Flower Finance Original
The new car-making forces have added new Ding to the IPO lineup in Hong Kong.
Following the successful listing of Xiaopeng, Ideal and NIO in Hong Kong, Zero-Run Automobile is trying to become the fourth listed company among the new domestic car-making forces.
According to the information of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Zhejiang Zero Run Technology Co., Ltd. has recently submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and the co-sponsors are CICC, Citibank, JPMorgan Chase and CCB International.
For fundraising purposes, ZeroCar said that it expects 40% of the net amount to be used for research and development of new models, autonomous driving technology, three-electric system technology, etc., 25% will be used to increase production capacity, 25% will be used to expand business and enhance brand awareness, and 10% will be used for operations and general corporate use.
According to the zero-run car plan, it is not difficult to glimpse that the competition of new car-making forces has once again focused on the research and development of technologies such as automatic driving. Wang Chuanfu, chairman of BYD Group, once said that the big change in the automobile industry, electrification is the first half, and intelligence is the second half.
With such a change, how much effort has a zero-run car put into this competition?
Insufficient investment in R&D grain and grass
Compared with other new car-making forces, the technical foundation of zero-run cars is more solid.
Founded in 2015, the founder behind it is full of the characteristics of a polytechnic man. At the age of 50, Zhu Jiangming once sighed: "I still have a dream of 100 billion, but the global total of security products is only 100 billion, so I have to choose a new industry." ”
So in only two years after Tesla entered China, ideal, Weilai, Xiaopeng was founded only a year ago, Zhu Jiangming and his zero-run car appeared in the new energy vehicle track.
It is reported that Dahua shares founded by Zhu Jiangming and his friend Fu Liquan have now become the second largest security giant in the world with a market share of more than 50 billion yuan. With the endorsement of Dahua, at the same time, Dahua is also an important shareholder of the company, well versed in the way of artificial intelligence technology, so once the zero-run car was born, it became a fragrant feast for capital to rush.
Enterprise investigation shows that since receiving angel financing on January 1, 2016, there have been as many as seven rounds of zero-run car financing. Among them, there are many investment institutions such as Sequoia Fund, CICC Capital, and even state-owned investments such as Hefei Government Investment Platform and Hangzhou Municipal Government. And in August 2019 alone, the A+ round of financing, the valuation of zero-run cars has reached 7.115 billion yuan.
In July last year, Zero-run Cars announced the opening of the 2.0 era, and Zhu Jiangming also put forward a number of goals, two of which were the most eye-catching: "One is to surpass Tesla in the field of intelligence within three years, and the other is to strive for annual sales of 800,000 in 2025." ”
However, it is worth noting that in terms of R&D investment, there is a clear gap between zero-run cars and head new force car companies. From 2019 to 2021, the company's R&D expenses were 358 million yuan, 319 million yuan and 740 million yuan, respectively, totaling less than 1.4 billion yuan. Horizontal comparison found that in the first three quarters of 2021, THE R&D expenditure of WEILAI Automobile was 2.073 billion yuan, and that of Xiaopeng Automobile was 2.663 billion yuan.
How to use less R & D expenditure, to achieve higher intelligence, and even to surpass Tesla in a short period of time, zero-run cars have a single technical foundation, but have not invested enough money to support research and development, is obviously a problem worthy of in-depth investigation.
Sales are not enough, low-end to make up
Weak mid-range sales and low-end cars are coming together, while hinting at the hardships of the zero-run car sales end.
The reporter noted that although zero-running cars said that the company mainly focused on the high-end mainstream new energy vehicle market with a price of between 150,000 yuan and 300,000 yuan, the company's current sales are mainly concentrated in low-end cars.
In 2021, zero-run vehicles delivered a total of 43,748 electric vehicles for the whole year, an increase of 443.5% over 2020. In the 2021 delivery volume ranking of new car-making forces, Zero Run ranks sixth after Nezha and Weima.
Zero-run cars said in the prospectus that according to Frost & Sullivan, the company is the fastest growing company among China's leading emerging electric vehicle companies in terms of delivery volume.
But the embarrassing thing is that the sales scale of zero run was only rushed up last year. In 2020, its cumulative annual sales were only about 8,000 vehicles. For the breakthrough that can be achieved by the cumulative delivery of the whole year of 2021, it mainly depends on a mini-car called T03.
