"Xu Jiayin left debts to society, his wife and son immigrated to North America, and his assets were also transferred to North America. This is blatantly making the people an enemy, and it is absolutely unforgivable." On October 2, the video in which Huang Hongsheng, the founder of Skyworth TV, angrily denounced Xu Jiayin and Evergrande attracted strong attention online and became a hot topic.

Suddenly, this legendary entrepreneur and Skyworth entered the public eye again. Almost at the same time, Skyworth Auto released its September sales data, which showed that the company delivered 3,635 units in September and exported 1,420 units overseas, a year-on-year increase of 142%; monthly sales in August and September were both over 3,600 units.

Skyworth Auto, which went viral because of a rebuke, has used data to show that cross-border car manufacturing can also be successful. In fact, judging from the data, although Skyworth Auto has not gone viral, it has maintained steady growth in the past two years.

Past events began to emerge. As early as several years ago, when Huang Hongsheng was still in prison, he had already shown foresight and began to pay attention to new energy vehicles. For this man in his 70s, how did he stand up from the trough by making cars and lead the newcomer car manufacturer Skyworth to survive the new energy wave?

After six years in prison, Huang Hongsheng’s car-making bloodline awakens

As the founder of Skyworth TV, Huang Hongsheng can be regarded as a legend in China's business community.

In 1989, he registered a remote control factory, Skyworth, in Hong Kong. Twelve years later, Skyworth, which had been working hard from the beginning, became one of the top three color TV manufacturers in China with magical performance, and its TV sales increased by 48% to 6.9 million units.

However, as the saying goes, fortune and disaster go hand in hand. On July 13, 2006, Huang Hongsheng and his brother, former Skyworth executive director Huang Peisheng, were sentenced to six years in prison for company management issues.

Huang Hongsheng did not give up in prison, but instead focused on the development of low-energy and new energy vehicles as proposed by the country at that time. and It began developing new energy vehicles that year and launched its first pure electric vehicle, the e6, in 2008.

After being released from prison, Huang Hongsheng, who had been silent for nearly six years, came into public view again, but his identity was no longer the head of a home appliance company, but the chairman of Nanjing Golden Long Bus Manufacturing Co., Ltd.

In January 2012, Xiamen Golden Dragon, Nanjing Chuangyuan Tiandi and Nanjing Dongyu Automobile Group Co., Ltd. signed the "Agreement on the Tripartite Restructuring of Nanjing Golden Dragon", and Nanjing Golden Dragon's registered capital increased by 45 million yuan, all of which was subscribed in cash by Nanjing Chuangyuan Tiandi Automobile Co., Ltd. According to people familiar with the matter, the main source of funds for Nanjing Golden Dragon came from Huang Hongsheng.

Huang Hongsheng's "car-making bloodline" was thus awakened, and the reorganized Nanjing Golden Dragon began to focus on the research and development and production of new energy vehicles.

In 2014, Nanjing Golden Dragon took advantage of the surge in orders from the Youth Olympic Games and turned losses into profits, with a profit of 150 million yuan. In the same year, Nanjing Golden Dragon's pure electric bus sales reached 1,890 units, ranking second in the country.

In 2016, Chuangyuan Tiandi was renamed Kaiwo New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd., and later changed its name to Kaiwo New Energy Automobile Group Co., Ltd. As a result, Nanjing Golden Dragon's brand name was also changed to "Kaiwo". The new brand gave Huang Hongsheng a good start in his "car-making dream". The following year, Nanjing Golden Dragon obtained the "birth permit" that new car-making forces dreamed of.

Skyworth Auto survived after getting the birth permit earlier

For Huang Hongsheng, 2017 was a critical year. Nanjing Golden Dragon obtained the new energy passenger vehicle production qualification approved by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. Soon after, Kaiwo Group officially entered the passenger vehicle market.

At that time, the "Regulations on Access Management of New Energy Vehicle Manufacturers and Products" was released, which effectively lowered the entry threshold for car companies by deleting and modifying as many as 10 parts of the original regulations. Nanjing Golden Dragon took this early train and successfully obtained the "birth permit", which provided the qualifications for its subsequent car manufacturing.

It is reported that from March 17, 2016 when BAIC New Energy obtained its first new energy vehicle production qualification, to May 22, 2017 when JAC Volkswagen obtained the last production qualification, in just 14 months, the relevant state departments issued a total of 15 new energy license plates. New car-making forces such as Nezha and Chery New Energy all started during this period.

Data shows that in 2017, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 794,000 and 777,000 respectively, up 53.8% and 53.3% year-on-year respectively. China's new energy vehicles have been ranked first in the world in production and sales for three consecutive years, with a total of more than 1.8 million new energy vehicles promoted. As new energy vehicles are booming, the risk of overcapacity is gradually exposed, which has also reduced the threshold for subsequent new energy production qualifications, making it more difficult to obtain qualifications.

Since Xiaomi announced its plan to build cars at the end of March 2021, it was only revealed in August this year that the National Development and Reform Commission had approved its production of electric vehicles, making it the fourth company to be approved by the National Development and Reform Commission since the end of 2017. However, Xiaomi still needs to wait for the qualifications of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology before the dust settles.

