage, and there are many uncertainties and market doubts about whether the business model can work.
In the case that the commercialization environment of new energy vehicles is not mature, car companies have formed two ideas to develop new energy vehicles: one is to position products in the low-end market with a price below 100,000 yuan and live on subsidies; The other is based on the high cost of Sanpower technology, so some car companies must be high-end and launch high-end models with a price of more than 300,000 yuan. As for the range of 150,000 to 300,000, the industry generally believes that this is the world of traditional fuel vehicles, and few car companies are willing to touch this new energy vehicle market.
In July 2021, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China began to exceed 10%, which means that the development of new energy vehicles has entered a market-oriented stage. At the same time, subsidies for new energy vehicles are in a declining trend, and by the end of 2022, subsidies for new energy vehicles will completely withdraw from the historical stage. At that time, the development of new energy vehicle enterprises was swept by the wave of marketization. At that time, the development of state-owned new energy vehicle enterprises encountered problems one after another, or recovered, or re-opened the gongs and drums. In contrast, GAC’s development strategy emphasizes grasping the B-end and the C-end. And keep up with the market rhythm quickly in positioning.
At present, the competition of new energy vehicles in the range of 150,000 to 300,000 is the fiercest. Why can GAC Ai ‘an win the first prize? This is inseparable from the first secret of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an to seize the market.
As early as 2020, GAC Aeon predicted that the mainstream market of fuel vehicles will be the main sales price range of new energy vehicles in the future with the decline of the mature cost of the three power technologies. As the first model of the Ai ‘an series, AION S was launched in April 2019, and the subsidized price range was 139,800 yuan to 205,800 yuan. This means that from the very beginning, GAC Aian has been anchored to compete with fuel vehicles in the traditional market of 150,000 to 300,000 yuan. Before the formal independence of GAC Ai ‘an, GAC New Energy has launched three models: AION S, AION LX and AION V. GAC New Energy intensively launched three models in two months a year, pushing one model every four months on average. GAC Ai ‘an is so quick to seize market opportunities and quickly realize marketization.
With the rapid development of products, Guangzhou Automobile Group has also accelerated the independent operation of new energy automobile brands. As early as the Guangzhou Auto Show in 2020, GAC New Energy officially changed its name to GAC Ai ‘an, which shows that GAC Ai ‘an is determined to develop new energy. Since then, other state-owned new energy brands such as Lantu and Deep Blue have become independent. After independence, Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an also ushered in a period of rapid development. In 2021, the annual sales volume of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an was 123,700, which was 119% year-on-year for the first time. In terms of sales volume, it far surpassed brands such as Chery New Energy, Tucki, Weilai and Ideality, and the combined sales volume of Lantu and Extreme Fox was not as good as that of Ai ‘an.
Looking back on the development in the past six years, GAC Ai ‘an is the fastest growing brand of state-owned new energy vehicle enterprises. From 2021 to the first half of this year, the year-on-year growth rate of GAC Ai ‘an was above three digits, which also gave Ai ‘an sufficient reason to be concerned by the outside world.
Just as the trees attract the wind, the scale and volume of Ai ‘an have also attracted some heated discussions, among which the most criticized is that the sales volume of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an is mainly ToB. According to statistics, in 2021, the proportion of E ‘an S in the B-end market such as operation and leasing is as high as 60-70%.
Xiao Yong, deputy general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an brand, said publicly in July this year that "Ai ‘an will not give up the online car market. Toyota and Volkswagen are the top companies in the world ToB market. The sale of online car rental shows that its products have good durability, few minor faults and high quality. If Tesla is allowed to run the network to get a car, it may not work in two or three months. In the future, Ai’ an will definitely not give up the online car market. If some opponents rely on attacks, let Ai’ an vacate the online car market and give it to him. It is impossible. He thinks too much. "
The reason why there is a hot discussion about to B stems from the fact that some state-owned car companies relied on local resources and obtained subsidies through the B-end market in the past, which did not achieve the goal of real marketization. Unlike them, the ToB in Ai ‘an is for better ToC.
