标签： 杭州西湖阁

"Investor Network" Ge Fanmei

On March 9, Geely Automobile (0175.HK) announced that the company has submitted an application to the Stock Exchange for the addition of RMB counters, in order to support the new Hong Kong dollar-RMB dual-counter model plan launched by the Stock Exchange. This means that Geely Automobile is expected to become the first batch of Hong Kong-listed companies to join the dual-counter model.

The announcement said Geely believed the dual-counter arrangement could provide investors with new trading currency options and potentially more liquidity. The HKD-RMB dual-counter model also allows bookmakers to provide liquidity to their RMB counters and narrow the price differential between their HKD and RMB counters.

In the capital markets, Geely Automobile’s "RMB Hong Kong stock" is about to be realized. In terms of business, the company has made a bad start this year. In late February, the company launched a new energy sub-brand "Geely Galaxy", and soon fell into the "plagiarism door".

For Geely Automobile, an old car company with a 25-year history of car manufacturing, in addition to the plagiarism scandal, its continued decline in performance and loneliness in the new energy field may be more embarrassing. Now, Geely Automobile has high hopes for "Geely Galaxy", can it help it achieve corner overtaking in the field of new energy vehicles?

Trapped in the "plagiarism door"

On February 23, Geely Automobile launched a new mid-to-high-end new energy series – "Geely Galaxy", and released the prototype of Geely Galaxy "Galaxy Light".

According to reports, the "Geely Galaxy" series will launch seven new models within two years, of which the Galaxy intelligent electric hybrid L series will launch four products, the first electric hybrid SUV Galaxy L7 and the first electric hybrid car Galaxy L6 will be delivered in the second and third quarters of this year respectively; Galaxy intelligent pure electric E series will launch three products, of which the first pure electric product E8 will be delivered in the fourth quarter of this year.

However, less than a week later, "Geely Galaxy" ushered in plagiarism doubts. On February 28, a lawyer’s letter sent by Chongqing Baijun Law Firm, the law firm entrusted by Changan Automobile, pointed out that the prototype of Geely Galaxy’s "Galaxy Light" has a lot of similarities with Changan Automobile’s concept car and mass-produced models. It is suspected that a large number of copies of the appearance of Changan Automobile’s released models have seriously infringed the relevant intellectual property rights of Changan Automobile.

According to the comparison chart circulated on the Internet, the outside world pointed out that the original model of Geely Galaxy and Changan Automobile Deep Blue SL03, UNI-V and other models have similarities in the front face, headlights and tail shape. According to the data, the Deep Blue SL03 was launched in July 2022, priced between 17-200,000 yuan, providing pure electric version, extended range version and hydrogen electric version. As of the end of February this year, the cumulative delivery volume reached 37,328 vehicles.

(Image source: Sina Weibo)

In response to the plagiarism rumors, Geely Automobile directly denounced the above-mentioned lawyer’s letter as "seriously untrue and groundless, misleading the public, and causing serious damage to our brand and goodwill." According to a statement released by Geely Automobile on February 28, Geely Galaxy Light is an original design of Geely, and there is no plagiarism and infringement of others’ intellectual property rights.

(Image source: Geely Automobile official Weibo)

It is worth mentioning that Chen Zheng, vice president of design of Geely Automobile Group, joined Geely in March 2022 after working for Changan Automobile for 20 years and served as the global design director of Changan Automobile Group.

However, Geely Automobile has already applied for the Galaxy series trademark. Qichacha shows that Geely Automobile applied for the registration of the "Galaxy Light" trademark on March 2, which is internationally classified as a means of transportation, and the current trademark status is "under registration application". Previously, Geely has also applied for "Geely Galaxy", "Jizhi Galaxy", "Haoqing Galaxy" and other Galaxy series trademarks.

(Source: Qichacha)

New energy vehicle "underachiever"?

Lin Jie, vice president of Geely Automobile Group, once said that the sales goal of each product of the Galaxy series is to become the top three in the market segment, and the joint geometry brand will cover 65% of the future new energy vehicle market.

In fact, Geely Automobile has already made big claims about its new energy layout, but the reality is not as good as it wants. As early as November 2015, Geely Automobile announced the implementation of a five-year development strategy called "Blue Geely Action", with the goal of "reaching 90% of new energy vehicle sales by 2020."

