On June 3rd, it was reported that NIO issued an internal email stating that it would make relevant organizational adjustments based on business and organizational development needs. Among them, the "Strategic New Business I", "Strategic New Business II", "Strategic New Business III", and "Strategic New Business IV" of the Innovation Business Cluster have been renamed as "Ledo Business Unit", "Chip Research and Development", "Firefly Business Unit", and "Mobile Business Unit" respectively. Except for the name adjustment mentioned above, the heads and reporting relationships of each department in the innovation business cluster remain unchanged.
At the same time, NIO will establish sixteen regional companies within the Ledo business unit, positioned as secondary departments responsible for promoting the Ledo brand, channel layout, daily store management, and achieving sales results within the region. The general managers of the regional companies will report to Xia Qinghua. According to public information, Xia Qinghua is currently the Assistant Vice President of NIO and the Sales and Service Manager of Ledo Automobile.
Regarding the above news, a reporter from the Daily Economic News verified with NIO, who replied, "The company will plan organizational and personnel affairs based on business development, and will not communicate with external parties regarding internal information."
It is reported that "Ledo" is the second brand name under NIO, while Firefly (also known as "Firefly") is the internal code name of NIO's third brand. Among them, the Ledo brand was officially released on May 15th, and its first model, the Ledo L60, was also unveiled and began pre-sales. "NIO has been brewing a multi brand strategy since its establishment in 2014, and starting from 2021, it has formed a team to create a second brand," said NIO Chairman Li Bin.
Different from the existing NIO brand, Ledo Automobile will have a different strategic positioning. "The company's brand differentiation is clear and profound enough. Ledo Automobile focuses on the mainstream household car market, pursuing more sales, while NIO brand prioritizes gross profit margin." Li Bin said that like NIO brand, Ledo adheres to the pure electric route and does not engage in extended range or plug-in hybrid models.
For this reason, NIO has also created an independent marketing channel for Ledo Automobile. According to the plan, by 2024, Ledao Automobile will build no less than 200 offline networks. "In the first month of its launch, LeDao L60 will have over 100 offline stores nationwide," said Li Bin.
With the release of the Ledo brand, the launch of Firefly has also entered the countdown. Qin Lihong, co-founder of NIO, revealed in an interview with reporters that NIO's third brand was originally planned to be released in the second and third quarters of this year, and the products were ready. However, considering the entire brand sequence, the release time was postponed to the second quarter of next year.
According to the plan, NIO's three brands focus on the high-end market, mainstream market, and entry-level market, with price positioning of over 300000 yuan, over 200000 yuan, and over 100000 yuan respectively.
Official data shows that since 2016, NIO's total R&D investment has exceeded 43 billion yuan. In addition to the entire vehicle, NIO has also increased research and development investment in areas such as chips, mobile phones, and battery swapping stations for a long time. Among them, NIO's first self-developed chip product - the LiDAR main control chip "Yang Jian" and NIO Phone, NIO's first mobile phone, were officially released at the 2023 NIO Innovation Technology Day held in September last year.
Regarding NIO's mobile phone business, Li Bin emphasized to the public that NIO's mobile phone business has no intention of competing with mainstream manufacturers such as Huawei and Xiaomi in the mainstream smartphone market, but focuses on matching NIO cars and providing vehicle and mobile connectivity experiences. "The development of NIO Phone 2 has been completed, and the release date has also been put on the agenda," said Li Bin.