Huang Hongsheng, who had the qualifications early on, won at the starting line.

At the end of 2019, Skyworth New Energy Automobile's wholly-owned subsidiary, Tianmei Automobile, was established with a registered capital of 200 million yuan. It is mainly responsible for the production and manufacturing of pure electric passenger vehicles, and plans to launch four pure electric passenger vehicles between 2020 and 2025. The Tianmei ET5, the first SUV launched by Tianmei Automobile in 2020, has now been discontinued due to poor sales.

However, this did not make Huang Hongsheng give up, but he became more and more courageous.

On April 27, 2021, Skyworth New Energy Vehicle Group officially launched the "Skyworth Automobile" brand, and launched its first model, Skyworth EV6, three months later; on September 5, 2022, Skyworth HT-i super hybrid SUV was launched; on September 12, 2023, the prices of Skyworth EV6 Ⅱ 400V fast charging AIR+ version and Skyworth EV6 Ⅱ 800V super charging PLUS+ version were announced.

Huang Hongsheng once publicly stated: "Skyworth Auto is affiliated to Kaiwo Auto and has 12 years of car-making genes. Compared with traditional car companies, Skyworth Auto also has the ecological genes of Skyworth Group. Therefore, whether in car manufacturing or in the field of car use, Skyworth Auto has strong technology and rich experience."

However, it remains to be seen how much empowerment space the ecological genes accumulated in the field of home appliances can bring to its car manufacturing. What is certain is that compared with the leading "new forces in car manufacturing" such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, and Ideal, Skyworth Auto's capital investment is relatively small, which on the one hand supports its "survival", but on the other hand also brings anxiety about whether it can "live well".

Focusing on not burning money, Skyworth also has the anxiety of "living well"

Jia Fan, co-founder of Skyworth Auto, once revealed, "It is normal for a new car company to burn 20 billion yuan in the first three years, but Skyworth has never burned money like this. The loss in 2021 was about 200 million to 300 million yuan. After the delivery volume increases in 2022, the loss is expected to shrink and approach break-even."

Different from other new car manufacturers who have invested crazily in advertising and marketing, Skyworth has not made too much investment in advertising, but instead used the resources of its parent company to open up sales.

Data shows that in 2021, Skyworth Auto's cumulative sales reached 4,088 units; in 2022, the cumulative sales reached 21,900 units, completing 73% of the target of 30,000 units; from January to August 2023, Skyworth Auto delivered a total of 17,000 units, with lower sales in January-April, while sales increased from May onwards, with deliveries exceeding 3,000 units in June, July and August, and 3,693 units in August. At the same time, overseas exports in August reached 987 units, a year-on-year increase of 132.41%.

Nevertheless, from the product perspective, Skyworth Auto actually only has one model on sale, with monthly sales of about 3,000 units. Skyworth's four models, namely EV6, EV 6 II, HT-i, and HT-i II, are actually one model. EV6 is the basic model, and HT-i is its hybrid version, which is launched through cooperation with BYD and purchasing BYD's DM-i system. It is currently the main model of Skyworth Auto.

In comparison, new forces such as Nezha, Xiaopeng and Leapmotor all have 3-4 models on sale, with an average monthly sales of about 2,000-3,000 vehicles. Although Skyworth's low-cost route has enabled it to achieve certain sales in cross-border industries, its new product development is insufficient, and it is easy to be overtaken by latecomers in the second half of the new energy track.

Previously, Jia Fan said that Skyworth's car users and home appliance users have a high degree of overlap, and Skyworth's target users are young people around 30 years old, who have a certain social status and capital strength, but do not have enough money to buy big tech toys. "Based on this positioning, we set the price at 150,000 to 250,000 yuan."

Skyworth Group has about 20,000 to 30,000 Skyworth home appliance stores. In the future, it will develop car sales channels according to the situation and reflect the scene of smart home appliances and car interconnection. However, it is not easy to accumulate user loyalty through the home appliance ecosystem, because the user stickiness of home appliance products is weak. There is no successful case in China from extending from home appliances to the field of car manufacturing, and Huang Hongsheng has also gradually "given up" on the home appliance sector.

On September 30, 2022, Skyworth Electric Appliances withdrew its application for listing on the Growth Enterprise Market, and Skyworth Electric Appliances' IPO process was temporarily halted. According to previous data, Skyworth Electric Appliances' revenue in 2019, 2020, and 2021 was 3.685 billion yuan, 3.739 billion yuan, and 4 billion yuan respectively; its net profit was 175 million yuan, 152 million yuan, and 124 million yuan respectively. Skyworth Electric Appliances has fallen into the dilemma of increasing revenue but not profits.

Although home appliances are Skyworth's main business, Skyworth's electrical appliance ODM/OEM business accounts for a high proportion of revenue, even close to 60% of its revenue. When outsourcing becomes the main source of income, it is difficult for Skyworth to make a breakthrough in the home appliance field, which has entered a stock competition. Therefore, making cars has become Huang Hongsheng's hope for a "second spring" in his career.

However, as mentioned above, Skyworth Auto has only survived for now. How to improve its product strength and highlights is the main issue that it needs to consider and focus on in the future. Huang Hongsheng, who is approaching 70 years old, should have already had the answer in his mind.

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.