Can home appliance enterprises wear the "heavy crown" of new energy vehicles?
In the toB business expansion of home appliance enterprises, the automobile industry is a new direction that everyone aims at together. Compared with the enthusiasm for vehicle manufacturing in the "car-building tide" 20 years ago, this round of "car-building" strategy of home appliance enterprises is more rational and circuitous. They no longer demand to take off the whole "industrial crown" of automobiles, but choose to play a part in the "crown" manufacturing industry chain and provide supporting products for vehicle enterprises, including industrial robots, vehicle thermal management systems and screen displays.
It has become a common practice for home appliance companies to build cars across borders.
In June, 2023, Jia Shaoqian, chairman and president of Hisense Group, who was a guest of CCTV's "Dialogue" column, mentioned that Hisense continued to diversify in the B2B field. On the second anniversary of the acquisition of Japan's Sandian Holdings, the Group established the automotive electronics business as one of the second curves of future business growth.
Back in 2021, the news that Hisense subscribed for Japan's Sandian Holdings came out in the home appliance industry circle. However, at that time, everyone was immersed in the embarrassment and unknowns of the epidemic, and this news was quickly lost in the information clouds. Now, looking back at this 1.3 billion yuan transaction, it is becoming a trump card for Hisense to squeeze into the "building a car" table.
Sandian Holdings is the world's leading first-class manufacturer of automotive air-conditioning compressors and automotive air-conditioning systems. It entered the field of automotive air-conditioning compressors in the 1970s, and has many major customers such as Honda, Ford, Volkswagen, General Motors and Nissan. However, due to unfavorable factors such as the slow pace of new energy transformation and the global spread of COVID-19 epidemic, the company's capital chain appeared serious problems around 2020, with a profit loss of about 2.7 billion yuan, and it had to seek investors from outside. At this time, Hisense appeared at the poker table as a "rescuer" and subscribed for 75% of the shares of Sandian Holdings to become the controlling shareholder of the company. In the 2022 annual report, Hisense Household Appliances disclosed the operating conditions of the three power companies after the merger, indicating that on the one hand, with the support of Hisense, the three power companies continued to increase investment in R&D, consolidate product competitiveness, consolidate the integration capability of vehicle thermal management systems, and successfully won a number of key project orders from global customers, including Tesla and SAIC, and a number of new commercial rights of European and American car companies; On the other hand, referring to Hisense Group's manufacturing efficiency management system, Sandian has obvious benefits in reducing the cost of global factory manufacturing, and through the integration of supply chains, it has effectively saved a lot of procurement costs and achieved a substantial reduction in profits. In 2022, the company's revenue was about RMB 9.055 billion, a significant increase compared with the revenue of RMB 8.2 billion in 2020. Although the annual report did not disclose the specific net profit of Sandian in 2022, according to the research analyst of Minsheng Securities, Sandian is expected to turn losses into profits in 2023 and contribute about RMB 60 million in consolidated profits to Hisense in 2024.
In the longer term, Sandian Holdings is the Tier 1 supplier of many large automobile companies. With Sandian Holdings as the medium, Hisense can cut into the automobile industry more deeply. Previously, relying on its traditional advantages in image display, Hisense Group laid out intelligent transportation, vehicle-road coordination, intelligent cockpit and other fields, but its nesting with vehicle companies was still lacking. After holding Sanpower, Hisense effectively cut into the air conditioning compressor and vehicle thermal management system of new energy vehicles, and further activated the previous orders for intelligent cockpit and vehicle-road coordination. As Jia Shaoqian said, Hisense is not only a supplier of home appliances, but also a supplier of new energy and thermal management systems.
When it comes to Sandian, we have to mention Haili. In 2022, in the domestic new energy vehicle compressor market, the market share of Sandian and Haili is close to 6%. It is reported that Haili has been involved in the technical research and development of new energy vehicle-related products since around 2001, and established the automobile division in 2012, officially extending from the household field to the automotive field. At present, Haili has formed two business segments in the layout of vehicle parts, one is the electric compressor business of air conditioning for new energy vehicles, and the other is the air conditioning and thermal management business for vehicles formed through the acquisition and holding of Ma Ruili. Up to now, the automobile business has become the second pillar industry in Haili.