However, by 2020, Geely Automobile’s annual sales of new energy vehicles 68,000, down 39.7% year-on-year, accounting for only 5.2%. In 2021, Geely Automobile’s new energy vehicles were delivered 61,000, down 10% year-on-year, and still failed to achieve the new energy sales target. Geely Automobile, which is brave in the fuel vehicle market competition, has frequently lost in the new energy battlefield.

In fact, from the perspective of peer companies, it is not difficult to find that Geely Automobile’s layout in new energy vehicles is relatively late. When NIO, Li Auto, and XPeng Motors were launched in the United States in September 2018, July 2020, and August 2020 after four, five, and six years of establishment respectively, Geely Automobile really began to make big moves in the field of new energy vehicles.

Geely Automobile established Geometry Automobile in April 2019, positioning it as a new brand of mid-to-high-end pure electric vehicles, but the development of Geometry Automobile was not smooth in the first two years. Data show that in 2019 and 2020, the annual sales of Geometry Automobile remained at about 10,000 vehicles. In order to occupy a place in the field of new energy vehicles, Geely Automobile and its parent company established the new energy brand of Extreme Krypton Automobile in March 2021.

Entering 2022, the new energy vehicles under Geely Automobile began to exert force. According to Geely Automobile data, the cumulative sales of pure electric vehicles under Geely Automobile in 2022 were 262,000, an increase of 328% year-on-year, and 66,000 plug-in hybrid vehicles, an increase of 219% year-on-year. Although it is far higher than the industry’s 90% year-on-year growth rate, it is still unable to compare with the giants Tesla and BYD in scale. In 2022, BYD’s cumulative sales were 1.8635 million, an increase of 208.64% year-on-year. Among them, the sales of pure electric vehicles exceeded 910,000; while Tesla’s annual sales were 1.31 million, and about 440,000 in China.

As a traditional automaker with independent core technologies, Geely Automobile has followed in the footsteps of BYD’s transformation from traditional automakers to new energy vehicles.

Data show that BYD’s annual sales in 2018 were 520,000, only one-third of Geely Automobile’s total sales, but BYD’s new energy vehicle sales accounted for 47.5% at this time. Since March 2022, BYD has stopped the production of fuel vehicles, becoming the first car company in the world to officially announce the suspension of fuel vehicles. Until February this year, Geely Automobile’s new energy vehicles accounted for 21.4%, and fuel vehicles are still the company’s main sales force.

In January 2023, BYD sold 151,341 units, an increase of 62.44% year-on-year. During the same period, while BYD’s sales were growing, Geely Automobile’s sales fell sharply, achieving sales of 103,452 units, a decrease of about 29% year-on-year. Regarding the decline in sales, Geely Automobile explained that it was "mainly affected by the early Spring Festival holiday."

The performance is "under great pressure"

In 2022, Geely Automobile’s total sales volume was 1.43 million, an increase of about 8% year-on-year. Among them, the cumulative sales volume of new energy throughout the year was 328,727, and new energy accounted for about 23%.

In fact, compared with Geely Automobile’s previous sales target of 1.53 million vehicles in 2022, the company has not met the target. This is already the fifth consecutive year that Geely Automobile has not met the sales target. However, for 2023, Geely Automobile sets the sales target at 1.65 million vehicles, of which the sales target of new energy vehicles is more than 100% higher than the total sales achieved in 2022.

The continuous improvement of sales targets may be to ensure the full implementation of the "Smart Geely 2025" strategy. The strategy was proposed by Geely Automobile in 2021 and announced that the total sales target of 2025 cars is 3.65 million, of which 650,000 are Krypton cars and 3 million are Geely cars.

Extreme Krypton, a well-known new energy vehicle brand under Geely Automobile, sold only 71,900 vehicles in 2022. Since its establishment in March 2021, Extreme Krypton’s capital movements have been frequent. When the Pre-A round of strategic financing was completed in August 2021, the post-money valuation was about 9 billion US dollars, and the recent completion of 750 million US dollars financing, the post-money valuation was 13 billion US dollars, about 89.80 billion yuan; Geely Automobile is planning to spin off Extreme Krypton. Compared with the new car-making forces NIO, Xiaopeng, Ideal, and Zero Run, which have sold more than 100,000 cars in 2022, as of March 10, the valuation of the corresponding four companies is 102.40 billion yuan, 59.80 billion yuan, 154.90 billion yuan, 27 billion yuan; It is not difficult to see that the valuation of polar krypton is higher.

