Who sells well, XPeng Inc., NIO Inc. or ideal? What are the differences in the development ideas of different schools, and where will they go next? Just look at the financial report.

Just last night, Li Auto Inc. announced his Q3 financial report for 2021 and held a conference call. There are many bright spots in his performance:

1. 25000 units were delivered in the third quarter, an increase of 42.9% over the previous month, with an average monthly sales of 8300 units. For a 330000 domestic car, the performance is quite eye-catching. The company expects to deliver between 30, 000 and 32000 units in the fourth quarter, with an average of more than 10, 000 units a month.

2. Sales growth led to a 54% month-on-month increase in revenue to 7.78 billion yuan, a step closer to 10 billion yuan in revenue. Its vehicle gross profit margin rose to 21.1%, and the company's overall gross profit margin was 23.3%, making it more profitable. However, due to the increase in marketing, administration and R & D investment, ideal still lost 20 million yuan.

3. During the conference call, ideal CEO Li wanted to reveal that a series of new models will be launched next year and the year after next, including a new extended range SUV--X01 and pure electric SUV. It is reported that the X01 will be officially unveiled in the second quarter of next year, while the pure electric model will be launched in 2023, with the ideal 4C battery pack.

After the announcement of the ideal financial results, the financial results of the top three newly built cars have been announced. In order to understand the differences in the style of play and operating performance of the three companies, car things compiled the key financial data of the three companies since they went public and produced eight charts. so that you can systematically see the differences between the three companies in terms of delivery volume, revenue, cost, marketing and R & D expenditure scale.

01 Q3 delivered more than 25000 vehicles with an average monthly sales of more than 10,000 in the next quarter

1. Delivery

In the third quarter of this year, ideal ONE delivered 8589, 9433 and 7094 models in July, August and September, respectively. In terms of delivery volume, Li Auto Inc. sold well in the third quarter of 2021, delivering a total of 25116 cars, an increase of 42.9% month-on-month and 190% year-on-year.

In response to the obvious decline in September, Li Auto Inc. co-founder and president Shen Yanan said that due to the long-term shortage of chip supply, delivery of the ideal ONE slowed down in September compared with the previous month.

In early November, Li Auto Inc. 's official website released October delivery data, and the ideal ONE delivery volume was 7649 units, an increase of 107.2% over the same period last year. As of October 31, 2021, the delivery volume and cumulative delivery volume of ideal ONE from January to October this year are 62919 and 96516, respectively. It is estimated that in the fourth quarter, Li Auto Inc. 's delivery volume will be between 30, 000 and 32000 units, with an average of more than 10, 000 units per month.

So where does the ideal delivery score rank in the first camp of new cars?

Car East and West counted the monthly delivery data of the three car companies from July last year to October this year, as shown in the following figure, which gives a more intuitive picture of the delivery results of the three car companies over the past year.

From the trend chart of the delivery volume of the three car companies, on the whole, the delivery volume of the three car companies is obviously on the rise. Among them, before June this year, the total delivery volume of NIO Inc. has always exceeded XPeng Inc. and ideal. After June, NIO Inc. 's delivery volume decreased, and it was successively overtaken by XPeng Inc. and ideal, but this situation did not last long. From August to September, NIO Inc. 's delivery volume increased significantly, climbing to 10628 vehicles in September, and suffered a major decline after September due to factory transformation.

In addition, from the trend chart, XPeng Inc. and the ideal delivery volume were almost the same before April this year, and the ideal delivery volume decreased slightly in May, but it surpassed XPeng Inc. in June and has maintained an upward trend ever since. It reached its peak in August and then began to decline.

From the point of view of the single model delivery volume of the three car companies, the ideal ONE is far ahead, winning the first place in the single model delivery volume among the trump cards of the three car companies.

NIO Inc. ES6's performance is also relatively stable, breaking through the 5000 vehicles mark in September this year, but due to the impact of factory transformation in October, delivery volume temporarily dropped.

XPeng Inc. P7 rose sharply, surpassing NIO Inc. 's ES8 in April this year, the delivery volume continues to rise, and once exceeded the ideal ONE in September.

2. Production capacity

The construction of Li Auto Inc. Beijing manufacturing base officially started in October this year, and will be put into production in 2023. After it is put into production, the annual production capacity will reach 100000 units. In the future, the base will become an important luxury electric vehicle manufacturing base for Li Auto Inc..

