2003: Starting with Foreign Trade

Chapter 1076 "Trillion-Dollar Revenue, Bullish!"

The upcoming financial report from Wei Lai caused a huge sensation before the New Year.

Preliminary financial statements are not official financial statements, but reputable or large companies will not manipulate them. The data in these preliminary financial statements is usually not much different from the data in the audited financial statements.

Whether it's the upper or lower limit, Weilai has already been confirmed as the first private enterprise to break the trillion-yuan mark in revenue this year. The only suspense is whether it will be the number one private enterprise compared to Jingdong.

"This is a historic moment for domestically produced cars."

Since most companies have not yet disclosed their 2023 financial reports, based on the 2022 annual reports, there are 12 companies nationwide with revenues exceeding one trillion yuan. Among these 12 companies, only one is a private enterprise, namely Jingdong.

With revenue of 1.04 trillion yuan, Jingdong surpassed companies like Ali and Chrysanthemum to become the number one private enterprise.

The atypical internet company that was once questioned for its self-operated logistics and asset-heavy internet model has now reached the point where it can bear fruit. With hundreds of thousands of employees and trillions of yuan in revenue, Jingdong has become a transcendent existence among internet companies.

While internet companies are universally condemned, Jingdong, despite having the same online lending business as other internet companies, has not been significantly impacted.

This is the benefit of serving the real economy and generating trillions in revenue.

Perhaps in the AI ​​era, Jingdong's operating model will not bring much increase in its valuation, and perhaps Jingdong's market share will become smaller and smaller under the impact of companies such as Ali, ByteDance, and Pinduoduo, but as long as it has its own logistics system, it can remain invincible.

Compared to Jingdong, Weilai's trillion-yuan revenue is even more remarkable because Weilai is a genuine entity and a true intelligent manufacturing enterprise, which is far more valuable than Jingdong's.

Furthermore, Weilai is also a high-tech enterprise.

Following Xiaomi's product launch, Lei Jun's explanation brought the concept of interconnected ecosystems in the automotive industry to the forefront, making the concept of a complete ecosystem encompassing people, cars, and homes a new focal point.

With smartphones, tablets, and smart home devices interconnecting, tablets can become car accessories, supporting multiple vehicle control functions. Industry competition has shifted from focusing on single vehicle performance to user-centric, cross-scenario intelligent experiences.

The new competitive model has been made public. Wei Lai had made relevant arrangements a long time ago. Meizu, which was acquired by Tan Jincheng, has been brought to the forefront again after being a "little invisible" for many years.

Weilai's various car models can connect to multiple brands of mobile phones, including Meizu, Apple, Huawei, and Xiaomi. In terms of vehicle-machine interconnection, Weilai has truly achieved multi-system compatibility, and it maintains an open and cooperative attitude towards other brands.

In the field of smart home, the strategic cooperation with Midea Group in the past also played a certain role. Compared with Xiaomi's closed-loop ecosystem, Weilai's ecosystem may be weaker.

Xiaomi is like a home furnishing supermarket. They have all kinds of home appliances, big and small, for any life scenario. If you don't have these, you can't achieve ecosystem integration, and the experience may be worse.

However, because Weilai's cars sell well and are open and interconnected, they can bring benefits to other companies, so other companies are also willing to cooperate. Compared with Xiaomi's ecosystem, each has its own advantages and disadvantages, and it cannot be considered completely weak.

Just days after Welai released its financial report, Welai's ecosystem expanded again. Welai reached an ecosystem cooperation agreement with Leapmotor, and Leapmotor's models will start developing applications based on Welai OS, achieving a deeper level of cooperation with Leapmotor.

"There will be more and more cross-industry collaborations in the future. The cooperation with Leapmotor will not make Leapmotor lose its soul, nor will it make Weilai more aggressive. We are just reaching more cooperation in ecological applications."

Weilai will equip its 2024 models with a central computing platform and plans to implement large-scale AI models by the end of the first quarter, enabling multimodal perception and more natural human-computer interaction. In addition, it has established an intelligent computing center with Orange Cloud to improve R&D efficiency.

The collaboration with Leapmotor is just one part of the smart ecosystem. The competition and cooperation between the companies can no longer be simply regarded as "invasion" and cooperation. The competition in the C-end market is reflected more in cooperation in the B-end market.

After Leapmotor's range-extended electric vehicles were launched, they sold very well, taking away some market share from Weilai and other car companies. However, Leapmotor's success was beneficial to Weilai and Tan Jincheng themselves.

While seizing a certain market share, we can also enrich the market share of range-extended electric vehicles, allowing more users to accept this market and revitalize it. This is the cooperation in competition.