For new car manufacturers, profitability is still a problem. Extreme Krypton Auto’s net losses in 2021 and the first half of 2022 reached 1.01 billion yuan and 759 million yuan respectively. In just one and a half years, Extreme Krypton has lost up to 1.769 billion yuan.

Geely Automobile’s continued losses and huge demand for capital may also put pressure on Geely Automobile. Geely Automobile disclosed that in the first half of 2022, Geely Automobile’s gross profit margin fell by 2.6 percentage points year-on-year to 14.6%, and the sharp decline in net profit was mainly due to the negative impact of the increase in raw material costs and the increase in the proportion of new energy vehicles.

In recent years, Geely Automobile’s net profit decline has become a trend. Wind data shows that from 2019 to 2021, the company’s net profit was 8.19 billion yuan, 5.534 billion yuan and 4.847 billion yuan, respectively, down 34.76%, 32.43% and 12.4% year-on-year; in the first half of 2022, Geely Automobile’s net profit further decreased by 34.81% year-on-year, to 1.552 billion yuan.

In terms of profitability, Geely Automobile’s gross profit margin in 2018 fell from 20.2% to 14.6% in the first half of 2022, but the expense ratio rose from 7.8% in 2018 to 13.7% in the first half of 2022, and the expense ratio continued to rise. In comparison, BYD’s gross profit margin in the first half of 2022 was 13.51% and the expense ratio was 8.58%. During the same period, Geely Automobile’s gross profit margin was slightly higher than BYD, but the expense ratio was much higher than BYD.

At the same time, Geely Automobile’s inventory is high. As of the end of June 2022, Geely Automobile’s inventory was 7.567 billion yuan, a significant increase from 5.522 billion yuan at the end of 2021. In the inventory, the inventory of manufactured goods increased sharply from 2.94 billion yuan at the end of 2021 to 4.063 billion yuan at the end of June 2022. How to remove inventory also tests Geely Automobile’s management ability. (Produced by Thinking Finance) ■

　　[Global Network Comprehensive Report] The Fourth Session of the 12th Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference will open at the Great Hall of the People at 3 pm on March 3, and the Fourth Session of the 12th National People’s Congress will also open on March 5.

　　In 2016, two national conferences were held, and proposals on the automobile industry were also released. There are not only forward-looking proposals on autonomous driving legislation, but also proposals on people’s livelihood such as oil prices.

　　According to the official news released by Geely Automobile, Li Shufu, member of Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and chairman of Geely Group, put forward three proposals at the two sessions: firstly, he suggested speeding up the legislation of autonomous driving; secondly, he cautiously and reasonably revised the law on the promotion of private education; and thirdly, he strengthened the tax management of e-commerce business transactions.

　　Li Shufu believes that motoring has brought new challenges and opportunities to the development of China automobile industry. It is urgent to judge the possible problems in advance and make legislative plans as soon as possible. This is because the legislation on autonomous driving has become a new international concern, and because of the complexity and uniqueness of China, it takes a certain period to amend a legislation or industry regulations. Therefore, starting to consider the legislation on autonomous driving as soon as possible will help to establish the norms of autonomous driving industry in China, promote the healthy development of the industry and guide social investment. Moreover, with the establishment of relevant legislation and industry norms, it can maximize the promotion of related industries to achieve cornering overtaking on the international stage in the "Made in China 2025" grand strategy.　

　　As for the content and formulation of autonomous driving legislation, Li Shufu believes that we should first study and analyze the current laws and regulations in China, identify and start to modify the relevant provisions that hinder the development of autonomous driving; Secondly, as a new technology, the final promotion of autonomous driving must be widely accepted by users; In addition, autonomous driving can achieve more significant social effects in solving traffic congestion and air pollution in large and medium-sized cities, and these areas are also in urgent need of autonomous driving; Finally, the development of autonomous driving requires comprehensive consideration of relevant industrial policies of legislation.

　　Coincidentally, the three proposals made by Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and Baidu CEO Robin Li also involved policies and regulations on driverless driving.

