XPeng - Q4 2023

Transcript

Operator (participant)

Hello ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for standing by for the fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call for XPeng Inc. At this time, all participants are in listen-only mode. After management's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the call over to your host, Mr. Alex Xie, Head of Investor Relations of the company. Please go ahead, Alex.

Alex Xie (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you. Hello everyone and welcome to XPeng's fourth quarter and fiscal year 2023 earnings conference call. Our financial and operating results were issued via NewsWire Services earlier today and available online. You can also view the earnings press release by visiting the IR section of our website at ir.xiaopeng.com. Participants on today's call from our management team will include Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. He Xiaopeng; Vice Chairman and President, Dr. Brian Gu; Vice President of Corporate Finance Investments, Mr. Charles Zhang. James Wu, and myself. Management will begin with prepared remarks and the call will conclude with a Q&A session. A webcast replay of this conference call will be available on the IR section of our website.

Before we continue, please know that today's discussion will contain forward-looking statements made under the safe harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements involve inherent risks and uncertainties. As such, the company's results may be materially different from the views expressed today. Further information regarding these and other risks and uncertainties is included in the relevant public filings of the company as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company does not assume any obligations to update any forward-looking statements except as required under applicable law. Please also note that XPeng's earnings press release and this conference call includes the disclosure of unaudited GAAP financial measures as well as unaudited non-GAAP financial measures. XPeng's earnings press release contains a reconciliation of the unaudited non-GAAP measures to the unaudited GAAP measures.

I will now turn the call over to our Co-founder, Chairman, and CEO, Mr. He Xiaopeng. Please go ahead.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Hello everyone. I am pleased to share that XPeng experienced an impressive growth in our delivery volume quarter by quarter in 2023, which exceeded 60,000 in Q4 of 171% year-over-year, thanks to our proactive change to business strategy and organizational structure as well as the new product launches. In total, we delivered over 140,000 units in 2023. Our efforts to focus on platform-based R&D, technology-driven cost reduction, and operational efficiency improvements have begun to yield positive results. In Q4, our growth margin improved to 6.2% with a vehicle margin expansion of 10 percentage points compared to the previous quarter. Our company achieved a positive free cash flow of more than CNY 6 billion for the second half of 2023 and achieved for the first time positive full-year operating cash flow.

As of the end of 2023, we had over CNY 45 billion in cash, which puts us in a strong financial position to deliver high quality and rapid growth in a highly competitive environment. I believe this is just the beginning of the change, and I look forward to bringing more improvements and positive results in our capabilities and operations in 2024.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

In 2024, we will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of our founding, and it will also be the first year filled with intense competition in the Chinese automobile industry. Since the first quarter of the year, there has been an industry-wide price war, which has been growing increasingly fierce. Against this backdrop, several EV startups have been forced to wind down their operations, and certain renowned technology companies have terminated their investment in auto business. These dynamics suggest that the race for smart EVs is for the larger wave of growth and intensified price competition. We have adjusted our strategies in a number of fields. We enhanced our organization and efficiency in an all-round manner. We made significant improvements in the quality of our operations and fully closed-loop customer experience. We built comprehensive competitiveness in products, technologies, and supply chain to support our planned larger scale.

We upgraded our sales and service capabilities in China and overseas markets. We made full-scale ADAS and autonomous driving more accessible and affordable, and we accelerated our global expansion. To put it differently, we are long-term oriented and never plan for the future based on the assumption of short-term or growth at small scale. As I formulated our strategies and tactics for the knockout ground of EV competition, I am excited about the strategic opportunities underway. We have completed the framework of our organizational adjustment, which starts to deliver positive results. We are about to embark on a strong product cycle and launch more than 10 new vehicle models over the next three years. Together with the corresponding left-hand drive and right-hand drive models for the international market, as well as facelift versions, there will be nearly 30 projects SOP in the next three years.

