The "2024 NIO Media Face to Face" event was held in Shanghai on December 12th, attended by NIO founder, chairman, and CEO Li Bin, and NIO co-founder and president Qin Lihong. Li Bin not only briefly introduced the company's situation, but also answered over 200 media questions, covering various aspects such as the development of NIO and its subsidiary brands Ledao and Firefly, as well as the company's financial performance.
Li Bin stated that there is no problem for NIO to double its sales by 2025. Next year, NIO has three brands, and Ledao alone can achieve a delivery volume of 20000 vehicles in one month; Firefly brand can also achieve a delivery volume of thousands of vehicles in a single month; NIO brand will have some growth, reaching an annual delivery volume of over 400000 vehicles. "Li Bin said that Ledao brand's delivery volume this month will definitely exceed 10000 vehicles, and by the end of the year, Ledao brand's battery swapping station plans to reach 1000 seats, and from April next year to 2000 seats.
Li Bin revealed that among NIO's three brands, the Firefly brand will go global by 2025 and is expected to achieve several thousand deliveries per month. Fireflies are global cars, "said Li Bin.
Regarding the idea of launching competitive new products in the next two years, Li Bin introduced that NIO will officially enter the high-end market of administrative vehicles starting from ET9, and there will be new product launches in the future. Ledao will launch heavyweight products in 2025 to serve families with multiple members. Ledao will have two new models to be delivered in the third and fourth quarters. I believe these two cars will change the industry landscape and be very competitive in the three row seat market and the large SUV market
Li Bin said that Firefly only has one product in China, but the company is still discussing whether there are multiple products globally. Simply put, it saves everyone from saying that NIO has too many cars. NIO will have more brands because it is reasonable. From the perspective of high-end brands, there will be more pursuit of personalization and uniqueness, and from an investment perspective, it is also reasonable. But for the mass market, we will reduce the number of car models. Ledao will not have as many models as NIO, and Firefly will be simpler
When asked if the pressure of "Ten Year Three Sons" (three brands under NIO) is too great? Li Bin said that "San Zi" is quite good. The financial pressure is actually not bad. If we look at NIO's research and development expenses, basically 60-70% of them are focused on basic research and development. For example, for an operating system, building a brand would cost so much money. However, after building three brands, many fixed R&D costs can be shared among more cars, "said Li Bin. NIO's R&D expenses for Ledao are definitely much smaller than Xiaomi's for Xiaomi cars, because the vast majority of them can be reused.
In terms of finance, Li Bin introduced that the company's third quarter cash reserves exceeded 40 billion yuan, and its operating cash flow and free cash flow were both positive. Although the company is currently experiencing losses, many key financial data such as gross profit are continuously improving.
Passing, basically give me a score of 60. If I give a low score, you may think I did too poorly, but I definitely won't get a high score. "When asked about the overall performance score of NIO in 2024, Li Bin said that opportunities and challenges coexist for NIO at present. Li Bin believes that the automotive industry is a large industry with a very long cycle and cannot have any shortcomings. It is in fierce competition, and the scale and operational efficiency of enterprises need to be improved.
Li Bin expressed his hope that NIO can return to a high-speed growth track starting from 2025. The next two years are crucial, which is to double sales by 2025 and achieve breakeven and profitability by 2026. Both of these steps must be ensured. If realized, we can still participate in competition on this field. This is the biggest challenge, and the pressure of time and the intensity of competition will definitely be very great