In addition to Hisense and Haili mentioned above, other home appliance companies such as Gree and Midea have long been unable to hold back their yearning for the automobile market. Taking Gree Electric as an example, the company has cut into many fields, such as automotive intelligent equipment such as CNC machine tools and robots, automotive energy systems such as lithium batteries and hydrogen fuel, as well as automotive parts such as automotive air-conditioning compressors, vehicle thermal management systems and commercial vehicle manufacturing and sales.
Measurement of temptation and risk
There are two reasons why home appliance enterprises are eager to expand the automobile market. First, the traditional home appliance business has entered the stock cycle, and no matter from the domestic market or the global market, it lacks new growth highlights in a short time; In addition, the new energy vehicle market has both certainty and long-term growth. Taking China as an example, under the background of national energy structure transformation, the country is vigorously promoting new energy vehicles. According to the statistics of China Automobile Industry Association, in 2022, the production and sales of automobiles in China were 27.02 million and 26.86 million, up by 3.4% and 2.1% respectively, among which the market share of new energy vehicles increased to 25.6%, and the annual sales exceeded 6.8 million.
Looking at the global market, according to the statistics of Marklines, in 2022, the global sales of light vehicles will be about 81.05 million, and new energy vehicles are also the general trend. Taking Europe as an example, in February 2023, the European Commission passed the Zero Emission Agreement for Newly Sold Fuel Cars and Minivans in Europe in 2035, which will prohibit the production of new fuel vehicles from 2035, and the policy will drive car companies to make changes; Although the development of new energy vehicles in the United States lags behind that in China and Europe, preferential policies for new energy vehicles have been continuously introduced in recent years. For example, in August 2022, the Inflation Reduction Law signed by the United States proposed to continue to provide new energy vehicles with a tax credit of $7,500 for bicycles, and to cancel the maximum subsidy scale of 200,000 vehicles for car companies, which is valid from 2023 to the end of 2032.
In the new energy auto market with great potential, home appliance enterprises can get a share of it through technology migration and collaboration.
In the traditional fuel vehicle, the thermal management of the whole vehicle mainly includes the thermal management of the engine and the thermal management of the cabin, such as cooling the engine in high temperature weather, starting the engine in low temperature environment, driving the air conditioner compressor and water pump to cool the cabin in summer, and heating the cabin in winter by using the heat lost in the energy conversion process of the internal combustion engine. Its function and technology are relatively simple.
However, under the trend of electrification, the vehicle thermal management system has undergone great changes, and additional heat sources are needed to maintain the efficient operation of the vehicle, such as dealing with the temperature sensitivity of the battery, doing thermal management for the battery, cooling by liquid cooling schemes such as refrigerant evaporation when the temperature is too high, and heating by PTC heaters when the temperature is too low. In addition, the motor and electronic control system of the vehicle also need heat dissipation, and the air conditioning system in the cabin is used to adjust the temperature of the interior environment. The thermal management system of a new energy vehicle is related to the vehicle performance and cruising range, and it also contains huge business opportunities. For example, taking the electric compressor of cabin air conditioner as an example, its bicycle value is about 2000 yuan, and with the whole vehicle thermal management system, the bicycle value can reach 6000 yuan. With the development of new energy vehicles, the future potential value of its thermal management system may be comparable to the existing traditional household air conditioning market.
Of course, becoming a supplier of parts for automobile enterprises may be just a first step for home appliance enterprises to lay out the automobile market. Their ambition lies more in automobile manufacturing and sales. After all, automobiles are known as the "crown" of modern industry, and who doesn't want to win this crown?
Taking Skyworth as an example, the first pure electric intelligent SUV was launched in 2021. Up to now, the company has launched four automobile products. Recently, it is reported that Roborock has officially declared its first SUV model. However, from January to June this year, Skyworth sold 9,927 vehicles, which was far from the sales target of 40,000 vehicles set at the beginning of the year. However, Roborock's new car will be manufactured by Beijing Automobile Manufacturing Company due to its lack of production capacity.
As early as 20 years ago, there was a wave of "building cars" in home appliance enterprises, but almost all the results at that time ended in "bleak". High-profile people, such as Chunlan, started from air conditioning, but "dreamed of building cars"; Another example is that Oaks Group once built SUVs and pickups, but the automobile industry, which had high hopes, fell before the rise of SUV consumption boom; Midea also bought several bus manufacturers in succession from 2004 to 2006, but in the end it came to an end by packaging and selling related assets ... Temptation and risk coexist. Under the new wave of building cars, who can be a home appliance enterprise in deus ex?