　　Li Yanhong said that driverless cars have great energy-saving potential, which has far-reaching significance in reducing traffic accidents, improving congestion, improving road and vehicle utilization, and can directly drive the rapid development of smart car aftermarket and other industries. At present, the development of global driverless technology is welcoming a new upsurge, and China enterprises are also actively deploying the core technology research and development and industrial application in the field of driverless. After years of accumulation, Internet companies such as Baidu have reached the international leading level in many key technologies of autonomous driving, such as traffic scene object recognition, high-precision mapping and positioning. However, compared with the continuous advancement of technology, China’s relevant laws and regulations still have a lot of room for adjustment for the development of driverless cars: on the one hand, the relevant industry standards, technical standards, laws and regulations and insurance of the existing automobile industry are not applicable to driverless cars; On the other hand, regulations on map content and surveying and mapping qualifications related to driverless cars also hinder the development of driverless cars.

　　In response to this problem, Li Yanhong suggested in the proposal that China should pay attention to driverless driving at the national level, make top-level design and scientific planning for the research and development and industrial application of driverless technology, and revise and improve laws and regulations related to driverless driving as soon as possible, so as to provide institutional guarantee for the research and development, testing and commercial application of driverless cars.

　　In addition to autonomous driving, which represents cutting-edge technology, people’s livelihood issues such as oil prices have also become the focus of auto industry proposals.

　　The reporter learned from the official of Great Wall Motor that the proposal of Wang Fengying, deputy to the National People’s Congress and president of Great Wall Motor, involved topics such as ladder pricing of vehicle fuel.

　　Wang Fengying analyzed the current development situation of automobile industry in China: the number of motor vehicles in China is close to 280 million, the number of private cars is over 140 million, and the number of cars per thousand people is about 117, which is close to the international average. Generally speaking, China has entered the automobile society in an all-round way. Moreover, China’s public demand for cars has not yet reached its peak, and the number of cars is bound to maintain a net growth of more than 10 million in the next 10-15 years. According to this trend, China will become a "country on wheels". By then, people’s mode of production and travel, choice of residence, urban and rural structure, lifestyle, leisure style, consumption structure and business model will also change. This change in the rhythm of social activities will also have a direct impact on social relations and other aspects.

　　At present, there is still a big gap between China’s "soft" environment of automobile society, especially the car-using environment and developed countries. The poor convenience of car owners and the heavy tax burden of all links directly restrict the operation efficiency of the automobile society and are not conducive to the development of China’s automobile society.

　　She pointed out a series of problems exposed with the growth of car ownership: the system setting of vehicle and vessel tax is unfair, which is not conducive to encouraging car owners to use less cars; The toll period of expressway is too long, which is beyond the reasonable scope, so it should be adjusted and optimized according to the urban development; The fuel price pricing mechanism is not linked to the intensity of vehicle use; The current vehicle annual inspection system is still unreasonable and there is a waste of social resources; Urban parking fee management is chaotic and inefficient, and the whereabouts of parking fees are unknown; Congestion fee collection needs forward-looking planning and corresponding legal and policy support.

　　In this regard, Wang Fengying’s suggestions are: increase the intensity of vehicle use and optimize the vehicle and vessel use tax system; Clarify the social and operational attributes of transportation infrastructure such as expressways, scientifically allocate resources, and create a fairer and more standardized car environment for car owners; Taking the vehicle intensity as an important charging standard, this paper explores the ladder pricing system of vehicle fuel to guide users to reduce the vehicle intensity; Supervision and use of "internet plus" and other technical means to improve vehicle traffic efficiency and improve parking management efficiency; Carefully collect congestion charges, and the decision-making process needs to be open and transparent; Revise and improve the laws, regulations and policies related to car use to create a more convenient car use environment for car owners.

　　As well as the oil price problem, there are also concerns about the new energy utilization of automobiles, the progress of energy conservation and emission reduction, and the process of green environmental protection. Recently, An Jin, deputy to the National People’s Congress and chairman of Jianghuai Automobile, said in an interview with the media that the most concerned issue is energy conservation and emission reduction.

　　An Jin said: "This year’s two sessions, in addition to studying Premier Li Keqiang’s government work report, accurately grasping the development trend of the country and industry under the new normal, and combining the 13 th Five-Year Plan with enterprise development, my most concerned topic is energy conservation and emission reduction." At the beginning of the interview, An Jin briefly and directly introduced the focus of the two sessions this year.

　　In Amgen’s view, there are at least two major issues in the adjustment of China’s industrial structure: innovation and green. A big country must have a high degree of innovation. If we can’t take the lead in innovation or catch up with it quickly, we can’t have competitiveness and the right to speak in the complicated political and economic environment.

　　It is not difficult to infer that Amgen’s proposal will focus on the development of innovative technologies, green cars and energy conservation and emission reduction.