"A user-centric intelligent ecosystem has been formed, and it is difficult for individual automotive ecosystems to maintain an advantage in the competition."

During the 2024 Spring Festival, Weilai continued to provide its employees with good benefits. In terms of net profit, Weilai's net profit in 2023 exceeded 800 billion yuan. With such high profits, Weilai needs to give an explanation to its users, employees, and shareholders.

With a user reward plan of 15 billion yuan, high bonuses for employees during the Chinese New Year, and upcoming dividends from the secondary market, based on the principle that net profit is the basis for dividend distribution, and having already increased the proportion to 15%, the annual report dividend will be at least 120 billion yuan.

"The dividend per share will be at least 2.72 yuan."

During the Chinese New Year, according to Weilai's financial report, Mr. Zhang from Shenzhen spoke at length about how he had increased his holdings to 10 shares after the bonus share distribution at Weilai's 2023 annual shareholders' meeting.

Looking back, the stock price at that time was the lowest in 2023. Now, the market value of Weilai has reached more than 1.7 trillion yuan, which is less than 18 percentage points away from the first target of two trillion yuan given by institutions.

According to the rules of the ChiNext board, this can be done in a single day.

Mr. Zhang, who has been studying Weilai Shares for a long time, naturally understands better that based on his current shareholding, even according to the dividend ratio in the 2022 annual report, he can receive at least 27 yuan in dividends.

With a market value of over 3800 million, receiving a dividend of 27 is not much, but his wealth of tens of millions originally came from Weilai Shares and related stocks.

A dividend of 27 yuan may have a very limited effect on a super retail investor whose net worth has exceeded 5000 million yuan, but the sense of accomplishment gained is different. Weilai Co., Ltd. is a complete vehicle manufacturer, but it is also a high-tech enterprise.

Being able to receive hundreds of thousands of yuan in dividends every year as an individual investor in a high-tech company is a sense of accomplishment that rivals that of institutional investors. That said, given Weilai's current market value, holding 10 shares is no small feat.

"With such a high market value, aren't you going to sell? Sell a portion and use the proceeds for short-term trading; it'd be exciting and satisfying."

Old Zhang attended a year-end gathering of retail investors. Everyone there had been friends for many years. Although their capital amounts varied, they got along quite harmoniously. There might be some hurtful exchanges among retail investors, but there was relatively little discrimination.

Some prefer long-term investing, while others prefer short-term investing; their trading styles differ.

"No, it's not interesting. Once you've been doing long-term investing for a long time, you lose interest in short-term trading."

Old Zhang shook his head. He certainly couldn't put all his funds into Weilai Shares. Besides his daily household expenses, he also kept some working capital in his securities account. In fact, he also did "short-term trading," but his short-term trading was different from what retail investors meant by short-term trading.

If you use some funds to buy a stock at a low price, you can arrange the selling time according to the expected return, which can be a week, a month, or even half a year.

Over the years, his stock picks have remained largely unchanged, consisting of just a few stocks that he approves of. The returns have been quite good, at least enough to cover his family's daily expenses.

With this kind of approach, there's absolutely no need for regular trading of stocks you're optimistic about.

10 shares may seem like a lot to him, but it's not much in terms of Weilai's total share capital. Currently, over 88% of Weilai's total share capital is freely tradable. Excluding the shares controlled by Weilai's senior executives and actual controllers, at least 18 billion shares are fully tradable.

With nearly 7000 billion yuan in circulation, if he frequently engages in daily trading with his tens of millions of yuan in market value, he might get shaken out one day. It's better to be more cautious.

"You old bastard, you have it so easy. I should have kept an eye on Boss Tan's listed company like you did back then."

Many of the people at the gathering had known Lao Zhang for years. Their net worth varied, and those who had been in the stock market for over a decade and were still able to attend such gatherings were certainly not short of money, regardless of their actual wealth.

Whenever Old Zhang gets together, he always recommends Weilai shares, but they always refuse for various reasons. And the more time goes on, the less they dare to buy them.

This is the mindset of veteran stock market investors. If it were a new investor, they might just rush in.

"Wei Lai has a strong technological reserve. You should really take a look at the things they don't advertise much."

Logically speaking, stock traders wouldn't advise others to buy certain stocks or make recommendations. However, since they were all old friends, they didn't care about such things. Old Zhang always believed that Weilai's valuation was more than what it was now.

He knew Wei Lai or Tan Jincheng too well. When Wei Lai lacked strength, he would bluff and boast, but when his technical reserves reached a certain level, he stopped promoting himself so much.

It can only be learned from other sources or from car owners that, for example, Weilai has already enabled navigation assistance function on gasoline vehicles, which gives gasoline vehicles a certain intelligent car function, making them completely different in terms of competitiveness. However, Weilai has not promoted it much.