According to a group of survey data released by Guangzhou Automobile Group in 2022, at present, only 2% of the operating vehicles at the B end of Ai ‘an, 10% of the vehicles purchased by individuals at the C end, and the remaining 88% of the sales are non-operating consumption at the C end. According to the data of Essence Securities, in April 2022, the C-side consumption of AION S Plus and AION Y has reached more than 80%, while the C-side consumption of AION V has reached 96.7%. These data fully show that GAC Aeon has started to change steadily from B-end to C-end. In 2022, China’s annual sales volume will become the largest independent new energy brand after BYD.
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AIONIt is the best sample for state-owned enterprises to develop new energy sources.
To evaluate the development of a state-owned automobile enterprise, besides its market-oriented competitiveness, it also depends on its social responsibility and reform momentum. As a representative of the new energy vehicle enterprises of the national team, Ai ‘an undertakes the responsibilities of Guangzhou Automobile Group in promoting national economic growth, stabilizing market confidence, leading industrial development and implementing national strategies. In the past six years, the biggest thinking that GAC Ai ‘an has brought to the whole automobile industry is that it has realized the improvement of the operation and reform momentum of state-owned new energy automobile enterprises.
As early as 2013, the state issued the Decision on Several Major Issues of Comprehensively Deepening Reform, proposing to actively develop the mixed-ownership economy. Since then, it has successively issued guidance opinions such as Opinions on Further Optimizing the Market Environment of Enterprise Merger and Reorganization. In August 2015, the state promulgated the Guiding Opinions on Deepening the Reform of State-owned Enterprises, which, together with 22 supporting documents, formed a "1+N" series of guidance documents. The so-called mixed ownership reform of state-owned enterprises refers to the introduction of private capital on the basis of state-owned enterprises, the reform of ownership forms of state-owned enterprises through market-oriented means, and the realization of mixed ownership of state-owned capital and non-state-owned capital in order to enhance the operational efficiency and competitiveness of state-owned enterprises.
In November 2020, GAC Ai ‘an officially declared its independence. After a lapse of one year, Guangzhou Automobile Group announced that it would reorganize the assets of its wholly-owned subsidiary, Guangzhou Automobile Aian, and said that "this internal asset reorganization is the basic work for Guangzhou Automobile Aian to promote the reform of mixed ownership and introduce strategic investors". This means that the mixed ownership reform of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an has entered a substantive stage. In fact, in the past two years, state-owned car companies have accelerated the mixed reform, and hatched independent new energy vehicle projects such as BAIC Extreme Fox, Dongfeng Lantu, SAIC Zhiji and Chang ‘an Aouita, but the fastest and most in-depth representative car company is GAC Ai ‘an.
The mixed reform of Guangzhou Automobile Aeon mainly revolves around three aspects: first, part of the research and development business of Guangzhou Automobile Group is transferred to Guangzhou Automobile Aeon, making it a scientific and technological company integrating research, production and marketing; Secondly, carry out employee stock ownership to further stimulate the vitality of the system and mechanism; Third, introduce strategic investors, and build the investor value matrix of Ai ‘an Ecosphere according to the attributes of war investment.
According to the announcement information, Guangzhou Automobile Group increased its capital to Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an with 7.407 billion yuan in cash, and Guangzhou Automobile Passenger Car increased its capital to Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an with 3.557 billion yuan in production equipment and other physical assets. Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an purchased intangible assets and fixed assets related to pure electric new energy fields such as Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute and Guangzhou Automobile Passenger Cars by paying 4.975 billion yuan in cash and assuming liabilities; GAC Ai ‘an transferred part of its capital reserve to increase its registered capital. After the above-mentioned internal assets reorganization, the registered capital of GAC Ai ‘an increased to 6 billion yuan.
