On July 11, Xiaokang Co., Ltd. (601127.SH) announced that it planned to change the company name to Celis Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as: Celis).
As we all know, Celis is the first new energy brand launched after Xiaokang and Huawei officially announced the cooperation to build cars.The renaming of Celis not only means that Xiaokang is determined to completely embrace new energy, but it may also indicate that Xiaokang's future will continue to be "entangled" with Huawei.
Reason for the name change
Xiaokang Co., Ltd. said that the decision to change the name was made based on its years of deep cultivation in the industry and in-depth thinking on the development of the automobile industry.
Since the layout of the new energy vehicle business in 2016, the company has achieved a number of technological innovation achievements in the fields of vehicle, electric drive, intelligent interconnection, and automatic driving, and has cultivated and launched a pure electric drive intelligent range extension platform (DE-i). Competitive technologies and products have been formed in the field of new energy vehicles.
Xiaokang shares claimed that the change of name is to facilitate investors to accurately understand the current company positioning, to match the company name with business and strategic planning, to unify the company's brand image and enhance brand value.
According to public information, Xiaokang Co., Ltd. was previously positioned as a manufacturing enterprise integrating R&D, manufacturing, sales and service of passenger cars, commercial vehicles, powertrains and other auto parts.
In the past two years, Xiaokang Co., Ltd. has frequently appeared in the public eye with the new identity of cooperating with Huawei to build new energy vehicles, and has successively launched two new energy brands, Celis and Wenjie.Xiaokang Co., Ltd. believes that the company "has become a technology manufacturing enterprise with new energy vehicle research and development, production and sales as its core business".
Another powerful data given by Xiaokang shares is that in the first quarter of 2022, the company's new energy vehicle business revenue has accounted for 48.28% of the company's total revenue.
It is worth mentioning that in March 2022, Xiaokang Co., Ltd. began to separately disclose the situation of the Celis brand in the production and sales bulletin for the first time.In June, Xiaokang Co., Ltd. produced 11,508 new energy vehicles, including 7,046 Seris; the sales volume of new energy vehicles was 12,418, of which 7,658 were Seris, accounting for 61%. 42%.
From this point of view, the name change of Xiaokang is reasonable.
Why Celis?
But why Celis?
As mentioned earlier, Celis is the first brand after Xiaokang and Huawei cooperated to build a car, but from all aspects, Celis has not been able to benefit much from this starting advantage.
According to previous reports, only 8 months after the launch of the first model of Celis, Xiaokang and Huawei cooperated again to promote the AITO M5, which Huawei is more deeply involved in research and development, while the Celis SF5 is facing the suspension of production and sales. situation.At that time, some consumers noticed that the logos of a large number of Celis stores were changed to "AITO", and even all official service outlets had been renamed as AITO User Centers.
At present, even if Wenjie is under the brand of Seris, Seris and Wenjie have different official websites, official accounts and ordering channels, and almost all of Seris' official Weibo and official blogs are based on Wenjie. main promotional content.
Coupled with the limited production capacity after the cessation of sales of the Celis SF5, the sales of the Celis brand are considered to be mainly contributed by the M5.Taking the sales volume in June as an example, the sales volume of the Celis brand was 7,658 units, and the sales volume of the Wenjie M5 was 7,021 units, accounting for 92% of the sales volume of the Celis brand.
From the above perspective, it seems that the use of Celis to represent the company is not completely representative.However, Lin Shi, deputy secretary-general of the Intelligent Networking Professional Committee of the China Communications Industry Association, believes that "Salis is originally a well-off brand, and the name change is mainly to get rid of the previous image of low-end fuel vehicles."
As for why not directly change its name to Wenjie, Lin Shi said, "Wenjie is a brand in which Xiaokang and Huawei have in-depth cooperation. Judging from the existing achievements, it is not wrong for Xiaokang to embrace Huawei, but in the process of embracing Huawei, it is also It is necessary to improve our own capabilities and develop a relatively independent brand.”
In addition, the choice of Celis as the company name may also ensure that Celis will not go to the finish line.In addition to the existing Celis SF5, Xiaokang Co., Ltd. stated in the investor's question that the company is actively planning the follow-up model of the Celis brand, which will be released at an appropriate time in the future.
