On July 27, in the interactive session after the end of NIO IN, when talking about sales, Li Bin, the founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, could no longer tolerate the weekly sales list of friendly competitors. He said that the monthly sales list is publicly available for every company, which is actually cruel enough already.
Qin Lihong, the co-founder and president of NIO, even said straightforwardly, “NIO never releases unaudited weekly lists, and at the same time has not authorized other institutions to release weekly lists with NIO’s name. When other companies release weekly lists, I hope they don’t include NIO.” When saying this, the anger could be clearly felt. Qin Lihong said that first, the data of the weekly list is not rigorous. We have never authorized any institution to release the weekly list with NIO, and this data has never been recognized by us. In the company, only four or five people know the weekly sales data of NIO. Secondly, NIO’s brand has never been authorized. If you are a national statistical agency, then there is no way, this is your job. If you are another company, why use my brand to release the weekly list? Can you take us out. Qin Lihong even appealed for this, hoping that the relevant departments can take care of it.
Li Bin did not mention any specific list or the name of a friendly competitor, but those familiar with the automotive industry all know who Li Bin was referring to.
As is known to all, the “weekly sales list” originally came from Li Auto, and has become one of its marketing weapons. It is understood that in April 2023, Li Auto began to break the convention of the automotive industry to release monthly sales data and took the lead in releasing weekly sales data. At that time, Li Auto was in the listing period of the three models of the L series, and the sales were stable and upward. This move also caused heated discussions in the public opinion and was once forced to suspend, but in the end Li Auto insisted on releasing it and drove other automotive enterprises and industry media to follow up, and the automotive industry entered the level of competing for sales by week. On March 26 this year, Li Auto stopped the behavior of fixed weekly sales data release every Tuesday. The background was that after the release of Li Auto MEGA, it encountered a cold market. The refreshed Li Auto L series has never been able to impact the market position of AITO Wenjie, and its sales have continued to be lower than that of AITO Wenjie. However, only one month after stopping the release, Li Auto resumed releasing the weekly list. At that time, Li Auto L6 had just been listed not long ago, and the steadily increasing order volume seemed to make Li Auto full of confidence. Since Li Auto resumed releasing the weekly sales list, it has remained at the top of the list for 13 consecutive weeks.
In addition, after Li Auto took the lead in releasing the weekly sales list, various kinds of lists with various tricks have also emerged endlessly, with various attributes added to the title such as “large 7-seat pure electric”, “medium and large pure electric over 200,000”, etc., just to make their own ranking rank first. In other words, the current weekly sales list has become a marketing tool and even a situation that distorts the market has occurred.
It turns out that NIO has endured the weekly sales list for a long time and is so排他ive to the weekly list released by friendly competitors. On July 23, Li Auto released the 29th week of 2024 (July 15-July 21), among which Li Auto ranked first with a weekly sales result of 10,900 vehicles and has been the top brand of new forces in the Chinese market for 13 consecutive weeks, while NIO ranked fourth with 4,600 vehicles.
Some netizens believe that the weekly list is only beneficial to the players at the top of the list, and the brands ranked behind basically belong to “accompanying play”. The reason why NIO opposes the weekly sales list is still due to market reasons. If NIO is ranked first at this time, whether NIO will also release this list. Therefore, it is understandable that NIO executives are furious about the weekly list. It is also not known whether Li Auto will stop releasing the weekly list after hearing the voices of NIO executives. Of course, even if Li Auto stops releasing the weekly list, other brands will also release it. Nowadays, including Auto Home, Yiche, and Dongchedi, etc., will also announce the weekly sales data on schedule. Therefore, the opposition of NIO executives to the weekly list is more of an expression and basically will not affect the direction of the market.
It is worth noting that less than 10 days before NIO complained about the weekly list, Zhang Xiao, the product head of Li Auto, posted a response to netizens’ doubts about the authenticity of the sales list data.
He explained that the statistical data in the automotive industry may be the relatively most regulated and complete. From capacity planning to capacity utilization rate, from wholesale volume reporting (wholesale) to dealer inventory statistics, from retail volume (retail) reporting to compulsory insurance insured volume, as well as import and export and used car circulation, every link in this industry has official statistics backed by the government. These data cannot be falsified.
However, he pointed out that the data of the order volume is impossible to prove or disprove. Because there is no unified standard for the order volume, it is internal data of the enterprise and an internal process indicator in the automotive circulation. In principle, the enterprise has no obligation and no responsibility to announce it.
And for listed companies, all disclosed data must be reviewed by the corresponding regulatory agencies, and it is not that you can say as much as you want. But if it is a non-listed company, then it is really only known to heaven, earth and oneself.
