Weilai, Idealist And Xiaopeng Gather In US Stock Market

On the evening of August 27, Beijing time, Xiaopeng automobile, a new force of Internet car making, completed the cloud ringing bell in Guangzhou headquarters and officially listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the stock code of "xpev". This is the third new force of China's car making has been listed in the US stock market after Weilai landed on the New York Stock Exchange on September 12, 2018, and ideal auto landed on NASDAQ on July 31, this year. So far, China's new forces of Internet car making "three giants" have taken a key step in IPO.

The IPO price of Xiaopeng automobile is 15 US dollars / ads, and the total amount of funds raised through this IPO is about 1.5 billion US dollars, both exceeding Weilai and ideal automobile. Based on this calculation, the issuance valuation of Xiaopeng automobile is between 11.2-11.42 billion US dollars.

Recently, under the influence of Tesla's new energy vehicle concept change and its own performance improvement, the stock prices of Weilai and ideal automobile have soared to a new high.

By the end of August 26, American Eastern time, Weilai closed at $20.44 per share, with a market value of $24.21 billion; ideal automobile closed at $23.38, with a market value of $19.55 billion. Among the listed companies of Chinese automobile enterprises, Weilai and ideal have the third and fifth market value respectively, surpassing some traditional automobile enterprises such as GAC, Dongfeng and great wall.

With weilaihe ideal as a reference, the stock price and market value of Xiaopeng automobile still have certain growth potential. "In the process of introducing the IPO story, we feel that Tencent may be the support behind Weilai, meituan is the ideal, and Ali and Xiaomi are behind Xiaopeng. The support of these two companies is enough to make Xiaopeng's market value equal to the ideal." Zhang Junyi, deputy general manager of CSO, said in an interview with CSO on August 27.

"Who goes public first, who lives first"

Rapid listing has become a common feature of the "new forces of car making".

"It's definitely going to go public. It's a capital game. The capital that enters new force of car making has cash requirement, do not appear on the market cannot come out. " Cao he, a senior securities analyst in the automobile industry, said in an interview with the reporter of the 21st century economic report.

Listing is not only a means for new auto makers to fulfill their promises to investors, but also a means for an auto company to attract other capital to follow up, so as to realize the positive circulation of the capital chain. If enterprises can not take this opportunity to achieve their own "hematopoietic" ability, they will be eliminated one after another.

"Why are they all rushing to go public? Because, who goes public first, who lives first. " Cao he said. In his opinion, the prospect of the new energy vehicle market is clear, and the competition and cooperation of new forces in car manufacturing has basically taken shape.

From the selection of listing time nodes and the judgment of the capital market for the new energy automobile industry, the IPO environment of ideal and Xiaopeng was much better than that of Weilai.

When Weilai was listed on the stock market, the delivery volume of its first car was only more than 1000, and the company's finance showed huge losses, and the gross profit rate was negative. When the ideal car was launched, the delivery volume of new cars was close to 10000, and the gross profit margin turned positive. By the end of the first half of this year, the car sales rate of Xiaopeng has not yet increased to - 70000 by the end of 2020.

In addition, since the beginning of this year, Tesla's share price has soared, which has also led to the popularity of the whole concept of intelligent and new energy vehicle market in the capital market.

At present, the market value of Tesla has exceeded US $400 billion, becoming the world's largest auto company in terms of market value, and has exceeded the sum of century old giants Toyota and Volkswagen. After the support of Hefei local government to Weilai, the stock price of Weilai automobile has also risen from $3.2 at the beginning of this year to more than $20, an increase of more than 500%. Among the domestic automobile enterprises, the market value of Weilai automobile is now second only to BYD and SAIC, ranking the third, while the market value of ideal automobile is almost the same as that of Geely Automobile, the fourth largest.

Why can the unprofitable new force of car making obtain such a high market value?

Zhang Junyi believes that in the short term, there is still room for growth in the market value of Weilai, idealized and Xiaopeng automobiles from the perspective of the pursuit of the capital market. "Tesla's share price has soared. Under such circumstances, it is normal for other Chinese companies to break through the sky. But if you think about it in reverse, Tesla is valued not by the standards of a car company, but by a technology company. " The judgment basis of capital market for Weilai, ideality and Xiaopeng is also because they package themselves as an automobile technology company. No matter from the background of the founders and investors, the business philosophy of the enterprise or the way of product creation, the three companies have a strong Internet gene.

Why look at Zhongxiao Peng automobile?

According to the initial offer price of US $0.5 billion, the initial investment price of US $0.5 billion, US $0.5 billion, respectively, have been subscribed by the shareholders of priatus $0.5 billion, cap. This undoubtedly provides a good endorsement for Xiaopeng automobile.

As a matter of fact, Ali and Xiaomi have already arranged among them. Alibaba has participated in the financing of Xiaopeng automobile for many times, and is also the largest external shareholder. Before IPO, Alibaba held 14.4% equity. Xiaomi participated in the c-round financing of Xiaopeng automobile last year, and the two sides also announced in-depth strategic cooperation.

Why do Ali and Xiaomi look at Xiaopeng? This has a deep relationship with he Xiaopeng, the founder of Xiaopeng automobile.

He Xiaopeng is a typical it person. In 2004, he Xiaopeng founded UC Youshi. In 2014, he joined the Alibaba department and successively served as president of Alibaba mobile business group and chairman of Alibaba games. In 2014, he Xiaopeng, as an investor, jointly invested and founded Xiaopeng automobile with Xia Heng, President of Xiaopeng automobile. In the early stage of Xiaopeng Auto's entrepreneurship, he got several rounds of financing from Ali. On August 22, 2017, he Xiaopeng resigned from Ali, and formally joined Xiaopeng automobile one week later and became the chairman of Xiaopeng automobile.

