ZEEKR faces the "facelift storm"

Author | Huang Yu

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

Three months after going public, ZEEKR (ZK.US) is at a crucial moment for reviewing its mid-term performance. However, ZEEKR is facing the typical dilemma of new energy vehicle companies - "updating too quickly." Faced with external doubts, ZEEKR must provide a high-scoring answer.

On the afternoon of August 21st, at the mid-term performance conference of its parent company Geely Auto, in this unfamiliar territory, ZEEKR CEO An Conghui was confronted early on and had to face the "update controversy."

"I knew everyone would ask this question today." An Conghui admitted that the rapid iteration of ZEEKR products has broken industry conventions. Although there was prior communication with users before the release of new products, it also led to complaints and criticisms from users. How to solve the relationship between product iteration and old users in the future is a difficult but necessary task.

To reassure users, An Conghui promised, "The all-new ZEEKR 009, as well as the 2025 models ZEEKR 001 and ZEEKR 007, will not have any plans for annual updates within the next year from the date of product release."

Furthermore, regarding the Mobileye intelligent driving system used in previous ZEEKR models, An Conghui stated that they will continue to develop and iterate it. Products with the Mobileye system will be retained domestically, and products overseas will also use the Mobileye system.

The "update controversy" arose a week ago when ZEEKR launched the 2025 models ZEEKR 001 and ZEEKR 007, with ZEEKR 001 being updated twice within six months, while "adding quantity without increasing price," leading to many newly purchased ZEEKR owners seeking rights protection.

In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, the cycle for major model updates was usually 5-6 years. With the rapid advancement of new energy vehicle technology, this cycle has been shortened to 1 year, aligning closely with the iteration speed of smartphones. In recent years, the new energy vehicle industry has experienced several instances of rights protection by old owners due to price reductions and model changes, including Tesla, Li Auto, XPeng, and other car companies.

As a commodity, cars are being updated and replaced like smartphones, challenging the understanding of many car buyers. However, this time, ZEEKR has once again broken the established iteration pattern of new forces, further shortening the iteration cycle to every six months.

Clearly, whether driven by the intention to provide users with better products more quickly or to seize the market more rapidly in intense competition, An Conghui does not intend for ZEEKR to continue being the "early bird."

Quickly calming this public opinion storm and maintaining a good relationship with old users is the right path for ZEEKR.

For ZEEKR, at this critical period of sprinting for performance, it can no longer take risks.

On August 21st, ZEEKR released its latest financial report, showing that its second-quarter revenue exceeded 20 billion yuan, reaching a record high for a single quarter, with a year-on-year growth of 58% and a quarter-on-quarter growth of 36%, and a gross profit margin of 17.2%. In the first half of this year, ZEEKR's total revenue was nearly 35 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth of over 60% An Conghui once said, "ZEEKR is definitely the new energy vehicle company, apart from Tesla, that can make money the earliest and fastest." After independently listing, ZEEKR wants to turn losses into profits as soon as possible, setting a goal to achieve profitability under the Hong Kong financial reporting standards this year.

Although ZEEKR is still in a loss-making state, positive signals were released in the second quarter of this year.

Data shows that from 2021 to 2023, ZEEKR's net losses were 4.514 billion yuan, 7.655 billion yuan, and 8.264 billion yuan respectively, with a total accumulated loss of up to 20.433 billion yuan in the past three years. In the second quarter of this year, ZEEKR still had a net loss of about 1.81 billion yuan, but it decreased by 10.5% compared to the first quarter.

According to Hong Kong accounting standards, excluding the impact of share-based payments, ZEEKR's net loss narrowed to 70 million yuan in the first half of this year, achieving profitability in the second quarter.

Following this trend, ZEEKR's true turnaround situation is expected to come as anticipated, but the premise is that there should be no major upheavals and they should maintain an advantage in profits.

The financial report shows that in the second quarter of this year, ZEEKR achieved total vehicle sales revenue of 13.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 59%, and a sequential increase of over 64%. The gross profit margin of complete vehicles reached 14.2%, up 0.6 percentage points year-on-year and 0.2 percentage points sequentially.

In addition to the goal of turning losses into profits, ZEEKR aims to achieve a delivery target of 230,000 vehicles for the whole year, doubling the previous year's figure.

ZEEKR's latest delivery volume shows that after exceeding 20,000 vehicles in June for the first time, the delivery volume dropped to about 16,000 vehicles in July. The cumulative deliveries from January to July reached 103,525 vehicles, an 89% year-on-year increase, with an annual sales completion rate of about 45%, indicating significant pressure to achieve the full-year sales target.

To strive to achieve the annual delivery target, ZEEKR must further enrich its product lineup in the next four months.

Previously, ZEEKR revealed plans to launch the ZEEKR 7X and ZEEKR MIX in the second half of the year. At this press conference, An Conghui announced that the ZEEKR 7X will make its global debut at the Chengdu Auto Show at the end of August, with an expected launch in September. The ZEEKR MIX will be officially launched in the fourth quarter. Both models will be equipped with ZEEKR's self-developed Infinite Smart Drive 2.0.

In terms of production capacity, ZEEKR recently revealed that to meet the production capacity demand brought by the launch of multiple new vehicles, they are utilizing the summer high-temperature equipment maintenance period to carry out approximately three weeks of production line upgrades and transformations from late July to mid-August. This is to meet the continuous growth of new products and orders, and to prepare in advance for the production capacity demand of delivering 30,000 units in a single month in the fourth quarter of this year.

Of course, facing the increasingly competitive domestic market, going global is also a task that ZEEKR must prioritize. As of now, ZEEKR has entered nearly 30 international mainstream markets including Sweden, the Netherlands, Thailand, and Mexico, aiming to enter 50 countries and regions globally by the end of the year, and planning to enter the Japanese market by 2025.

To better achieve global development, An Conghui revealed that ZEEKR is actively exploring overseas localized production and will announce it at the appropriate time.

As a listed company, ZEEKR bears a heavy responsibility. Both users and investors will scrutinize it more rigorously. Balancing this is a highly challenging task. In this intense competition in the new energy vehicle sector, the ultimate survivors will ultimately be a few versatile players