Thanks to our strong capabilities to leverage modules and platform and higher efficiency in R&D, incremental R&D expenses for these projects are limited. We are leveraging artificial intelligence to drive our autonomous driving technology forward, which enables us to lower cost and deploy extraordinary experience in more vehicle models with a new business model. Lastly, international expansion opens new avenues for our growth.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

The upcoming competition isn't solely focused on gaining a larger market share in the short term. It is also about demonstrating the automaker's capacity to maintain its leadership position by achieving high quality and efficient growth, showcasing expertise in smart technology, expanding globally, and creating competitive advantages through innovative products and business models. From my perspective, in order to capitalize on the strategic opportunities from smart technology and global markets, XPeng must continue to make innovative breakthroughs and address any organizational shortcomings. In my view, in the past, we never really showed very obvious shortcomings or advantages, but going forward, we will need to address these shortcomings, definitely.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]。

Speaker 12

By 2024, we are looking to take our marketing strategy to the next level by creating a new and potent marketing team. We will upgrade our marketing strategies to leverage advantages of mobile internet platforms for the automobile sector. In the past, automobile marketing was primarily dominated by PGC on centralized platforms. Now, we will focus more on decentralized social media platforms and make full use of the UGC from a broad base of customers. For example, we launched a campaign during the Chinese New Year to call for videos sharing of ADAS experience by XPeng customers. Over 20,000 customers participated in the event, spreading the reputation of XPeng ADAS from Tier 1 cities to hundreds of cities across the nation. In the past months, customer interest grew by over 100% in key social platforms.

Through marketing innovation, we should not only achieve a substantial increase in word-of-mouth and sales leads, but also continuously strengthen XPeng's brand recognition as a leader in autonomous driving technology.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

As part of our 2024 sales growth strategy, we need to expand and transform our sales channel network. In 2023, we accomplished a series of upgrades and optimizations to our sales channels, which included closing over 130 low-perforlming stores and adding over 160 strong franchise partners through our Jupiter projects. Even if these impacts, this closing down of the stores and this reorganization actions that we have taken had some impact on our Q4 last year and Q1 this year's sales, we believe that these changes not only improved our sales channel capabilities, but also will help us expand our presence in the 14 new low-tier cities. In 2024, while we cultivate our new stores, we will continue to broaden our sales network coverage and accelerate channel expansion in lower-tier markets such as in the fifth and sixth cities.

Our objective is to increase the number of sales stores to 600 by the third quarter of 2024. Our sales network will continue to grow following the launch of our new brand product.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Starting in the second quarter of this year, as our new sales stores gradually open for business, we will roll out an innovative franchise model. We are asking our franchise partners to take inventory, which is equivalent to their sales in half a month. We expect the new model will significantly speed up deliveries and incentivize franchisees to drive more sales. We'll use our systems and monitoring mechanisms to manage inventory closely and ensure consistency in customer experience no matter where they are. This will also allow us to overcome issues in the traditional franchise sales model.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

We have brought together our smart technologies, powertrain, and vehicle platforms onto a comprehensive intelligent platform to ensure maximum compatibility across various models. By adopting a platform-based R&D approach and economies of scale, we can reduce costs in the supply chain and manufacturing processes, which can accelerate our goal of achieving an over 25% cost reduction. Additionally, this approach significantly improves technology iteration efficiency. From a product planning perspective, both Feng Ying and I will continue to drive product innovation, as we believe that it is the best way to maximize value creation. We understand that the differentiation factor brought by innovative products is a far greater advantage than any competitive advantage among homogeneous products could ever be. For example, with the X9, we have created a new category that suits both four and seven-seater vehicles, which appeals to customers who are looking for MPVs and large SUVs.

