XPENG-W left "misfortune" behind in the second quarter

! XPENG-W's fate this year can be described as bumpy and changeable. In the first half of the year, the sales volume continued to tremble, and in the second half of the year, Wu Xinzhou, the soul of Zhijia, was lost. At one time, people felt that this new power was in jeopardy. However, Volkswagen's surprise investment in July injected a shot in the arm into XPENG-W. Combined with the hot sales of G6 and the improvement of production capacity, the second quarter is likely to be the last trough of XPENG-W. At the investor call on the evening of August 18, XPENG-W management revealed many details and prospects of cooperation with Volkswagen, which made investors look forward. The moment when XPENG-W rebound from the trough is accelerating. The financial report showed that the XPENG-W gross profit margin fell further to -3.9 per cent in the second quarter, while the vehicle gross profit margin fell to -8.6 per cent, both the lowest levels since listing. XPENG-W explained that this was mainly due to G3i's inventory impairment and inventory purchase commitment loss, which had a negative impact of 4.5 percentage points on the gross profit margin of automobiles. According to sources close to the XPENG-W, the XPENG-W G3 series, which sells only more than 100 units a month, has plans to withdraw from the market, and the corresponding compensation and impairment provision for suppliers has put pressure on gross profit margin. This is the XPENG-W's active choice to clear the negative in the second quarter to better pave the way for the next rebound. Leave the "bad luck" at the XPENG-W of Q2 and prepare to travel light. In fact, XPENG-W's sales volume in July has obviously rebounded. In the third quarter, it gave sales guidelines of 39000-41000 units, excluding 11000 units delivered in July, which means that its average sales volume in August and September fell to 14000-15000 units. He XPENG-W said that in the fourth quarter, it will sprint to 20000 units per month. Among them, the model that picks the beam this year is undoubtedly the G6. In addition, XPENG-W plans to release a pure electric MPV in the late fourth quarter of this year, and two new cars will be launched next year. However, XPENG-W must first address the supply chain constraints of the G6. Wu Xinzhou, former vice president of self-driving, once disclosed that the number of orders for the XPENG-W G6 exceeded 40000 units in one month, of which the high-end Max version accounted for 70%. However, in July, the cumulative delivery of G6 was only 3900 units. In short, the G6 exploded. Some institutional analysis pointed out that the current Max model lift cycle has reached 12 weeks, compared with the ideal delivery cycle of 2-4 weeks for the whole system and the delivery cycle of 3-4 weeks for the new ES6 of Weilai's main model, it is still obviously slow and faces the risk of being "cut off" by rivals. He XPENG-W said frankly, "the main challenge at present is that the Max version is not fully prepared for intelligent related parts". However, he said that internal preparations have been made for the delivery and production capacity of G6. He believes that the subsequent rolling structure of all models will have a large number of common parts that can be "once and for all", making the supply chain and production capacity more obvious. Market competition is also a factor that must be considered. Krypton 001, which recently cut its price to 269000 yuan, has come to the G6' s best-selling Max version (276900 yuan) market, and the new Tesla's trump card, the new Model 3, will soon be on the market. Gu Hongdi said that the pricing of new cars such as G6 has taken into account the impact of price cuts by friends. At present, the latter is chosen between profit and sales. Next, XPENG-W will further explore the sinking market and plan to expand the killer's mace-free XNGP function to 50 cities across the country, and cut the cost of smart driving by half to attract more car owners in the 15-200000 yuan circle. At the same time, we will accelerate the transformation of channels and accelerate the expansion of market share in second-tier and low-tier cities. At the same time, XPENG-W received an olive branch from the public and started the journey of technology output. On July 26, Volkswagen announced a cooperation with XPENG-W Technology and invested US $0.7 billion in it to obtain a 4.99 per cent stake. He XPENG-W said that the two sides will develop two Class B pure trams in the first batch and plan to start production in 2026. On the evening of August 18, at the second quarter performance meeting of XPENG-W, Chairman He XPENG-W announced that he would delegate his core smart driving function to 150000 yuan level products. To know that the models in this price range have not appeared in the XPENG-W product planning sequence before, it is inevitable that it is imaginative. People familiar with the matter said that this is the news that XPENG-W released at the financial report meeting, or will be related to the cooperation of Volkswagen (or other brands), and the specific details may be announced during the Chengdu auto show. Since the role of XPENG-W in the cooperation is similar to that of a technology platform company and belongs to a high-margin business model, the capital market also recognizes that this "marriage" will bring tangible benefits to the XPENG-W, which is expected to generate more revenue and profits, and improve the financial situation. Some institutional investors revealed to Wall Street that there will be an agreed technical service fee income XPENG-W the next year. After the mass production of the official model in 2026, the income will be positively correlated with the sales volume of the model. Bank of America Securities analyst Ming Hsun Lee believes that through larger-scale procurement and sharing the supply chain with the public, XPENG-W can better manage costs. At the same time, with more cash from Volkswagen and more products jointly developed with Volkswagen, XPENG-W is expected to achieve profitability and positive free cash flow in 2025. XPENG-W seems more optimistic. At the investor call, Gu Hongdi, vice chairman and co-president of XPENG-W, said, "We will reach a positive quarterly cash flow in 2024 and are confident that the entire company will break even by 2025". Capital markets have been the first to respond. Since Volkswagen announced the XPENG-W of its shareholding, XPENG-W's share price has soared and hit a high of HK $96.3 per share on July 31. Although it has since fallen, it is still holding on to the position of HK $65. You know, at the beginning of the year, XPENG-W's share price fell all the way to an all-time low of about HK $30. After taking the first step in cooperation with the public, XPENG-W still have the will to continue to expand the circle of friends. Zhang Xiaofeng, vice president of XPENG-W Investment and Financing, said, "The cooperation with Volkswagen is just the beginning. In the future, we hope that there will be more opportunities for such cooperation to create greater value". Some industry analysts revealed to Wall Street that XPENG-W are negotiating and communicating with OEMs that are willing to cooperate on a global scale. Obviously, XPENG-W are all working hard to cross the mountain of sales. Products, technology, markets, and channels are all working hard. Whether XPENG-W can win a game after taking advantage of the public depends on the second half of the year.