Author | Wang Xiaojuan

Editor | Zhou Zhiyu

Since joining Xiaopeng for more than a year, Iron Lady Wang Fengying has seldom appeared and kept a very low profile. On September 5, at Xiaopeng's MONA M03 celebration, Wang Fengying picked up her first glass of wine in her life and finished it with pride.

The MONA M03 went on sale for 48 hours, and eventually surpassed 30,000 units. Later, it grew at a rate of 2,000 units/day, becoming another hit model after the Xiaomi SU7. Wang Fengying owes great credit. Naturally, she was thrilled.

A few days later, Xiaopeng Motor CEO He Xiaopeng also drove the MONA M03 to “feel the passion of competitive sports”, adding another spark to this car.

As a new force side by side with NIO and Ideal, Xiaopeng's sales have continued to lag behind in the past two years, and now he has relied on the MONA M03 to finally raise his eyebrows and breathe again.

However, how the popularity of popular models continues is the key to determining whether Xiaopeng can completely turn around.

On his way to the big seven car companies in the future, He Xiaopeng still needs to build more hot models and continue to strengthen the moat before he can get the final ticket.

fiery

The MONA M03 made Xiaopeng rarely raise his eyebrows and exhale once.

52 minutes after the press conference on August 27, the car definitely surpassed 10,000 units; at the Chengdu Auto Show three days later, Dading surpassed 30,000 units; recently, news sent by Xiaopeng to suppliers from within shows that orders for this car are rising at a rate of 2,000 units/day.

Over the past ten days, the Xiaopeng MONA M03 successfully took over the Xiaomi SU7 and became a phenomenal product in the auto market in the second half of the year.

A week after the press conference, He Xiaopeng cleaned the building and distributed afternoon tea to employees, expressing his happiness and encouraging everyone to continue facing challenges. He said, “In the next five quarters, there will be a new car every quarter, which poses a greater challenge to the company's marketing services.”

The market has proven once again that in order for a car to be successful at the lowest possible cost, it is still necessary to choose the path that the market has already proven - good looks and good value for money.

At the press conference, He Xiaopeng showed the sides of several cars with similar positions for comparison. Among them was the Xiaomi SU7, whose appearance has already been confirmed. In comparison, the differences between the cars are not obvious, and the Xiaopeng MONA M03 has also been doing face value marketing until now, so many consumers are still quite appreciative of the actual car's appearance.

In terms of price, the previous rumor had always been around 0.15 million yuan, but the actual starting price was less than 0.12 million yuan; the top price was only 0.15 million yuan. It can be seen that this wave of Xiaopeng knows how to manage expectations.

Also, this car is aimed at young people who are more likely to be intelligent. Compared to other models in the same class, the smart cockpit is a direct impact on dimensional reduction.

He Xiaopeng also revealed that most of the current users who bought this car are post-95 or even post-00s, and there are also many female users.

If the Xiaomi SU7 wants to attract young people with spending power, then Xiaopeng MONA M03 is sinking further, further expanding the range of users and transforming it into a wider group of young users.

To a certain extent, the current price of the Xiaopeng MONA M03 satisfies netizens' initial expectations for Xiaomi cars. After Xiaopeng's MONA M03 went on sale, some netizens joked, “Tell Mr. Lei that Redmi doesn't need to be built; now I have another choice.”

Currently, the influence of Xiaopeng MONA M03 continues.

Earlier, when the second quarter earnings report was released, Xiaopeng had already drastically raised its delivery guidelines for the third quarter — Xiaopeng's total delivery volume for the third quarter will be between 41,000 and 45,000 units, an increase of 36% to 49% over the previous month, and the increase mainly comes from Xiaopeng MONA M03.

He Xiaopeng and other management have emphasized more than once that the company has fully learned the lessons of Xiaopeng G6 and, together with the supplier, is ready for delivery. Meanwhile, in order to ease delivery pressure, Xiaopeng said that the Xiaopeng MONA M03 smart driving version will be delivered after the 2025 Spring Festival.

Xiaopeng's MONA M03's performance in excess of expectations also caused Xiaopeng's stock price to rise slightly since the end of August — Xiaopeng Hong Kong's stock price was still HK$26.45 per share when it opened on August 21, and was already HK$34.60 per share by the close of trading on September 12, an increase of 30.8%.

After several previous failures, Xiaopeng also made changes in various areas. Now with the explosion of the Xiaopeng MONA M03, Xiaopeng is finally relieved in terms of sales.

challenges

Xiaopeng welcomed his long-lost hit, but it wasn't easy for it to turn around.

Over the past few years, Xiaopeng has also launched popular models from time to time, but each car has continued to be popular for a short period of time. This is also a problem that bothers Xiaopeng. There are best-selling models, but there are no commonly sold models.

For example, last year's Xiaopeng G6 was Xiaopeng's last hit model. Starting with the warm-up, it was once regarded as Xiaopeng's “hope for the whole village”. After it went public, it did get a good number of orders in a short period of time, but the popularity rushed past due to delivery and other issues.

He Xiaopeng is also well aware of this. He compared building cars today to swimming in a sea of blood, but Xiaopeng's condition is often far and close to the shore.

However, He Xiaopeng said that Xiaopeng did not waste every difficult situation. Over the past few years, Xiaopeng has grasped every difficulty and carried out changes. After Xiaopeng G9, large-scale organizational changes and technological cost reduction began; after Xiaopeng G6, supply chain management was strengthened to avoid repeating mistakes as much as possible.

When the Xiaopeng MONA M03 went on sale this year, Xiaopeng thought it had made sufficient preparations. Judging from the series of performances now, it is indeed much more mature than before.

But everything is just beginning. How long this car will sell well also depends on the specific performance in the future.

Today's market competition is also intensifying, and all three of Wei Xiaoli's families are sinking.

Ideal launched the Ideal L6 under 0.3 million yuan, with a starting price of 0.2498 million yuan; NIO launched a new brand, the Ledao L60. The pre-sale price of the first model, the Ledao L60, was 0.2199 million yuan. NIO founder Li Bin revealed that the actual price would be lower than the pre-sale price, but it wouldn't be too aggressive.

However, if we talk about the most significant decline in the market, it is none other than Xiaopeng. Its products have directly entered the market range of about 0.1 million yuan, and intelligence is still its main selling point. This made it more difficult for Xiaopeng's subsequent products to achieve a premium through intelligence.

Of these three, Xiaopeng has always been the lowest in price. Previously, it also tried to completely upgrade the brand through the Xiaopeng G9, but at one point the entire brand fell into trouble; after another battle, the increase in sales was not particularly obvious; and later, the Xiaopeng X9, despite its good results in the market segment, was still not a popular model.

Furthermore, now that it enters the mainstream market, it has to face rivals such as BYD and Aian. Their sales volume has been stable in tens of thousands of units for a long time, and many models have gained a foothold in the B-side market, which also makes the continued growth of Xiaopeng MONA M03 challenging.

In the previous plan, MONA will be Xiaopeng's second brand. Later, due to cost, channel, etc., Xiaopeng still used MONA as a product sequence, and the overall relationship with Xiaopeng was stronger.

This means that the current pricing of the Xiaopeng MONA M03 will also affect the pricing of Xiaopeng's next models. Once a brand has gone down, it's not easy to move up. Meanwhile, He Xiaopeng also firmly stated that he will continue to build more expensive cars in the future.

In the future, on the way to 1/7, Xiaopeng, like his rivals in the industry, will have to work hard to swim until the sea turns blue.