In terms of employee stock ownership, on March 17 last year, Guangzhou Automobile Group issued a progress announcement on the implementation of employee stock ownership incentives by wholly-owned subsidiary Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, the shareholding of scientific and technological personnel of Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute, and the simultaneous introduction of strategic investors. According to media reports, Gu Huinan, general manager of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, even mortgaged the property for 20 million yuan to subscribe for Ai ‘an shares. According to the current valuation conversion, the general manager’s investment income is very considerable. These actions fully show that GAC Ai ‘an has sufficient confidence and determination in the mixed reform, and the exemplary role of GAC Ai ‘an’s senior management has also caused a chain reaction.
After mixed reform and capital increase, the total shareholding ratio of employees of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an and scientific and technological personnel of Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute is 4.55%. A total of 679 employees participated in the equity incentive for employees of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, and the equity incentive covered about 20% of the employees. Guangzhou Automobile Research Institute, which is closely related to Guangzhou Automobile’s Ai ‘an business, and Guangzhou Automobile Group also adopted the method of "holding up and down" and gave 115 staff equity incentives. Guangzhou Automobile Group said that the implementation of equity incentives is conducive to the establishment of a long-term incentive mechanism for Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, retaining talents, fully stimulating the vitality of enterprises and the enthusiasm of employees, and fully improving the management quality of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an.
In terms of introducing strategic investment, according to the Announcement of Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd. on the Progress of Capital Increase and Share Expansion of its subsidiary, Guangzhou Automobile Aian, which was released on October 20, 2022, Guangzhou Automobile Aian was publicly listed on the Guangzhou Stock Exchange, implemented capital increase and share expansion, and completed the A-round financing, setting two major records: First, 53 strategic investors were introduced, with a financing amount of 18.294 billion yuan, which became the domestic new energy vehicle industry in recent years. Second, the post-investment valuation is 103.239 billion yuan, which is the highest valuation of domestic unlisted new energy vehicle companies exceeding 100 billion yuan.
What is the concept of Guangzhou Automobile Aian’s over 100 billion valuation? In the echelon of state-owned new energy vehicles, SAIC Zhiji’s A-round financing is valued at 30 billion yuan, Lantu’s A-round financing is valued at 29.5 billion yuan, and Aouita’s A-round financing is valued at nearly 10 billion yuan. Private new energy vehicle companies are valued at 13 billion US dollars, equivalent to about 89.5 billion yuan, after completing the A round of financing investment, which lags behind Guangqi Ai ‘an. GAC Ai ‘an’s A-round post-investment valuation has outperformed the whole industry.
By October 2022, before the A-round financing of GAC Ai ‘an, the cumulative terminal sales of GAC Ai ‘an had exceeded 430,000 units. Moreover, the penetration rate of GAC Ai ‘an in the passenger car market has reached 10%. Combined with the A-round financing time of Zhiji and Lantu, Zhiji completed the A-round financing time on August 1, 2022, and the annual sales volume of that year was 5,000 vehicles; Lantu completed the A round of financing on November 18, 2022, and its annual sales volume was 19,400 units; On August 2, 2022, Aouita announced the completion of Series A financing, when the first product had not been listed. Compared with Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, some state-owned new energy vehicle companies are financing for "handing in homework" and "catching up on valuation".
In addition, as far as the investor lineup is concerned, the lineup introduced by the A-round battle investment in Ai ‘an can be described as very luxurious, including upstream and downstream cooperative enterprises such as Nanwang Nengchuang, State Grid Yingda Industrial Fund, Ganfeng Lithium Industry, SMIC Juyuan, professional investment institutions such as Shenzhen Venture Capital, Guangfa Bank, China Construction of Workers and Peasants, and national and local industrial investment institutions. These 53 strategic investors have comprehensively covered the three strategic directions of industrial synergy, market influence and policy guidance of GAC Ai ‘an, enabling Ai ‘an to realize the development model of "product+capital two-wheel drive" faster and deeper.
After six years’ development, GAC Ai ‘an has become an "only child" in the development of state-owned new energy vehicle enterprises. At present, the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles in China has reached 32.4%. When can this "heavy rain" of new energy development pour out another "only seedling", GAC Ai ‘an is undoubtedly the best reference sample for the development of other state-owned automobile enterprises.