X9 became the best-selling model of a BEV with three rows of seats in just the first two months of delivery. We expect that the delivery of X9 in March and April will continue to increase significantly month-on-month.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Furthermore, we are officially launching a new brand targeting the CNY 100,000-150,000 price range during the Beijing Auto Show next month. The market of the CNY 100,000-150,000 price range has huge market potential, but it is extremely difficult to provide great products with all-around competitiveness, including high-level ADAS in this price range, and even more difficult to achieve profitability at the same time. It takes comprehensive capabilities at scale to realize this goal. Many of our peers are also exploring this price range, but still none can provide excellent ADAS experience at this range. After 10 years of preparation, today we are finally ready. Our new brand is committed to building the first AI-powered smart car for the young generation. This brand will be a new species of innovation.

The first vehicle model under this new brand will officially launch and commence deliveries in the third quarter. We are confident that it will be the most striking and sought-after A-class BEV model in its segment. Furthermore, we will introduce multiple models on this platform in China and overseas markets in the coming future. In addition to this new brand, the second half of this year, we will deliver a new XPeng branded model, bringing the number of new products we launched this year to three, and will unveil more new products.

[Fl]。

We all know that the last decade was the decade of new energy, and the next decade would be the decade of smart technology. AI-powered smart EV technology and architecture are no longer just a mid- to long-term goal. At XPeng, we have already begun the process of AI-defined cars that are centered on autonomous driving. The vast differentiation edges stemming from AI R&D capabilities and AI product experiences will determine how quickly the transition from traditional ICE to smart EVs occurs and shape the auto industry's long-term competitive landscape. This presents a tremendous opportunity for us. That is why we have been increasing our long-term investment in AI and recruited a number of top talents for AI with international vision. In the second quarter of this year, we will achieve the mass production of AI-enabled ADAS with large model capabilities.

This will be the first mass-produced automotive artificial intelligence and automotive cognitive engine in the Chinese automobile industry, making our software smarter. Furthermore, we are firmly committed to promoting equity and inclusion in the advanced autonomous driving. We will continue to lead the innovation of autonomous driving technology, making it affordable and accessible to a much broader customer base and enter into the international markets. We will continue to expand our scale and strengthen our technology leadership, as well as accelerate the commercialization of our industry-leading technologies.

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Earlier this year, we introduced the XNGP ADAS to all our Max users across 200 cities nationwide. XNGP ADAS enables intelligent driving on urban roads. In February, XNGP's monthly active user penetration rate reached an impressive 83%. We are proud to be the industry leader in terms of active user scale, user experience, and mileage penetration rate. During the Chinese New Year travel rush, XNGP helped our car owners drive over 70 million kilometers. The average daily utilization rate of XNGP on highways and in urban areas reached 67% and 49% respectively. To take our XNGP-assisted driving experience to the next level, we have set a challenging goal for ourselves. We want to benchmark our XNGP-assisted driving experience in core cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen against Waymo's robotaxi experience in San Francisco.

As our ADAS approaches the inflection point of experience, significant cost reduction will emerge as another key driver to accelerate its further penetration. We plan to employ innovative technology solutions to reduce XNGP-related hardware costs by 50%, starting with the new model to be launched in the second half of this year. Our aim is to significantly boost our smart EVs' competitiveness in terms of cost, accelerating the widespread adoption of advanced smart technologies.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]。

Speaker 12

We have ambitious plans to expand our business globally by taking advantage of the increasing adoption of electric vehicles in international markets, and we plan to significantly accelerate the expansion of overseas business in 2024. In the second half of 2023, we launched the G9 into the northern European market, and we were thrilled to receive a tremendous response. Within just two months of its launch in Norway and Denmark, the XPeng G9 became the best-selling mid to large BEV SUV in its category, which clearly shows that our smart EVs with advanced technology offer exceptional value to customers worldwide. In the second quarter of 2024, we plan to introduce an international left-hand drive G6 model, which will be followed by the right-hand drive version in the second half of the year.