It is reported that Zero Run released the mini car T03 in 2020, and this model alone sold more than 7,000 units that year. By 2021, the delivery volume of this model will reach 39,149 units, once accounting for 89.48% of the annual sales of zero-run cars.
However, T03 is a low-end car, the model subsidy after the guidance price of 6.89 ~ 84,900 yuan, the length of the car is only 3 meters 6, wheelbase 2 meters 4, not much larger than the Hongguang MINI, from the high-end can be said to be very far away.
Looking back, S01 as the first car of zero running, this is a small pure electric coupe, the price of up to 150,000 yuan, from the perspective of product strategy, zero running did want to do high-end at the beginning, but this car sales are extremely poor, so far only sold less than 3,000 units.
Although Zero Run later pushed on the third car C11, positioning a medium-sized pure electric SUV, priced between 160,000 and 200,000 yuan, but this car has been delivered since October last year, and 3 months after its launch, the C11 has delivered less than 4,000 units. Therefore, although there are three mass production cars for zero running, there is actually only one T03 mini car that really takes the volume.
According to Frost & Sullivan data, new energy vehicles in the price range of 150,000 to 300,000 yuan in 2021 account for 39% of China's total sales of new energy vehicles, and will further increase to 49% in 2026, becoming the main driver of market growth. That is to say, zero-run cars have not reached the mainstream consumer population.
Selling one loses one
Like other new forces, Zero Run is still in the red.
From 2019 to 2021, the total revenue of zero-running cars was 117 million yuan, 631 million yuan and 3.132 billion yuan, respectively, and the operating loss was about 730 million yuan, 869 million yuan and 2.868 billion yuan, respectively.
Based on the 43,748 vehicles sold in 2021, the company's bicycle revenue was 72,000 yuan and the bicycle operating loss was 66,000 yuan. This shows that for every car sold by Zero Run, it loses almost one. There is no doubt that Zero Run is "burning yourself to illuminate others".
However, zero running tries to exchange money investment for growth, and as the competition in the industry track becomes more and more fierce, it will take time to test whether the money under zero running can be recovered in the future.
Enterprise investigation data shows that after 2019, the number of registrations of new energy vehicle-related enterprises in the mainland has increased suddenly. In 2020, 85,000 new stores were added, an increase of 62.83% year-on-year; in 2021, 180,000 new stores were added, an increase of 111.63% year-on-year. At present, there are as many as 452,000 new energy vehicle-related enterprises in the mainland.
Objectively speaking, the competitive pressure facing zero running is obviously much greater than in the past. In addition to facing the competition of the younger generation, in the new forces of car-making in the second echelon, the competition between zero-run and opponents is also extremely fierce.
Nezha's cumulative sales in 2021 will be close to 70,000 vehicles, ranking fourth in new car sales. At present, the market has reported that Nezha has opened a Pre-IPO round with a target valuation of about 45 billion yuan and plans to launch an IPO in Hong Kong this year.
Weima, whose sales were relatively close to zero running last year, also began to prepare for listing on the science and technology innovation board as early as 2020, and is determined to become the "first stock of the science and technology innovation board car". Although it has not been successfully listed due to regulatory reasons since then, the news that WM is seeking to list on Hong Kong stocks has been heard endlessly.
For zero-run, how to survive in the market with many opponents in the future, and live better and better, zero-run will obviously face a lot of tests. According to the plan, zero-run cars will launch 8 new models by the end of 2025, and 1-3 new cars will be launched every year during this period. Among them, the medium and large sedan C01 will be launched in the second quarter of this year, and the delivery will begin in the third quarter.
However, the problem is that in the crowded new energy vehicle track, the previous operation of Zero Run has not been able to show strong sales results. For example, compared with a number of Xiaopeng, Ideal, Weilai, Nezha, and Weima new car-making forces that are similar in time, the sales performance of Zero Run can only rank sixth.
Faced with the situation that the starting time point is similar, but the sales performance is far behind, for the zero-running car, it is imperative to expand the market as soon as possible. However, in the crowded track, and the investment in research and development of grain and grass is insufficient, the uncertainty of the new models issued by the zero-run car can attract several people to pay for it now seems to be relatively high.