He Xiaopeng has known Lei Jun, a native of Hubei Province, for many years. Lei Jun is an angel investor of he Xiaopeng's two pioneering ventures, UC and Xiaopeng automobile. When Xiaomi went public, he Xiaopeng backed Lei Jun with 100 million dollars of stock.

In he Xiaopeng's opinion, in the development process of automobile intelligence, the gene of an enterprise is extremely important. Since its establishment, Xiaopeng automobile hopes to manufacture intelligent electric vehicles through advanced self-research technology, so as to provide intelligent electric vehicle experience for the huge middle end consumer group with rapid growth and advocating science and technology in China, so as to promote the popularization of electric vehicles.

From the development trend of the industry, the automobile industry is moving from the era of machinery and hardware to the era of software defined automobile. Software will play a huge role in the automotive industry and bring broad commercial potential. This is where the new forces of Internet car building are competing for the track and opportunity.

The pattern of "three strong" has been initially determined

Five years ago, under the stimulation of the wave of electric vehicles and Tesla, China set off a nearly "Crazy" new car making movement, and nearly 100 new car companies were established in a few years. At that time, the whole industry had a clear understanding, only a few could survive, and even fewer could succeed in the end. Therefore, new car manufacturing enterprises need to race against time, use limited funds in a short period of time, and quickly push products to the market.

Over the past few years, the industry has experienced a shuffle. A large number of enterprises have been out of the market before mass production vehicles have been launched. Weilai, Xiaopeng, Weima, ideality and other powerful new automobile manufacturing forces stand out, have achieved a certain scale in the market, and rely on their leading position to harvest more resources. In the first half of this year, the sales of Weilai automobile, ideal automobile and Xiaopeng automobile ranked among the top three of the new automobile manufacturing forces.

From the perspective of the development of the three enterprises, they chose different positioning. Among them, the main competitiveness of Weilai automobile mainly lies in user experience and service; ideal car mainly promotes the market of electric vehicle and medium and large SUV; Xiaopeng automobile regards intelligence and automation as its core competitiveness, focusing on medium and high-end market, and the price of products is slightly lower than that of Weilai and ideal.

Among the new forces of Internet manufacturing, Beijing and the Yangtze River Delta are the main headquarters. The car manufacturing base in Guangzhou is represented by the new car manufacturing base in Zhaoqing and Zhujiang Delta.

In the first half of this year, Xiaopeng automobile finally obtained the qualification of making cars, and Zhaoqing factory officially started the production of the second mass production car Xiaopeng P7 (the first car G3 of Xiaopeng was manufactured by Haima Zhengzhou factory). Xiaopeng automobile thinks that Zhaoqing base can share the supporting resources of Guangzhou and Foshan automobile factories. Among them, Foshan, which is adjacent to Zhaoqing, has FAW Volkswagen Foshan factory, and Guangzhou is the base of GAC group, with complete parts and components. The auto parts companies in the Pearl River Delta are all in the one hour economic circle.

Of course, for the new forces of car making, IPO is not the end, but a new starting point. Like Weilai and ideal, Xiaopeng automobile is still in a deficit state, and has not formed enough strong self "hematopoietic" ability. According to the prospectus, the revenue of Xiaopeng automobile in 2018, 2019 and the first six months of 2020 were 97 million yuan, 2.32 billion yuan and 1.03 billion yuan respectively, and the net losses were 1.399 billion yuan, 3.692 billion yuan and 796 million yuan respectively, and the accumulated loss of two and a half years was close to 6 billion yuan. Among them, the R & D expenses in 2018 and 2019 were 1.051 billion yuan and 2.070 billion yuan respectively, and the R & D expenses in the first half of this year were 631 million yuan, which is in the period of high investment in R & D. Moreover, if we want our products to be competitive, we must continue to invest in R & D.

In addition to the loss of performance, the biggest problem facing the new car makers is how to sell more new cars. Although Weilai, ideality and Xiaopeng all hope to enhance the continuous competitiveness of their products through the rapid software iteration, there is still a certain gap between the hardware iteration and the traditional automobile enterprises. How much market the first generation products can bring is the problem they have to face.

"At present, different from Tesla, the sales volume of Xiaopeng and Weilai has a ceiling. In the next two or three years, it will be very good if the annual sales volume reaches 50000 or 100000. Therefore, it still depends on their follow-up market performance, but these enterprises will not have new products in the next few years, at least until two or three years later. Last year, Weilai was miserable. Basically, there was no money to develop new products, and the development speed has declined. Xiaopeng just put on a new product, the ideal is three years a model. " Zhang Junyi told reporters.

In terms of the cycle of the automobile industry, it takes at least two to three years for a car to go from design to research and development to production. Most of the new forces of car making started around 2015, and the design and development of the first car basically started five years ago. Even after many years, even if the new car can't meet the market demand, it may not be able to meet the market demand.

When Mr. Zeng Weihuo, chairman of the board of directors of the company, was interviewed in July this year.

On June 6 this year, he Xiaopeng, chairman of Xiaopeng automobile, sent a group photo with Li Bin, chairman of Weilai Automobile Co., Ltd., and Li Xiang, chairman of ideal Automobile Co., Ltd., in the circle of wechat friends, and the accompanying text said that "the three hardships are in the memory of hard thinking and change..." Today, the three enterprises gather in the US stock market, and the head pattern of China's new car making forces has been initially established. However, for them, this is only a step in the development process, and the "marathon" race of new cars has just entered a new starting point.

?