We believe that the G6 will be even more successful than the G9 in terms of global sales potential and will become a best-seller worldwide. To expand our sales channels, we will concentrate on collaborating with high-quality dealers to efficiently enter key global markets, including Western Europe, Middle East, Southeast Asia, and Commonwealth nations.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

We have achieved significant milestones in our strategic cooperation with the Volkswagen Group. Recently, we entered into a master agreement with them for platform and software strategic technical collaboration, and the joint sourcing program has also been launched. We are happy to see that strategic synergies have started to materialize. By 2024, we expect revenue generated from platform and software services to become a meaningful and ongoing contributor to our financial results, especially to growth margin. We have created an innovative business model in the automotive industry, generating excellent returns on our R&D investment in electrification, intelligent driving, and AI technology. XPeng and Volkswagen have formed a long-term strategic alliance with complementary strengths and mutual benefits. Going forward, we will work together to unleash greater strategic synergies and address industry shifts and challenges.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

We have proactively started a new round of transformation to strengthen our competitiveness since the fourth quarter of 2023. We focus more on marketing on short video platforms while cutting inefficient marketing spending on sales leads. We phased out a number of underperforming sales stores, and we adapt our supply chain and production to an intense product launch cycle for a large number of models. We faced intensified competition and the above-mentioned adjustments in marketing and sales channel in the first quarter, taking challenges both internally and externally into consideration. We now expect our total vehicle deliveries to be between 21,000 and 22,500 units in the first quarter of 2024, up 15.2%-23.4% year-over-year. We expect our first quarter revenue to be between CNY 5.8 billion and CNY 6.2 billion, up 43.8%-53.7% year-over-year.

Although there would be challenges due to transformation in the near term, I have seen the initial positive results in March. I believe that the positive effects of these changes will be evident starting from the second quarter and second half of the year. We expect the growth in deliveries in the second quarter of 2024 will increase significantly on both quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year terms.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thank you, everyone. With that, I will now turn the call over to our VP of Finance, Mr. James Wu, to discuss our financial performance for the fourth quarter of 2023.

Alex Xie (Head of Investor Relations)

Thank you, Xiaopeng. Now let me provide a brief overview of our financial results for the fourth quarter of 2023. I'll reference RMB only in my discussion today, unless otherwise stated. Our total revenues were CNY 13.05 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, an increase of 153.9% year-over-year and an increase of 53% quarter-over-quarter. Revenues from vehicle sales were CNY 12.23 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 162.3% year-over-year and an increase of 55.9% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were mainly attributable to the accelerating sales growth of the G6 and G9 in the fourth quarter of 2023. Gross margin was 6.2% for the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with 8.7% for the same period of 2022 and -2.7% for the third quarter of 2023.

Vehicle margin was 4.1% for the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with 5.7% for the same period of 2022 and -6.1% for the third quarter of 2023. The year-over-year decrease was explained by, first, the inventory provisions and losses on purchase commitments as a result of upgrades of existing models with a negative impact of 1.9 percentage points, and secondly, increased sales promotions and the expiry of new energy vehicle subsidies, offset partially by cost reduction and improvement in product mix. The quarter-over-quarter increase was primarily attributable to the cost reduction and better product mix. R&D expenses were CNY 1.31 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 6.3% year-over-year and an increase of 0.1% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year increase was mainly in line with the development timing and progress of new vehicle programs.

SG&A expenses were CNY 1.94 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, representing an increase of 10.3% year-over-year and an increase of 14.4% quarter-over-quarter. The year-over-year and quarter-over-quarter increases were primarily attributable to the higher commissions paid to the franchise stores, driven by higher sales volume. Furthermore, the quarter-over-quarter increase was also due to higher marketing, promotional, and advertising expenses to support vehicle sales. As a result of the foregoing, loss from operations was CNY 2.05 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with CNY 2.52 billion for the same period of 2022 and CNY 3.16 billion for the third quarter of 2023. Fair value gain on derivative liability was CNY 0.56 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023. This is due to our share purchase agreement with Volkswagen Group entered in Q3.

