In 2024, when most mainstream automakers saw neither revenue nor profit growth, the SERES Group was making a fortune in silence.
According to the performance announcement released by SERES Group in April, in 2024, the company achieved a historic breakthrough with revenue of 145.176 billion yuan and net profit of 5.946 billion yuan, with year-on-year growth rates of 305% and 128% respectively, reversing the downward trend of a net loss of 2.45 billion yuan in 2023 and a cumulative loss of 9.835 billion yuan from 2020 to 2023.
At the same time, SERES announced plans to list on the main board of Hong Kong by issuing overseas listed foreign shares. The funds raised from this IPO in Hong Kong will be used for technology research and development, overseas expansion and capacity upgrades.
Last year, SERES achieved a sales breakthrough of 426,900 vehicles in just one year, surpassing the total of the previous four years. The core driving force behind its leapfrog growth came from its new energy vehicle business and Huawei's empowerment.
The M9, with a price of more than 500,000 yuan, has been the sales champion for 9 consecutive months, breaking the monopoly of German luxury brands in this price segment; the new M7 has delivered 200,000 units in the 300,000 yuan market throughout the year, verifying the market penetration of the "technology equality" strategy. This also helped Seres' gross profit margin to increase to 26.21%, surpassing Tesla's 21.6% and BYD's 23.2%.
However, due to the high R&D investment of 7.053 billion yuan and the sales expenses that surged 264% year-on-year, its net profit margin was only 3.27%.
Despite its impressive performance last year, SERES' sales have declined since the beginning of this year, with first-quarter sales down 42% year-on-year.
At present, the "Five Realms" of Hongmeng Intelligent Driving are gradually taking shape, and Seres is no longer the only one in Huawei's ecosystem. The Huawei ADS 4.0 system, which was originally expected to be first installed on the Askjie, was preempted by Avita. SAIC Group revealed that the price of its models in cooperation with Huawei will sink to the 200,000-level market for the first time. Analysts warned that Huawei's "realm series" cooperation with many car companies may lead to resource dispersion, and how to balance synergy and independent development is still a long-term issue.
