On April 9, the company disclosed its 2023 annual report. In 2023, NIO delivered 160,000 vehicles, +30.7% year-on-year, achieving total revenue of 55.62 billion yuan, or +12.9% year-on-year; achieving a net loss of 21.15 billion yuan, an increase of 45.3% year-on-year.
The company sold 160 million vehicles for the full year of 2023. In December 2023, NIO delivered 18,012 new cars, up 13.9% year on year; in the fourth quarter of 2023, NIO delivered a total of 50,045 new cars, up 25.0% year on year, and the quarterly delivery volume exceeded the delivery guidelines; throughout 2023, NIO delivered a total of 160,038 new cars, an increase of 30.7% year on year, including 57,000 ES6, 41,000 ET5 vehicles, 21,000 ET5T vehicles, 14,000 ES8 vehicles, 10,000 EC6 vehicles, 70,000 ES7 vehicles, and 60,000 vehicles ET7, 40,000 EC7s.
New models are ready to go, and the product matrix has been further improved. 1) The flagship model ET9 was released on NIO DAY on December 23, 2023. The various configurations are luxurious and aimed at high-end home and business scenarios. The pre-sale price is 800,000, and it will be delivered in the first quarter of 2025. ET9 hardware and software are all built for an excellent experience, further enhancing the value of the main brand. 2) According to Li Bin, the second brand Ledao will be released in mid-early May '24, focusing on the mid-range market of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan. The battery rental (BaaS) cost of the Ledao brand will be lower than that of the NIO brand, and the BOM cost of the first model will be about 10% lower than the Tesla Model Y. NIO hopes to benchmark Tesla in the mainstream market through a second brand, and plans to resume monthly sales of 20,000 vehicles in 2024. The launch of the second brand, Redo, is expected to contribute significantly to its monthly sales volume.
The rise in sales led to a recovery in gross margin, and follow-up attention was paid to further improvements brought about by cost reduction and fee control. From January to May 2023, NIO sold a total of 43,900 units. Price and equity adjustments were announced on June 12, splitting the rights from vehicle prices, and directly reduced by 30,000 yuan for all models. After the rights were lifted, total sales volume for the third and fourth quarters was 55/ 50,000 units, respectively, which led to a month-on-month improvement in overall gross margin. According to NIO, NIO acquired some of JAC's factory assets on December 5, 2023, and will achieve independent manufacturing in the future, and manufacturing costs are expected to drop by 10%. NIO announced a 10% layoff in early November 2023, and the specific adjustments were completed in November; internal investment in projects that cannot improve the company's financial performance within three years will be reduced or postponed. NIO CFO Feng Wei said that these two measures will save NIO 2 billion yuan in total costs in 2024.
Energy supplementation facilities are sound, and attention is paid to improving profitability. According to NIO, as of April 18, 2024, NIO has built 3,767 charging stations and 21,912 charging stations across the country, making it the car brand with the largest number of charging stations built in the country. NIO has built 364 supercharged stations and 1,422 supercharged piles on expressways. It is also the car brand that has built the most overcharged piles in expressway service areas in the country. On April 18, NIO and SAIC-GM officially reached a charging network interconnection cooperation. As of April 18, NIO has reached cooperation with many car companies such as Changan, Geely, Chery, and Jiangqi. The utilization rate of NIO power exchange stations will increase significantly, leading to a significant improvement in the profitability of the power exchange business, which will contribute significant benefits to NIO. At the same time, NIO cooperates with a third party to purchase and hold NIO power exchange station products. NIO is responsible for operation. Currently, dozens of power exchange stations have adopted this operating model, which will greatly reduce the initial investment pressure.
Profit forecasting and valuation. Due to the intensive launch of new models in 2024, competition intensified, and the company's sales volume was under pressure. We lowered our sales forecast from 240,000 to 180,000 units, and lowered our operating income for 24 and 25 from 881/125.4 billion yuan to 620/90.6 billion yuan, which is expected to achieve operating income of 110.9 billion yuan in 2026; and reduced net profit to mother from -70/-2.8 billion yuan to -183/-15 billion yuan in 2026. The company is a domestic independent new energy luxury brand, and is expected to participate deeply in domestic consumption upgrades and electrification trends; under the full stack of core technology, the model products are strong, the cost performance ratio is prominent after the rights are untied, and monthly sales are expected to continue to increase. Ideal and Xiaopeng, who is also a new car builder, was selected as a comparable company. Referring to the 24-year valuation, NIO was more profitable after sales growth, giving it 0.95 times PS in 2024, corresponding to a target market value of 58.9 billion yuan. Compared with the current (2024/4/19), there is 3.9% room for growth, and the rating was lowered to “hold”.
Risk warning: competition for new energy vehicles has intensified, raw material prices have fluctuated, and the company's net profit has not been corrected