Although sales have grown rapidly, the "new forces" of electric vehicle companies are still being reduced by major shareholders, and this time it is Xiaopeng Motors (09868. HK)'s turn.
According to public disclosure, on March 20th, a subsidiary of Alibaba (09988. HK) once again reduced its holdings by approximately $310 million.
Prior to this, "stock god" Buffett reduced his holdings in BYD (002594. SZ), Wang Xing reduced his holdings in Ideal Automobile (02015. HK), and Dahua Group (002236. SZ) reduced their holdings in Zero Run Automobile (09863. HK), indicating that early investors in electric vehicles had doubts about industry development. On the other hand, Xiaomi Group (01810. HK) is about to release a new car. Founder Lei Jun admitted on Weibo that apart from Tesla (TSLA), other pure electric car manufacturers are still losing money.
Industry insiders believe that the upstream price of lithium carbonate has bottomed out and rebounded, and the whole vehicle price war in 2024 is becoming increasingly fierce. If profits cannot be achieved in the fourth quarter of 2023 and the first quarter of 2024, it will still be difficult for pure electric vehicle companies to achieve profitability in the future; In addition, with the continuous popularity of programs and plug-in hybrid systems, the amount of batteries used in the technology route is smaller, which also affects the penetration rate of battery usage.
Xiaopeng continued to lose money in the fourth quarter of last year, and Alibaba reduced its holdings
On March 20th, Alibaba subsidiary Taobao China Holdings Limited sold 33 million shares of Xiaopeng Motors American Depositary Shares (ADS) with a total value of approximately $314 million. The transaction price ranged from $9.6 to $9.75 per share, lower than the market price.
Xiaopeng Motors Hong Kong stock also fell on March 21, closing at HKD 37.8 at noon, a decrease of 6.78%.
In 2023, the delivery volume of Xiaopeng Motors was 142000 units, a year-on-year increase of 16.7%; The annual operating revenue was 30.68 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 14.2%; But the net loss reached 10.38 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 1.24 billion yuan compared to 2022.
In the fourth quarter of last year, Xiaopeng Automobile's operating revenue was 13.05 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 153.9% and a month on month increase of 53%, with a net loss narrowing to 1.35 billion yuan. In the same period of 2022 and the third quarter of last year, the losses were 2.36 billion yuan and 3.89 billion yuan, respectively.
In the first quarter of 2024, the delivery guidelines for Xiaopeng Motors were 21000 to 22500 vehicles, compared to the delivery guidelines for NIO and Ideal for the same period, which were 31000 to 33000 and 100000 to 103000 vehicles, respectively.
"Since the first quarter, the price war in the industry has become increasingly fierce, with a group of companies being eliminated and well-known technology companies ceasing their investment in car manufacturing, marking the official start of the 2024-2027 smart electric vehicle elimination race." He Xiaopeng, Chairman of Xiaopeng Motors, said during the 2023 financial report conference call.
In December 2023, lithium carbonate futures briefly fell below the threshold of 90000 yuan/ton, and by February of this year, they had rebounded to 120000 yuan/ton; Although many electric vehicle companies have narrowed their losses and some of them have achieved profits through the addition of hybrid technology routes, they still cannot retain early investors.
"Today I saw news that Tesla will raise prices on April 1st. In the current electric vehicle market, competition is so fierce that only Tesla dares to raise prices. People may not be very familiar with the cost of electric cars. Currently, many pure electric cars, except for Tesla, are suffering huge losses." On March 20th, Xiaomi Group founder Lei Jun said on Weibo, "Consumers and investors are currently paying attention to Xiaomi Group's upcoming new car prices and configurations.".
In the second half of 2023, multiple electric vehicle companies reported early investor cashouts.
On November 1, 2023, according to equity disclosure information from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway reduced its stake in BYD's H-shares from 8.05% to 7.98%. Since May 2, 2023, when Buffett disclosed his 9.87% stake in H-shares, he has reduced his holdings of over 2% in BYD's H-shares within six months.
According to equity disclosure information from the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, Wang Xing, CEO of Meituan-W (03690. HK) and non-executive director of Ideal Automobile, has reduced his holdings in Ideal Automobile for four consecutive days. From September 12 to 15, 2023, Wang Xing reduced his holdings by 1.9479 million shares, with an average price of HKD 157.84 to HKD 160.51, resulting in a total cash out of over HKD 300 million.
On the afternoon of March 21st, Zero Run Motors closed at HKD 24.45 and Ideal Motors closed at HKD 132.7, both of which have deeply fallen below the aforementioned selling price.
Lin Jiayi, General Manager of Xuanjia Fund, told First Financial reporters that there is a lot of uncertainty in technological iteration. Currently, hybrid products such as Toyota are in short supply, and plug-in hybrids have also performed well; Toyota, Volkswagen and other global car manufacturers have slowed down the pace of electrification, mainly due to certain bottlenecks in overseas charging infrastructure construction. Due to the continuous increase in the proportion of plug-in hybrid and extended range vehicles in China, the actual proportion of electrification is showing a decreasing trend; Overseas, due to insufficient infrastructure, hybrid vehicles are still infiltrating, and the main body is still gasoline vehicles (due to slow depreciation, safety, and maturity). Whether electric vehicles belong to the future also depends on the evolution of gasoline powered vehicles or other new technological innovations, and currently it may not be the end result.