Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Cao Yu
Huawei
In the first half of 2024, Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing topped the sales volume of China's new power brand with 194,207 units. At present, Huawei's Hongmeng Zhixing Alliance has built four major automobile brands, following the Wenjie, Zhijie and Xiangjie, and the Zunjie is ready to go.
It is reported that Huawei, Celis, Chery, and BAIC jointly created Wenjie, Zhijie, and Xiangjie cover the SUV, sedan, and executive car markets respectively, and the positioning of Zunjie will be more high-end. Yu Chengdong previously revealed that the price of the models cooperated with JAC will reach the million yuan level, and the Zunjie will benchmark Maybach, Rolls-Royce and other ultra-luxury brand models, positioning them as ultra-high-end.
At the 2024 China Automotive Forum, Xiang Xingchu, Secretary of the Party Committee, Chairman and General Manager of Jiangqi Group, said that he is making every effort to promote the cooperation project with Huawei. According to him, the project has created a new platform and a leading intelligent electric architecture, planned a variety of products, and will build a million-level high-end luxury smart electric vehicle of Chinese brands to fill the gap in the mainland ultra-high-end intelligent new energy vehicle market.
The sword of the Venerable World refers to Maybach and Rolls-Royce
From 2010 to 2020, it was the golden age of China's luxury car market, with the market size increasing from 300,000 to 2.52 million units, an increase of more than 8 times. During this period,
With the wave of electrification and intelligence, independent brands have collectively rushed up and begun to enter
This side of the box,
The ultra-luxury market is a segment with the highest barriers, and few independent brands have taken the initiative to touch it. The Zunjie, which has always attracted the attention of the market, has clearly played the positioning of "ultra-high-end". "Enjoy the positioning of high-end cars; Zhijie is positioned in a wide range of mid-range and mid-to-high-end, which is a car that a wide range of people can afford; The main focus of the question industry is on SUVs; JAC (the brand launched in cooperation) is positioned as ultra-high-end. Yu Chengdong once said.
He also revealed that the products cooperated with JAC may be million-level and very high-end. "We far exceed the Maybach and Rolls-Royce Phantom grades (the Chinese name of the Rolls-Royce Phantom model is Phantom, and the Phantom is Rolls-Royce's D-class luxury car), and they are more luxurious, high-end, and more comfortable positioning, and that sells for more than one million, and that is very high-end."
For a long time, domestic car brands have been lacking in the ultra-luxury car market. However, in recent years, domestic high-end brands represented by Hongmeng terminals are gradually occupying the minds of consumers in the luxury car market and ultra-luxury car market through continuous technological innovation and product upgrading, and building a brand moat. For example, the Hongmeng Zhixing Wenjie M9, which is also empowered by Huawei, has topped the sales of models with more than 500,000 yuan. As of July 11, the cumulative number of M9 units exceeded 110,000, continuing to set a sales record for luxury brand models in the Chinese market.
"At present, the competition in the industry is becoming increasingly fierce, the homogenization of products is serious, and price wars are inevitable." Xiang Xingchu said.
On the contrary, rolling to the high-end, creating a higher added value of ultra-high-end products can bring greater imagination. Positioning the ultra-high-end car industry may open up a differentiated competitive track.
Xiang Xingchu said that JAC and Huawei will build a Chinese brand of high-end luxury smart electric vehicles of one million yuan, which will fill the gap in the mainland's ultra-high-end smart energy vehicle market. The first product has now entered the stage of vehicle test and verification, and is planned to be launched at the end of this year and in the first half of next year, and the development of follow-up products is progressing in an orderly manner.
According to Huaxin Securities' statistics on the passenger car market with a median dealer price of more than 400,000 yuan, the domestic passenger car market will increase from 821,000 units in 2022 to 1.004 million units in 2023, and the share of Chinese brands will increase rapidly from 6.5% in 2022 to 21.0% from January to May 2024. "JAC is expected to use Huawei's empowerment to break the monopoly of millions of luxury cars by foreign capital." Huaxin Securities pointed out in the research report.
Accumulation accelerates the transformation of intelligent electrification
Hongmeng Zhixing's "Four Realms" are all entering the market or are being promoted in an orderly manner, why is the highest-end Zunjie in JAC Motors? Behind this is inseparable from the competitive strength and development potential of JAC.
At present, the automobile industry revolution has entered the second half of the intelligent competition, and the competition of car companies has also been derived from the fields of intelligent cockpit and intelligent driving. Tianfeng Securities previously pointed out in the research report that under the resonance of policy, technology and business, automotive intelligence has entered a period of rapid growth.
JAC also has a consensus. "With a deep insight into the industry and industrial changes, automobiles are no longer simple mechanical products." Xiang Xingchu once said in an interview that how can JAC develop better in this round of transformation? First of all, we must see the general direction of industrial transformation, and then consider what ways and means to solve the problem. There must be new thinking of intelligence, networking, and new energy, rather than the traditional thinking of the automobile industry.
Therefore, it can be seen that in recent years, JAC has rapidly promoted the intelligent transformation of automobiles, and is committed to establishing a deep technical moat and strong system capabilities. With its deep accumulation in manufacturing and intelligent technologies, JAC Motors also empowers its partners and works with Huawei and other partners to promote the next round of comprehensive growth of China's automotive industry.
