BAIC Blue Valley has entered its fifth consecutive year of losses.
On the evening of January 15, BAIC Blue Valley released the pre-loss announcement for the 2023 annual performance, showing that the company is expected to have a net profit of -5.7 billion yuan to -5.2 billion RMB belonging to the shareholders of the listed company in 2023, and a net profit after deducting non-recurring profits and losses of -6.2 billion yuan to -5.7 billion RMB.
For the expected loss in 2023, BAIC Blue Valley explained in the announcement that the first is that the company continuously improves its comprehensive competitiveness, actively explores the market, sharpens its brand image, and improves operational efficiency, and continues to invest in core capabilities such as technology research and development and brand channel building; the second is that the scale effect of the company’s product sales has not yet been demonstrated, resulting in a temporarily high cost of the product;
This will be the fifth consecutive year of losses for BAIC Blue Valley. It is understood that since BAIC Blue Valley’s backdoor listing in 2018, it has mostly been in a loss-making state. From 2019 to 2022, it respectively suffered net losses of 0.92 billion yuan, 6.482 billion yuan, 5.244 billion yuan, and 5.465 billion yuan. In addition to the expected loss of 5.2 billion yuan in 2023, it has lost more than 22.4 billion yuan in the past five years. In terms of cash flow, BAIC Blue Valley is also under pressure. At the end of the third quarter of 2023, it was 5.816 billion yuan.
BAIC Blue Valley has two brands, JiHu and BAIC New Energy. In 2023, BAIC Blue Valley sold a total of 92,200 new energy vehicles throughout the year, with a year-on-year increase of 83.69%. Among them, as a high-end new energy brand, JiHu sold 30,000 new cars throughout the year, with a year-on-year increase of 138%.
As a high-end new energy brand, although JiHu’s sales soared in 2023, the overall volume is not large. Compared with the high-end new energy brands of other traditional auto companies, there is still a gap. For example, Geely’s Zeekr delivered 118,700 vehicles in 2023, and Dongfeng’s Lantu also exceeded 50,000 vehicles, becoming one of the few auto brands that completed the annual target.
BAIC Blue Valley is the earliest auto company to cooperate with Huawei. In 2017, the two parties signed a cooperation agreement to jointly establish a project team with the code name HBT. Many engineers from the Huawei project team are permanently stationed at the headquarters of BAIC Blue Valley. Since then, the two parties have signed two consecutive deepening and upgrading cooperation agreements. In 2021, the all-new Alpha S HI version jointly created by BAIC Blue Valley and Huawei was released at the Shanghai Auto Show. In 2022, it was delivered. This car is the first mass-produced car equipped with Huawei HI smart car solution, and it is the world’s first batch of mass-produced cars that support urban road smart driving. It has the highest-level smart driving level of Huawei, but it has not been recognized by consumers.
After that, the cooperation model between BAIC New Energy and Huawei was further upgraded to the smart car selection model. The first cooperative model will be unveiled at the 2024 Beijing Auto Show and is expected to be listed in June 2024. However, the brand name is currently unknown. In addition, in the first quarter of 2024, BAIC Blue Valley will also release a sports car model, and in the second half of the year, the new models of Alpha S and Alpha T of JiHu will be launched. However, whether it is the “jie” brand jointly launched with Huawei or the new models of JiHu, it is unknown whether they can stand out in the highly competitive market and be recognized by consumers.
