Key investment points

On January 1, 2025, Ideal Auto announced delivery data for December 2024 and the full year. In December 2024, 58,513 Ideal cars were delivered, up 16.2% year over year. A total of 500,508 vehicles were delivered in 2024.

The results of the November 0 interest plan were remarkable. Delivery data continued to improve. Ideal Auto delivered 0.059 million vehicles in December 2024, an increase of 16.2% over the previous year and an increase of 20.1% over the previous month. The main reason was that Ideal launched a 3-year 0 interest plan on November 29, with a minimum down payment of 0.0698 million yuan. The effect of the 0 interest plan was obvious. A total of 0.501 million vehicles were delivered in 2024, an increase of 33.1% over the previous year. It is mainly due to the improvement of the product capabilities of the L6 model after the launch, helping the product strength of the Zengcheng platform continue to improve. As of December 31, 2024, a total of 1.134 million vehicles have been delivered in history.

Intelligent driving continues to be upgraded, and AI may become a new direction in the future

In the “How to Evaluate the End-to-End Capabilities of Car Companies” report, we believe that the ideal has advantages in computing power and data scale, and AI capabilities are expected to remain ahead in the future. In December, the ideal student, equipped with MindGPT, a large model with a self-developed AI base, officially landed on the mobile device and was open to all users to download. Meanwhile, Ideal Auto's OTA7.0 vehicle system will be launched within this month. The high-speed NOA will be upgraded to an end-to-end technical architecture, and the end-to-end +VLM dual system will open the boundaries between urban NOA and high-speed NOA to achieve end-to-end capabilities in all scenarios. In the future, I hope to become the world's leading artificial intelligence enterprise, AI, or the new direction of the future by connecting the physical world and the digital world.

Ecosystem construction is accelerating, and the smart electric strategy is expected to be rapidly implemented and the ecology will gradually improve. As of December 31, 2024, Ideal Auto has 502 retail centers across the country, covering 150 cities; 478 after-sales maintenance centers and authorized sheet spray centers, covering 225 cities. Ideal Auto has put into use 1,727 ideal supercharging stations across the country, and has 9100 charging stations.

Investment advice

We expect the company's revenue for 2024-2026 to be 147.3/205.4/280 billion yuan, respectively, with year-on-year growth rates of 19.0%/39.4%/36.3%, net profit to mother of 8.53/14.24/23.73 billion yuan, year-on-year growth rates of -27.1%/67.0%/66.6%, EPS 4.02/6.71/11.18 yuan/share, respectively, and a 3-year CAGR of 40.6%.

The company's product strength has been improved, intelligent electric acceleration, sales volume and profitability have been realized. Maintain a “buy” rating.

Risk warning: the speed of intelligent implementation and ability to deliver sales falls short of expectations; passenger car price war may affect subsequent sales