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Grow toGuangzhou Automobile Group’s New Growth Pole
By the end of June this year, the sales volume of GAC Ai ‘an in the first half of this year had reached 209,300 units, up 108.81% year-on-year. Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an has completed 80% of the annual sales last year in only half a year. Among them, since March this year, the production and sales of Ai ‘an have been stable at more than 40,000 units for four consecutive months, second only to BYD in the new energy vehicle market.
On the product side, in the first half of this year, GAC Aian successively launched 2023 new products such as AION S Plus, AION Y Plus and AION Y Younger. Among them, the monthly delivery of AION S series exceeded 20,000 units for the first time, maintaining the champion position of pure electric A-class cars; The monthly order of AION Y series exceeded 20,000 units, ranking fourth in the overall category of A-class SUV.
On the technical side, Ai ‘an launched Magazine Battery 2.0 to create a new safety standard, and established Yinpai Battery Technology Company. At the level of battery core, nano-ceramic heat-resistant layer is used to greatly reduce the probability of short circuit. Ai ‘an has successively started the construction of battery R&D trial production lines, set up energy technology companies, and reached strategic cooperation with upstream material end suppliers such as Ganfeng Lithium Industry and Hanrui Cobalt Industry, gradually forming a closed loop of the energy industry chain.
On the brand side, Haobo, as a high-end brand owned by Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an, was officially launched on July 3rd, based on the pure electric platform AEP3.0 of Ai ‘an, and became a representative model of China new energy vehicles entering the era of 20 million vehicles. The Spirit architecture carried by the car became the first integrated electronic and electrical architecture of Che Yun in China. Only half a month after listing, the order of Haobo GT has exceeded 20,000 units as of July 25th, and now batch delivery has started. In addition, Haobo SSR is expected to be launched in September this year with a brand-new 4-in-1 high-performance electric drive system.
From the perspective of placing Egypt in the overall business of Guangzhou Automobile Group, its pulling effect has become increasingly prominent. At present, the vehicle business of Guangzhou Automobile Group is mainly divided into independent brands and joint venture brands. The independent brands mainly include Guangzhou Automobile Chuanqi and Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an. According to the 2022 financial report, Guangzhou Automobile Group achieved a total revenue of 110 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45.4%; The net profit of returning to the mother was 8.07 billion yuan, up 10% year-on-year, which is closely related to the business growth brought by the gradual increase in the number of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an models. The data shows that GAC Ai ‘an has achieved large-scale sales since 2021, from 120,000 vehicles sold in that year to 270,000 vehicles sold in 2022, and the proportion of sales increased to 11.1%. In 2022, the sales volume of self-owned brand vehicles of Guangzhou Automobile Group reached 630,000 vehicles, up 42.6% year-on-year, of which Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an increased by 125% year-on-year, contributing to the core increment.
Compared with other domestic new energy vehicle companies, new energy vehicle companies show "ten enterprises and nine losses". Among the new energy echelons of state-owned enterprises, Lantu, Beiqi Blue Valley and SAIC Zhiji are still at a loss. At present, GAC Ai ‘an has started to achieve quarterly profit, and this year’s full-year profit is promising. This is the second China car company that is expected to achieve profit besides BYD. Earlier, some capital investors pointed out that compared with other new energy vehicle companies, GAC Ai ‘an was seriously underestimated in the capital market.
From policy to market, fromToBarriveToCFrom mobilizing and integrating group resources to strengthening team efficiency through mixed reform, fromAAfter the round of investment, the new energy vehicle enterprise with the highest valuation will be the first state-owned new energy vehicle enterprise to achieve profitability.……6In 2000, Guangzhou Automobile Group hatched Ai ‘an into a market-oriented development of new energy vehicles of state-owned enterprises in China.“only son and heir"This is not only meaningful for the structural adjustment of Guangzhou Automobile Group, but also more valuable for other state-owned automobile enterprises seeking to develop new energy vehicles.
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