In the first quarter when the price war was raging, Geely Automobile achieved a strong start.
Recently, Geely Automobile Holdings Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Geely Automobile") announced its business results for the first quarter of 2024. According to the financial report, Geely Automobile achieved operating income of 52.315 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 56% compared with 33.506 billion yuan in the same period last year; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 1.561 billion yuan, an increase of 119% compared with 714 million yuan in the same period last year, achieving both revenue and net profit growth.
For a strong start to 2024, Geely Automobile said in its financial report that "this is due to the increase in sales and the optimization of product structure".
According to the data, in the first quarter of this year, Geely Automobile's brands sold a total of 475,700 vehicles, an increase of 49% compared with 318,200 units in the same period last year. As of the first five months of this year, Geely Automobile has sold a total of 789,700 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of more than 45%, and has completed 41% of the annual sales target of 1.9 million units as planned.
The substantial growth of Geely Automobile's sales is inseparable from the help of the new energy sector, and more than one-third of Geely Automobile's cumulative sales in the first quarter of this year came from new energy vehicles. According to the data, in the first quarter of this year, Geely Automobile's cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were 144,000, a year-on-year increase of 130.9%, far exceeding the overall growth rate of its sales by 90 percentage points.
Specifically, the Geely brand sold more than 380,000 vehicles in the first quarter of this year, of which Geely Galaxy, which is positioned in the mid-to-high-end new energy, has completed the delivery of nearly 100,000 vehicles in just one year after its first model, the Galaxy L7. In addition, Galaxy's first pure electric sedan, Galaxy E8, has been working with Galaxy L7 and Galaxy L6 to continue to cultivate the high-value new energy intelligent boutique car market of 100,000-200,000 yuan.
Lynk & Co has a layout in the global high-end new energy market, with sales of 61,000 units in the first quarter and 21,800 units in May, of which new energy sales accounted for 57%, a record high. After the Lynk & Co 08 EM-P became one of the most popular plug-in hybrid SUVs with more than 200,000 yuan, the recently entered the market Lynk & Co 07 EM-P injected fresh blood into the field of medium-sized electric hybrid cars within 200,000 yuan. In addition, Lynk & Co's first pure electric sedan, the Lynk & Co Z10, also made its world premiere in June this year.
At present, Geely Automobile's new energy sector is mainly based on Geely Galaxy, Lynk & Co and ZEEKR, among which the ZEEKR brand has contributed an important force to Geely's new energy sector. According to the data, in the first quarter of this year, ZEEKR sold 33,000 vehicles and achieved a revenue of 14.737 billion yuan, of which the sales revenue of automobiles was 8.174 billion yuan, and the average price of a single car was 247,000.
Thanks to the increase in sales of higher-priced models led by Zeekr, the overall average selling price of Geely Automobile increased by 7,000 yuan to 126,000 yuan. The gross profit of the bicycle was approximately 15,000 yuan, an increase of 106 yuan over the same period last year, and the overall gross profit margin was 13.7%.
At the same time, Geely Automobile's gross profit also increased from 4.75 billion yuan in the same period last year to 7.15 billion yuan this year, a year-on-year increase of 51%.
It is worth mentioning that the reason why Geely Automobile achieved a strong start in the first quarter of this year is not unrelated to its divestment of Ruilan. In February this year, Geely's announcement on the sale of the equity of Ruilan Automobile attracted attention in the industry. According to the announcement, "Zhejiang Jirun, a subsidiary of the Company, entered into an equity transfer agreement with Geely Qizheng, pursuant to which Zhejiang Jirun agreed to sell and Geely Qizheng agreed to purchase 45% of the equity of Ruilan Automobile at a cash consideration of 504 million yuan." After the completion of the disposal, the Group will no longer own any equity interest in Ruilan Automobile. ”
At that time, there was a view that "Geely Automobile's choice to transfer the equity of Ruilan Automobile may be to reduce the financial pressure of the listed company and improve the overall profitability." ”
It should be pointed out that Geely divested the Ruilan Automobile business and gave up Ruilan on behalf of Geely, and it is understood that the equity transferee of Ruilan Automobile is still a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geely Automobile. In this way, this move is only to improve the financial situation. According to official data, Ruilan Automobile's net loss after tax in 2023 will be 622 million yuan. The sale of 45% of the shares of Ruilan Automobile by Geely Automobile will receive a profit of 117 million yuan.
What is certain is that whether it is to strip Ruilan, travel lightly, or through multi-segmentation, multi-product layout and multi-matrix, in the way of electric, hybrid and other markets, Geely has been quite stable in the new energy market. Judging from the domestic new energy sales list every month, Geely New Energy has ranked among the top three and achieved a comprehensive leadership in the new energy era.