According to the announcement on the signing with Huawei Device Co., Ltd. issued by JAC at the end of last year, the two parties will cooperate in product development, manufacturing, sales, service and other fields based on Huawei's intelligent vehicle solutions, and strive to build luxury intelligent connected electric vehicles.
Specifically, JAC is generally responsible for the product development of cooperative models and the construction of advanced production bases; Huawei devices or their designated third parties exclusively provide sales services for cooperative models worldwide, including but not limited to marketing, sales, users, and ecosystem operations. In terms of service system, Huawei terminals and JAC Motors will jointly build around the cooperative models.
In March this year, the Anhui Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment announced the "Environmental Impact Report on the Construction Project of JAC with an Annual Output of 200,000 Medium and High-end Intelligent Pure Electric Passenger Vehicles", which showed that the total investment of the plant reached nearly 4 billion yuan, with an annual output of 200,000 vehicles, and it will be empowered by Huawei's intelligent technology to develop a new luxury new energy platform (X6 platform) to seize the domestic high-end market.
Xiang Xingchu revealed at the 2024 China Automotive Forum in July this year that the construction of the new factory has been basically completed, and more JAC and Huawei cooperative models will be supported in the future.
Tracing back to the car-making heritage of JAC, JAC Automobile established a factory in 1964 and created the first car in Anhui. In the past few years, JAC has actively done a good job in independent development. In the early stage of the development of the new energy vehicle industry, Jiangqi Group took the initiative to assume the responsibility of a vehicle enterprise, and developed together with the industrial chain and ecological chain in the process of opening up and cooperation.
Xiang Xingchu introduced, "We use ourselves as a platform for joint ventures and cooperation, joint ventures with Volkswagen, and cooperation with NIO. The cooperation with NIO is a very good example of cross-border cooperation between traditional automobiles and new forces. From JAC's point of view, we have fully mastered the technology of high-end car manufacturing. We have produced more than 450,000 vehicles for NIO, contributing more than 150 billion yuan to the local output value. ”
It is understood that JAC's R&D investment in 2023 totaled 2.235 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 21.92%, focusing on product and technological innovation, strengthening the implementation and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, accelerating the formation of new quality productivity, authorizing 191 patents throughout the year, including 155 invention patents, strengthening core technology capacity building, building the core competitiveness of the industry in new energy, intelligent networking and other fields, laying a solid foundation for Huawei's cooperation.
As a pioneer and explorer of intelligent vehicles, JAC has further deepened its thinking on intelligence in the passenger car business, and has continuously innovated and made breakthroughs in products.
In terms of intelligent platforms and products, JAC has created the MIS architecture, DI platform and MUSE co-creation intelligent electric architecture to jointly build the intelligent technology platform matrix of JAC passenger cars. Focusing on these three intelligent technology platforms, JAC Motors has brought users a variety of new products such as Yttrium 3, JAC Refine RF8, and JAC QX Hybrid. Among them, the Refine RF8 is the first production car developed based on the MUSE architecture, and its launch makes the "domestic Hongmeng version of the MPV" achieve a breakthrough from 0 to 1. As the world's first intelligent MPV equipped with HarmonyOS cockpit, Refine RF8 is adapted to the new generation of HarmonyOS 4.0 system and is equipped with a 15.6-inch large Huawei smart screen.
At the level of intelligent manufacturing, JAC has built a J-MES intelligent manufacturing system architecture to realize the extensive interconnection and perception of "human-machine-material-method-environment-test" at the intelligent manufacturing site, and support the intelligent management and control of the whole process of the production process.
At the level of intelligent technology, we focus on "user needs" and "user experience", strive to create intelligence that users feel, anchor the intelligent technology that users can feel, know, use, and enjoy, and continue to deepen and iterate, and provide users with safer, freer, and more pleasant mobility solutions.
will welcome a new wave of growth
In fact, on July 15, the brand name of the "Fourth World" "Zunjie" was announced, stimulated by this news, on the morning of July 16, the share price of JAC Motors rose rapidly, and once rose nearly 8% to 20.66 yuan / share. As of August 6, from the low point on February 6 to half a year, JAC's share price has nearly doubled.
A number of institutions are also optimistic about the cooperation between JAC and Huawei.
On July 10, JAC Motors released a forecast for the 2024 semi-annual performance, which is expected to achieve a net profit attributable to the owners of the parent company of about 290 million yuan in the first half of 2024, an increase of 135 million yuan compared with the same period last year (statutory disclosure data), a year-on-year increase of 86.86%. It is expected that the non-net profit will be about 78 million yuan in the first half of 2024, compared with the loss of 243 million yuan in the same period last year.
After the release of the performance forecast, Haitong Securities, Caitong Securities, Soochow Securities, and many other brokerages gave ratings of "better than the market", "buy" and "overweight". Haitong Securities pointed out in the research report that JAC Motors actively embraces intelligent technology, which can not only strengthen its advantageous business, but also obtain new development opportunities through open cooperation, thereby driving the continuous improvement of the company's operating conditions.
There is reason to believe that with the launch of ultra-luxury products in Zunjie, the high added value of high-end models may help JAC Motors improve its profitability and further improve its operating conditions.
Through the cooperation with Huawei, JAC will not only improve its brand image, technical level, and market competitiveness, but also occupy a more favorable position in the global smart car market competition and achieve sustainable development.