Interpretation of the May sales ranking: Ideal is back on track, Xpeng is gradually falling behind, and Huawei and Xiaomi each show their shortcomings

In the first two days of June, new energy vehicle manufacturers collectively released their sales results. Compared with traditional car manufacturers who are cautious and cautious, new car manufacturers are the most active in announcing their sales, regardless of their performance. From the sales perspective, May is a watershed, and obvious differentiation has begun to appear within the new car manufacturers.

Ideal Auto is far ahead of other new car-making forces, with monthly sales reaching 35,020 units, a year-on-year increase of 23.8%. In addition, judging from the 35.8% month-on-month growth, Ideal Auto has basically walked out of the haze brought by MEGA and re-entered the upward channel.

NIO's performance was unexpected, and surprisingly strong. Monthly sales reached 20,544 units, up 233.8% year-on-year and 31.5% month-on-month. The fact that NIO achieved both year-on-year and month-on-month growth in May, a traditional off-season, shows that NIO's market acceptance is getting higher and higher, and the value of its battery swap model has been recognized by more users.

It is worth mentioning that NIO is still in a loss-making state and does not seem to see any hope of profitability in the short term. However, 91che believes that as long as sales continue to increase, the vicious cycle surrounding NIO will gradually turn into a virtuous cycle and eventually achieve profitability. The latest news shows that NIO's battery swap sector has received another 1.5 billion yuan in investment, consolidating its own foundation.

In fact, NIO's battery swap model and battery leasing model are quite distinctive. When the sales base expands, these can establish unique competitive barriers, just like JD.com's self-operated logistics. Anyone can offer low prices, but fast delivery is always an insurmountable moat for competitors.

Coming to the second echelon of the industry, Leapmotor's monthly sales reached 18,165 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 50.6% and a month-on-month increase of 21.1%. In a healthy automobile market, low-end and mid-range models must be the mainstream, and Leapmotor has obviously seized this opportunity.

The loser on the other side is Xpeng. It used to be on par with NIO and Li Auto, but its sales in May were only 10,146 units. What is the future prospect of Xpeng? It may not just be a matter of sales.

Although investor Zhou Hongyi has enjoyed great success and traffic in the past two months, this good fortune does not seem to have been diverted to the invested companies. Nezha did not show its "three heads and six arms" majesty in the past May. Its sales volume was only 10,113 units, a year-on-year decrease of 22.4%. It is the only mainstream new car-making force to have a decline in sales, and it was such a sharp decline.

If it were two years ago, a new car manufacturer could hold a celebration party if it could achieve stable monthly sales of over 10,000 units, but now it is 2024, and monthly sales of over 10,000 units is just the passing line.

The positioning of Xiaopeng and Nezha is not high, but their sales have long hovered around the level of over 10,000 units per month, and sometimes even fell out of the 10,000 units per month club. This performance is not optimistic.

In addition to these five traditional new car-making forces, two other brands also received relatively high attention. Hongmeng Intelligent Driving, under Huawei, had a total sales volume of 30,578 vehicles in May, a month-on-month increase of 3.2%.

Judging from the sales volume, Hongmeng Zhixing's performance is still good. But it should be noted that Hongmeng Zhixing is a "stitched monster". It has the Wenjie M5, M7, and M9 jointly built by Huawei and Seres, and the Zhijie S7 jointly built by Huawei and Chery. In the future, it is possible to add models such as Xiangjie S9.

Objectively speaking, such a comparison is not fair, but it is determined by the relatively strange development model of Huawei's automotive business. In addition, the sales of Hongmeng Zhixing's main model, the M7, have fluctuated. In January, it was close to 30,000, but now it is only over 10,000, which is less than the 500,000-level M9. The erratic sales are incomprehensible.

The question now is whether Huawei's smart car selection model is feasible or not. Objectively speaking, Huawei is the only company in the industry that can achieve first-class levels in smart cockpit, smart driving, power platform, etc. But the problem is that if Huawei does everything, it will be a problem for car manufacturers to position themselves.

In a nutshell, the hidden danger of Hongmeng Intelligent Driving lies not in technology but in development strategy.

Finally, Xiaomi Motors sold 8,630 vehicles in May, up 22.3% from the previous month. This achievement is quite impressive. The biggest highlight of Xiaomi SU7 since its launch is its appearance that resembles a famous car. The current sales volume is more or less a bonus from the period of traffic flooding. If Xiaomi wants to gain a foothold in the new energy market for a long time, it needs to come up with more convincing things.

But it is difficult for Xiaomi to do this, at least not for the time being. Whether it is the depth of technology accumulation or capital investment, Xiaomi is an absolute junior. BYD's sales volume only started to explode after 2020, but before that, BYD had accumulated technology for more than ten years; Huawei also seemed to have entered the automotive industry in the past two years, but in fact its in-vehicle chips and smart driving were already relatively mature in 2018.

BYD and Huawei have accumulated a lot of experience, but Xiaomi is truly starting from scratch. In the automotive industry, starting from scratch is not a good thing. Take smart driving as an example. It requires long-term data accumulation and algorithm iteration to match software and hardware, but Xiaomi does not have such conditions in the short term.

In addition, Xiaomi's brand image is also a hidden danger. Take Xiaomi mobile phones as an example. Although it also has some high-end product lines, the average price is actually less than 1,000 yuan. In the three years when Huawei was deliberately suppressed, Xiaomi did not get any high-end market opportunities. The same is true for automobiles. When the first wave of customers are harvested, how to ensure sustainability will be a big problem.

As things stand, Huawei and Xiaomi are not a threat to the first-tier new car-making forces such as Ideal and NIO, as they each have obvious shortcomings. But one thing is clear: it is unlikely that all five of them, NIO, Ideal, Xpeng, Nezha, and Leapmotor, will enter the mainstream market. If nothing unexpected happens, Huawei may replace one of them and become a major player in the new forces market.

China's new energy market has entered a brutal elimination phase. A certain auto industry leader once said that China does not need so many auto brands at all, and a number of them will definitely be eliminated in the future. So, who do you think will be eliminated in the next one or two years?

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.