Furthermore, the Tank series has fully embraced hybrid technology, and the hybrid version of the Tank 700 will be launched at the end of the month. Welai hasn't done much advertising for these developments; information can only be found through the Welai app, stores, and dealers. There's some online promotion, but Welai hasn't done extensive marketing. With limited resources, both Tan Jincheng and Li Xiang can only focus on promoting strategic products, while other products have to be promoted by other executives.

After the L series and Exeed grew, the resources available to Yuechi Auto became extremely limited. The parent company rarely takes the initiative to promote the products anymore, and everything has to be done by Yuechi Auto itself.

Yuechi Auto's resources are certainly not as good as Weilai's, but whether it is Yuechi, Tank, or the newly launched Xinghe P1, they all have a very high user base. After adding navigation assistance function to the gasoline vehicle system, the driving experience of gasoline vehicles will definitely be much better.

In Weilai's comprehensive export plan, Yuechi's fuel vehicles are also part of it. This information was obtained by Lao Zhang over more than ten years, and he also summarized the general rules of Weilai's product marketing.

With technology, distribution channels, brand, sales volume, and forward-looking vision, the overseas sales share of total sales is getting higher and higher. If one day the economic environment improves and Weilai's products can be sold to North America or Russia, then Weilai's achievements will be even greater. How could such a company stop here?

"It can actually be sold in North America, but the tariffs are too high."

In fact, North America has never publicly stated that it would ban the export of complete vehicles to their region. However, considering the overall tax rate, especially the tax rate on new energy vehicles, it is basically not commercially feasible. The profit margin for direct exports is extremely small and may not even cover the tariff costs.

It's not just Wei Lai; other domestic companies also have almost no plans to export to North America. If they really want to open up the North American market, they can only do so by setting up factories there, which is not what most domestic companies want.

Since the Spring Festival, there has been a flurry of activity in the automotive industry, with cross-industry collaborations being the most frequent. The already spun-off Chrysanthemum Automotive business has been frequently linked with major automakers, demonstrating a rapid expansion.

It is clear that the previous concerns that Chrysanthemum would erode the soul of car companies and cause them to lose their soul were indeed the biggest obstacle to the expansion of Chrysanthemum's automotive business. After the business was spun off and other car companies were allowed to invest, a basis for cooperation was established.

Besides chrysanthemum, other car companies are also making moves, and it is clear that everyone has felt the fierce competition. However, the most successful company in February was Leapmotor.

Leapmotor's new C10 has received over 4.5 orders. Based on this performance, it is a model with sales exceeding 10 units, making it quite competitive. Leapmotor's C series has quickly replaced the previous T series as its best-selling model.

The accumulated technological expertise allowed this second-tier emerging brand, which, like Nezha Auto, was hit hardest in the major price war last year, to quickly turn the tide with the support of funding.

Leapmotor's stock price rose by 30% throughout February, significantly outperforming other emerging brands during the same period. This is a benefit of successful transformation through technological accumulation.

On the other hand, Nezha, who lacks skills, is already embroiled in trouble.

Besides these independent car companies, "second-generation car companies" were the most outstanding performers in the market in February. These "second-generation car companies" are new brands that are backed by traditional car companies, such as Jike, Galaxy, Voyah, and Deep Blue.

However, Geely has a lot of questionable practices. One is that they update their models too quickly and have changed their model names many times. A new car becomes an old model in just a few months, which has really offended their long-time customers.

However, Geely's move was out of necessity, mainly due to their insufficient response to the market. Taking the Z10 as an example, most of its models were based on the 400V platform in the early stages of its launch, while competing products at the same time had already adopted the 800V architecture. In terms of intelligent driving and safety features, its cost-effectiveness was also insufficient.

This is quite awkward. Consumers don't all understand cars. If you use 400V and other cars in the same price range use 800V, they will naturally think that 800V is better, and they don't care whether the 800V platform is mature or not.

In reality, the idea that 800V is superior to 400V is just a matter of understanding. An immature 800V platform may even be inferior to a 400V platform. It mainly depends on the automaker's technological reserves.

Geely wasn't entirely unaware of the speed of market transformation; it was mainly due to the inherently cautious attitude of a traditional automaker. Unfortunately, the current competitive environment no longer allows the company to be "slow" any longer.

"How should I put it about this car?"

Tan Jincheng seemed quite interested in Weilai. Weilai is now on the right track, and the two Exeed models are also on track. With their current prices and specifications, these two models will face increasing competition, but they still have a leading advantage in the same price range.

The main advantage lies in Weilai's clear strength in the pure electric vehicle field.

