[Introduction: When NIO was making a big splash for its second brand Ledao, the second brand codenamed MONA, which was once planned by Xpeng Motors, was "downgraded". Recently, after several rounds of warm-up in the early stage, Xpeng officially released the first product of the MONA series, "Xpeng M03". 】
Written by Zhang Dachuan and edited by He Zi
The release of Xpeng M03 is very important for Xpeng Motors now.
In recent times, NIO's sales have increased significantly. With the support of the new Baas policy, sales exceeded 20,000 units in May, and the upward momentum is obvious. In the next step, the more cost-effective Ledao brand will bring considerable increments to NIO. As for the ideal and AITO, they are still far ahead; The upward momentum of Leap and ZEEKR is also very obvious. In contrast, Xpeng's situation is not so optimistic. Xpeng's sales in May were only 10,146 units, and the cumulative sales in the previous month were only more than 41,000 units. In this case, MONA is expected to be very high by Xpeng. By introducing a new brand of 10-150,000 yuan, it can inject a shot of strength into Xiaopeng's sales in the eyes of the outside world.
MONA's direction of attack
In August 2023, a cooperation between Xpeng and Didi attracted quite attention. According to the relevant cooperation agreement, Xpeng will use its 3.25% stake for 5.835 billion yuan to obtain Didi's assets and R&D capabilities related to the smart electric vehicle project. At that time, Didi's "Da Vinci" project, which was relatively mature, was now Xpeng M03, and Didi was also trying to survive with a broken arm at that time, hoping to focus resources on its main business - the field of mobility, and cut the vehicle project. Earlier, Didi D1, which was once a popular Didi BYD cooperation, has nothing to do at present.
On the face of it, the partnership will give Xpeng a Class A-segment electric vehicle. But judging from Xpeng's ability, it is not a problem to build an A-class electric vehicle. So, there are actually deeper reasons for this collaboration. According to the agreement, Xpeng and Didi have reached a VAM agreement on annual sales of 100,000 units with a lower limit of 100,000 units and an upper limit of 180,000 units for two consecutive years. In 2023, Xpeng Motors will only sell 141601 units. In addition to online car-hailing, Xpeng Motors also hopes to make this electric car enter the C-end market. To this end, Xpeng Motors has framed the price of the MONA brand at 10-150,000 yuan, hoping to create a popular model for itself in the C-end market outside the online car-hailing market through high cost performance.
The relegation of MONA is really helpless
But in this year, the situation in the domestic automobile market has undergone considerable changes.
On the one hand, the domestic auto market is very intense. Everyone is on the volume price, the volume configuration. What's more, in recent times, the momentum of domestic plug-in hybrid models has become more violent; Pure electric vehicles, on the other hand, have slowed down. Therefore, for Xpeng, there is still uncertainty about the extent to which the launch of the MONA brand can boost the sales of Xpeng Motors. For Xpeng Motors, it is likely to be able to imitate Tesla and make efforts in intelligent driving. Through the breakthrough of forward-looking technology, we can find a new "moat" for ourselves.
On the other hand, it costs a lot of money to build a new independent sales network, and Xpeng Motors is not in a good position right now. According to the first-quarter financial report disclosed by Xpeng, its total revenue in the quarter reached 6.55 billion yuan, although it increased by 62.3% year-on-year, but decreased by 49.8% month-on-month. In the first quarter, Xpeng Motors still had a net loss of 1.37 billion yuan, a slight increase from the previous quarter, and the only bright spot was the gross profit margin, which reached 12.9% in the first quarter, a certain increase year-on-year and quarter-on-quarter. In terms of the most critical cash reserves, at the end of the first quarter, Xpeng's cash reserves were 41.4 billion yuan. Judging from the numbers, Xpeng has a lot of funds at hand. However, for car companies, not to mention that Xpeng needs to continue to invest a lot of resources in the field of autonomous driving, even if it is to update the model and vehicle platform, it is also a lot of investment. It is a lot of money to build a new brand, lay new sales channels, and enhance the popularity of this brand. Especially in the past period, one of the most obvious changes in Xiaopeng on the sales side is that it has begun to pay more attention to the introduction of dealers and cut off unprofitable self-operated stores. In the context of the general misfortune of the existing domestic dealer groups, MONA's investment promotion is not necessarily an easy thing.
M03 faces resistance
There are always two sides to everything. As a 150,000 yuan series, if the MONA series is incorporated into the Xpeng brand, it may not only further reduce the brand positioning of Xpeng, but also have a certain impact on the gross profit margin of Xpeng brand models.
However, for Xiaopeng Motors, the focus of the contradiction is no longer gross profit margin and brand positioning. Under the continuous price war, the two models of Xpeng P5 and Xpeng G3 have fallen into the original price range of MONA, so there is nothing to lower the positioning and gross profit margin. Moreover, if Xpeng M03 can obtain relatively large sales, then its cost can be quickly reduced. It is not impossible to surpass the Xpeng P5 and Xpeng G3 in terms of gross profit margin. At present, Xpeng's primary goal is to increase sales. Only by rapidly increasing sales can Xpeng occupy a place in the fiercely competitive domestic market.
However, what Xpeng needs to consider is whether letting the Xpeng brand enter the mobility market and start an online car-hailing business will make other users who want to buy Xpeng models more worried, which needs to be differentiated and dealt with in advance. Looking at the domestic market, WM Motor, which has no voice now, was also keen on the B-end mobility market before, after all, no user would want to be regarded as an online car-hailing driver. So in the short term, although the pie of the mobility market is tempting, how to avoid damage to the brand is the key.
In addition, it is worth noting that not long ago, many places in China issued an early warning of the saturation of the online car-hailing market. After all, the domestic ride-hailing market will not continue to expand and grow without restraint. Didi's gambling order is only two years, and where the M series will go after that, Xpeng also needs to plan well.
Comments
Xpeng Motors' downgrading of MONA from the second brand to a series is undoubtedly the right choice in the current market environment. The Chinese auto market does not need a new brand, but it needs core technologies that can compete head-on with Tesla's FSD in intelligent driving/autonomous driving. When the current involution subsides, the excess domestic automobile production capacity is cleared, and the brands that can survive at that time still have many opportunities to build second and third brands.
(This article is the original of "Heyan Reading Cars", and may not be reproduced without authorization)