At present, Li Auto Inc. has only one Changzhou factory, and ideal has previously disclosed that it is building a new workshop at the Changzhou factory. After completion, the annual production capacity of the Changzhou factory will be increased to 200000 units. On the conference call, ideal management said that at present, the ideal Changzhou factory production capacity is about 14000 units, and the production capacity is expected to reach about 15000 units after the Spring Festival.

3. The condition of the new car

Ideal will launch a new "X" platform in 2022 and will release a new full-size deluxe smart add-on electric SUV--X01.

In addition, Li Auto Inc. will begin to lay out pure electric models in 2023, and the new car will be developed based on Whale and Shark platforms. The new model will also use an ideal 4C battery pack, which can be charged for 10 minutes and can last 400 kilometers.

02 the revenue exceeds 20% and the gross profit margin of the vehicle exceeds 7.7 billion

The growth of ideal ONE sales has brought rich returns for Li Auto Inc..

1. Revenue situation

Li Auto Inc. 's total income in the third quarter of this year was 7.78 billion yuan, up 209.7 percent from 2.51 billion yuan in the same period in 2020 and 54.3 percent from 5.04 billion yuan in the second quarter of this year.

Of the total revenue in the third quarter of this year, the ideal vehicle sales revenue is 7.39 billion yuan, compared with 4.9 billion yuan in the second quarter of this year, a month-on-month increase of 50.6%, compared with 2.46 billion yuan in the third quarter of last year. The year-on-year increase was 199.7%.

In addition, ideal also generated 389.4 million yuan in revenue through sales of software, spare parts and services, an increase of 745.1% over the same period in 2020 and 187.0% over the second quarter of this year.

Li Auto Inc. said that the increase in revenue from services and other businesses in the current quarter was mainly due to increased sales of charging piles, accessories and services due to sales of new energy vehicles and cumulative vehicle sales.

2. Profit situation

The ideal vehicle gross profit margin reached 21.1% in the third quarter of this year, up 2.4 percentage points from 18.7% in the second quarter of this year and 1.3 percentage points from 19.8% in the third quarter of last year.

The increase in vehicle gross margin in the third quarter was mainly due to an increase in the average selling price due to an increase in the delivery of the 2021 ideal ONE-the price of the 2021 ideal ONE was 10, 000 yuan higher than that of the 2020.

Both the increase in delivery volume and vehicle gross profit margin are also reflected in the company's overall profit. The ideal gross profit in the third quarter of this year is 1.81 billion yuan, and the company's total gross profit margin is 23.3%.

Compared with the second quarter of this year, the overall gross profit increased by 90.2% month-on-month, and the overall gross profit margin increased by 4.4%; compared with the third quarter of last year, gross profit increased by 264.8% year-on-year, and overall gross profit margin increased by 3.5%. The increase in overall gross profit margin was mainly due to the increase in vehicle gross profit margin.

In addition, as of September 30, 2021, Li Auto Inc. 's cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, term deposits and short-term investments totaled 48.83 billion yuan.

3. Research and development expenses

Ideal R & D spending in the third quarter of this year is 885 million yuan, an increase of 165.6% over the same period in 2020 and 36.0% month-on-month compared with the second quarter of this year.

Li Auto Inc. said that there are two reasons for the sharp increase in R & D costs, one of which is the increase in the salaries of employees as a result of the increase in R & D personnel. The second is that the company's research and development of new models has led to an increase in related expenses.

4. Marketing and administrative expenses

Li Auto Inc. 's marketing and administrative expenditure in the third quarter of this year was 1.02 billion yuan, an increase of 198.5% over the same period last year and 22.3% compared with the second quarter of this year.

Li Auto Inc. 's financial information shows that the increase in expenses in this area is due to the increase in marketing and promotion activities and the expansion of the company's sales and service network, resulting in an increase in the number of employees and rental expenses.

Due to the overall increase in expenses, Li Auto Inc. 's net profit in the current quarter is still at a loss, with a net loss of 21.5 million yuan.

03 ideal stingy NIO Inc. tuhao XPeng Inc. poor and generous

In terms of operational data, the operating data and changing trends of Wei Xiaoli are shown in the following figure.

1. Revenue data

Overall, the revenues of the three car companies are all climbing, among which NIO Inc. 's revenue in the third quarter of this year is very close to the scale of 10 billion yuan. Compared with the three, NIO Inc. 's revenue has been far behind the other two, XPeng Inc., the ideal revenue gap is relatively small.