With little pressure, Mr. Tan obtained a Xiaomi SU7, a mass-produced model that had not yet been officially delivered, through Xiaomi and test-drove it at the test track in Weilai. As a shareholder and honorary director of Xiaomi, Tan Jincheng still has this much power.

As long as it's not disclosed to the public or publicly disseminated, it's fine. In reality, before a new car is delivered, a batch of cars will definitely be released; otherwise, where would the media cars come from?

"The advantages and disadvantages are very obvious."

Li Xiang also came to experience it. Boss Tan brought over the SU7 MAX version, which is the highest-spec version. It is equipped with dual motors and four-wheel drive, as well as a 101 kWh Jinshidai ternary lithium battery, with a range of 800 kilometers.

"Indeed, its performance and handling are excellent, but its shortcomings in other aspects are also obvious."

Tan Jincheng nodded. Over the years, he has test-driven many car models and participates in the testing of new models from Weilai when he has time. His understanding of cars has gone beyond that of an ordinary user.

He got the high-spec version. Putting aside the controversy over the appearance, this car is so good that it doesn't seem like a product that a company would produce for the first time. You should know that even companies like Weilai and Juhua couldn't achieve this level with their first model.

The performance and handling are excellent. The rear seat space is a bit cramped, but it's acceptable, considering it's a coupe. The car's infotainment system is also very well done, making it an outstanding vehicle in terms of driving pleasure.

However, the shortcomings are also obvious. First, in terms of intelligent driving, Tan Jincheng believed at the press conference that Lei Jun was just bragging. The experience outside the car confirmed this. In addition, there are other obvious shortcomings in other details.

"While its practicality is slightly lacking, it is overall a highly fun car to drive, and for its target audience, it is actually quite perfect."

"The only concern is whether after-sales service can keep up."

When it comes to building a car for the first time, whether the car has any defects is not the main point. The main point is after-sales service. Consumers or fans are actually willing to allow the company's first product to be imperfect, after all, everyone has gone through this process.

Since Xiaomi has no experience in car manufacturing, whether it can keep up in terms of after-sales service and whether it can transform these imperfections into customer loyalty will be the focus of its second and subsequent models.

"Yes, actually, service is more important than perfection these days."

"It should sell very well. We need to speed up the production of ET5. I'll go find Lao Zhang and ask them to adjust the production capacity. I'll be going to Beijing in a few days and won't have time to deal with these things."

Through the test drive, Tan Jincheng has already felt the charm of this model. With Xiaomi's marketing capabilities, Lei Jun's personal involvement will surely showcase the selling points of this model to the greatest extent possible.

March is typically a time when automakers launch a flurry of new models. The ET5 and its wagon version will also officially begin their pre-launch campaign in March to prepare for potential competition from the Xiaomi SU7.

Since the pricing of the SU7 has not yet been released, various debates have arisen in the market recently regarding Lei Jun's statement that it is "a bit expensive," with most of the opinions being pessimistic.

However, based on Tan Jincheng's understanding of Lei Jun, even if he wanted to target the high-end market and the price was indeed a bit high, he would definitely find a way to make users accept his pricing. Lei Jun has this ability.

On March 1, Weilai once again surprised everyone by releasing its official financial report after the market closed, becoming the first listed company in the A-share market specializing in new energy and complete vehicles to release an official financial report, and the third in the entire A-share market.

Two listed companies that were in a hurry released their official financial reports as early as the end of January.

Total revenue was 10697.63 billion yuan, and net profit was 819.3 billion yuan. Among them, the revenue from the automobile business reached 6688.46 billion yuan. Based on the total sales volume of Weilai, this revenue made the average selling price of each Weilai vehicle reach 18.18 yuan.

The decline is quite noticeable, but the most profitable L series has not changed much. The L series alone has generated more than 1200 billion yuan in revenue, with an average selling price of 32 yuan. The net profit margin of the L series reached 9.53%, far higher than the net profit margin of 5.65% for the whole vehicle.

"This financial report is impeccable. The battery net profit margin is stable, the car revenue has increased significantly, and the key is the dividends. They're incredibly generous."

When Wei Lai's financial report was released, it was another day of celebration for institutions and big players like Lao Zhang. Not only did revenue and net profit both increase, but the dividend plan, which is related to their core interests, was also mentioned in the annual report.

The company will distribute RMB 46.57 per 10 shares to all shareholders, with a total dividend of RMB 204.83 billion, accounting for 25% of the net profit in 2023!

"Hehe, I can get 46.57 yuan at a time, and I don't have to pay taxes. It's really great to have this money."

Old Zhang chuckled. Although it was just a preliminary plan and still needed to be approved by the shareholders' meeting, only a fool wouldn't approve it.

(End of this chapter)