As soon as November entered, "Di Wang" released several heavyweight news, stirring up the automotive market.
On November 1st, the official Weibo account of BYD Motors announced that it will launch promotional activities for five models in November, with discounts ranging from 5000 to 18000 yuan.
However, just a few days ago, Tesla, known as the "price butcher," announced a price increase. Industry insiders believe that BYD's price reduction this time will release an important signal. On the one hand, it may launch a sprint to achieve annual sales, and on the other hand, it will also "transmit price competition pressure to every automotive manufacturer".
On the same evening, BYD disclosed its latest sales data. In October, BYD's sales continued to be "far ahead", with monthly sales exceeding 300000 vehicles for the first time and overseas sales also exceeding 30000 vehicles.
Just facing Tesla?
According to the official Weibo account of BYD Motors, the "Million Ocean Gratitude and Gift" event will be launched from November 1st to November 30th, offering discounts ranging from 5000 to 18000 yuan for five car models.
Among them, the frigate 07 has activities worth 2000 yuan to 20000 yuan, the Dolphin and Seal Champion Edition worth 2000 yuan to 9000 yuan, and the Song PLUS Champion Edition and Destroyer 05 Champion Edition worth 2000 yuan to 7000 yuan.
Source: BYD Auto's official Weibo account
It is worth noting that on October 27th, as BYD's strongest competitor, Tesla raised the selling price of the Model Y high-performance version in mainland China by 14000 yuan, with a starting price of 363900 yuan and a slogan of "golden window" with only 5 days left.
Source: Tesla official Weibo
Tesla's price reduction and BYD's price increase are intriguing in themselves. Combined with BYD's newly released new car, the 'gunpowder smell' seems even stronger.
On the evening of October 31st, BYD's new car, the Song L, began pre-sale and released five models with pre-sale prices ranging from 220000 to 280000 yuan. It is reported that Song L will officially go public within the year, and BYD hopes to rewrite the dominance of Tesla Model Y in the B-class pure electricity market through Song L.
The Song L benchmarking Model Y is precisely the model that Tesla has raised its price this time. BYD introduced that the Song L five seater space has a wheelbase of 2930mm, a maximum output power of 380kW, peak torque of 670N · m, zero to 100 acceleration of 4.3s, and a braking distance of less than 36 meters per 100 kilometers.
The performance of the two giants runs counter to each other
In addition to different pricing strategies, the just disclosed three quarter report shows that the performance trends of BYD and Tesla are also in the opposite direction.
In the third quarter of this year, BYD ushered in a "shining moment". The quarterly revenue reached 162.51 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.49%; The net profit reached 10.413 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 82.16%, equivalent to an average daily income of 113 million yuan.
Tesla's profit growth rate has significantly declined. Tesla's total revenue in the third quarter was approximately $23.4 billion (approximately RMB 171.2 billion), a year-on-year increase of 9%; The net profit was approximately 1.9 billion US dollars (approximately 13.9 billion RMB), a year-on-year decrease of 44%. Both revenue and net profit were lower than analysts' expectations.
From the perspective of gross profit margin indicators, in the third quarter of 2023, BYD's gross profit margin was 22.1%, an increase of 3.4 percentage points month on month. Analysis suggests that the increase in BYD's gross profit margin is mainly due to the cost advantage brought by the scale effect and industrial chain integration. At the same time, the high-end and overseas layout of products also help improve the profitability of bicycles.
On the contrary, Tesla's gross profit margin in the third quarter was 17.9%, lower than the level in the second quarter (18.2%) and the same period last year (25.1%). Regarding the decline in profitability, Tesla stated that it is mainly affected by pricing strategies, such as a decrease in average vehicle prices and an increase in operating expenses driven by research and development projects such as AI. In addition, the production increase costs related to factory upgrades and insufficient utilization of new factories have led to a decrease in profit margins.
Monthly sales exceeded 300000 for the first time
In terms of sales, according to the latest data disclosed by BYD, the sales of BYD's new energy vehicles in October 2023 were 301833 units, compared to 217816 units in the same period last year, an increase of nearly 39% year-on-year. It is worth noting that this is the first time BYD's monthly sales have exceeded 300000 yuan.
From the perspective of overseas performance, since the beginning of this year, BYD has significantly accelerated its pace of overseas sales, with monthly sales frequently reaching new highs. BYD sold a total of 30521 new energy passenger vehicles overseas in October, marking the first time it has achieved a monthly sales breakthrough of 30000 vehicles.
From the perspective of annual performance, from January to October, BYD produced approximately 2.4197 million new energy vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 71.41%; The sales volume was approximately 2.3815 million units, a year-on-year increase of 70.36%. Among them, the cumulative sales in the first nine months reached 2.0796 million vehicles, ranking first among global new energy vehicle companies in terms of sales.
In terms of Tesla, in the third quarter, Tesla delivered a total of 435100 vehicles worldwide, an increase of about 27% year-on-year and a decrease of about 6.7% month on month. Tesla stated that the month on month decrease in sales was due to the shutdown of factory upgrade plans, and the sales target of approximately 1.8 million vehicles in 2023 remained unchanged. In the first three quarters, Tesla delivered over 1.324 million vehicles globally, with a sales completion progress of 73.56%.
Previously, BYD set an annual sales target of 3 million vehicles for 2023. This means that BYD needs to sell 309300 vehicles per month for the next two months to achieve this goal, which is higher than the record high of 301800 vehicles in October. It can be seen that BYD still faces considerable pressure to achieve its annual sales target.