In the case of little difference in the scale of sales, the difference in revenue is mainly due to the difference in the average selling price of vehicles. NIO Inc. has said that the average selling price of the whole vehicle is 430000, while the price of the ideal ONE is 330000, the price of XPeng Inc. 's main model P7 is more than 200,000, and that of the G3 series is less than 200000.

2. Services and other income

In this sector, basically consistent with the total revenue trend, showing a relatively good growth trend. NIO Inc., in particular, has a stronger momentum in service revenue in the third quarter of this year, directly breaking through the 1 billion mark. And XPeng Inc. 's growth in this business obviously lags behind and was ideally surpassed in the third quarter of this year.

3. Gross profit margin

Generally speaking, although there is still a certain gap between XPeng Inc. and the ideal and NIO Inc. in terms of gross profit, the gap has been narrowing. On the other hand, the gross profit situation of NIO Inc. and ideal is neck and neck, and the whole is in a glued state.

Although the gross profit margin here is the gross profit margin of the company as a whole, because most of the revenue of the three companies comes from car sales, the overall gross profit margin is about equal to the gross profit margin of their automobile business.

Similar to revenue, NIO Inc. and the ideal gross profit margin are higher and significantly higher than XPeng Inc., mainly due to the higher price of their vehicles.

It should be noted that the ideal gross profit margin exceeds that of NIO Inc. at Q3. Considering that its car price is about 100000 lower than that of NIO Inc., it can be seen that the ideal cost control ability is stronger.

In addition, NIO Inc. 's business outside the car has a high income, but there must be corresponding costs. In particular, power station replacement, door-to-door services and other businesses have always been regarded as high-cost operations, and the costs of these businesses will also drive down NIO Inc. 's overall gross profit margin to a certain extent.

4. Net profit

Interestingly, only ideal one of the three briefly became a regular member of its net profit in the fourth quarter of last year. On the whole, XPeng Inc. 's net loss is larger, the ideal is to control the loss is more prominent. Especially in the third quarter of this year, the gap between XPeng Inc. 's net loss and the ideal net loss reached the largest in a year.

Loss and cost control are inseparable. From the costs and expenses of the three companies, we can also find the reasons behind their respective net profit gap.

5. Marketing and administrative expenditure

Ideal spending in this area is the least among the three car companies, but it has also been on the rise, while XPeng Inc. spent the most on marketing and administration among the three car companies in the third quarter of last year, but retreated to the second place in the third quarter of last year. NIO Inc. overtook it. Since the fourth quarter of last year, NIO Inc. has been ahead of Xiaopeng Automobile and ideal in marketing and administrative expenses.

6. Research and development expenditure

The capital investment of the three car companies all showed an upward trend. Li Auto Inc. 's R & D expenditure has been increasing, while NIO Inc. and XPeng Inc. 's R & D expenditure fluctuated slightly.

Among them, NIO Inc. 's R & D expenditure decreased somewhat in the first quarter of this year. NIO Inc. has been the largest R & D expenditure among the three car companies from the third quarter of last year to the second quarter of this year, but since the third quarter of this year, R & D expenditure ranks slightly behind XPeng Inc. and ranks second.

XPeng Inc. 's R & D expenditure in the fourth quarter of last year and the third quarter of this year also decreased compared with the third quarter of last year. In the third quarter of this year, XPeng Inc. 's R & D expenditure increased by a large margin, surpassing NIO Inc. to become the first.

To sum up, ideal because there is only one product, so its R & D investment in recent quarters has been the lowest among the three.

Another interesting phenomenon is that because the average selling price of the whole vehicle is the lowest, XPeng Inc. 's income and gross profit margin are the smallest of the three, but his R & D investment is obviously higher than ideal, even approaching NIO Inc. in the third quarter.

In a word, XPeng Inc. is the poorest, but he is most willing to spend money on research and development.

What's behind this?

According to this year's Q3, all three companies are developing new cars, and there is little difference in the size of the models. XPeng Inc. 's R & D expenditure has increased significantly, and considering that he has formed an autopilot and intelligent R & D team, it can be seen that his investment in this area is increasing.

04 conclusion: newly built cars are booming with each passing day

After comparing the financial reports of the three companies, we can find that they play in different ways, but it boils down to the fact that all three companies are growing rapidly, with rising sales, rising revenues and rising gross profit margins.

With good revenue growth, enterprises will be able to invest more money in the research and development of new models and technologies, thus launching more competitive products and technologies, thus continuously increasing market share and continuing to be the leader in the development of China's smart electric vehicle market.