Until the transaction closes, the fluctuations in the fair value of the forward share purchase agreement were measured through profit or loss, resulting in a non-cash gain of CNY 0.56 billion in this quarter. On December 6, 2023, the transaction was successfully completed. Net loss was CNY 1.35 billion for the fourth quarter of 2023, compared with CNY 2.36 billion for the same period of 2022 and CNY 3.89 billion for the third quarter of 2023. On the cash front, we've achieved an important milestone of operating cash flow positive for the full year of 2023. This, together with the strategic investment from Volkswagen, helped bolster our liquidity. As of December 31, 2023, our company had cash and cash equivalents, restricted cash, short-term investments, and timed deposits in total of CNY 45.7 billion. This will be a strong foundation to support our growth strategy in the years to come.

To be mindful of the length of our earnings call, I would encourage listeners to refer to our earnings press release for more details on our fourth quarter and full year 2023 financial results. This concludes our prepared remarks. We'll now open the call to questions. Operator, please go ahead.

Operator (participant)

Thank you. If you wish to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to cancel your request, please press star 2. If you're on a speakerphone, please pick up the handset to ask your question. For the benefit of all participants on today's call, if you wish to ask your question to management in Chinese, please immediately repeat your question in English. For the sake of clarity and order, please ask one question at a time. Management will respond, and then feel free to follow up with your next question. Your first question comes from Tim Hsiao with Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

Tim Hsiao (Analyst)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

So my first question is about the product strategy, because XPeng plans to launch about 13 new models and facelifts in the next three years, which implies the company will have new models coming into the market basically every quarter, starting from the second half this year. So with such an intense launch schedule, what would you do to avoid the cannibalization from the new product and keep the sales momentum of the whole lineup? As over the past few years, we noticed that whenever XPeng launched the new cars, the sales of the old model always declined. So how should we avoid that? That's my first question. Thank you.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thank you very much for your question, and that is a great question. Exactly in the beginning of this year, and this is what Feng Ying and I myself, we have done, and this was our number one task. It is very important to carry out planning, and it involves planning for products, technology, supply chain, as well as manufacturing and launches of products. If one would like to do this, usually the preparation should really start 2-3 years beforehand. This would involve, for instance, looking at the price range, the size of different cars, the capabilities, and as well as timelines. Especially with our brand new products, and these products, and for instance, certain products we did not really have a lot of volume in the past.

For our product team, starting from Q1 of last year, we had reorganized the team in order to be able to come up with a product that is suitable for the new technology. At the moment, we simply would only need one architecture, two powertrain, and two autonomous driving systems, and this would be able to support our product. In the past, we have had situations whereby once a product has been launched into market, however, the supply chain wasn't strong enough to cope with the demand for delivery.

This time around, we had also looked at and discussed very comprehensively regarding this issue in terms of supply chain management, manufacturing, and we will also have digital process in place to make sure that all the processes are done and followed exactly the same to ensure quality improvement, production improvements, efficiency improvements, as well as cost reduction. You will be able to see after Q3 of this year, and we will have different launches. This is something that we have done for the past 12-18 months. As I have said, this would be, for instance, in terms of the price range, the models of different vehicles, and not only just for China, but also globally for our procurement as well.

In the market, you can also see that as the market changes, and we'll also see our peers and competitors, they will also be playing their cards very quickly. Often these days, changes and adjustments will be made on a quarterly basis or every two quarters. As I have mentioned earlier in my financial report and statements, it is not only enough to focus on the short term, but also on the long term. In the meantime, staying flexible and being able to adapt to the changes. What is core of being able to achieve that is really to put together a very strong team.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

To respond to the second part of your question, which was about from a marketing perspective and how to avoid cannibalization. Basically, starting from the end of last year, we have already put together this XNGP process to ensure that everything is complied and the processes are followed exactly the same. Secondly, when we look at different prices and different capabilities of our products, we also ensure that there is differentiation in these regards. Those are the two main points that we would be adopting to avoid cannibalization.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

So my second question is about the competition. As we noticed that competition on the vehicle prices and new products has been getting fiercer year to date. In addition to the increase in new models in the second half of this year, how will XPeng react to the price war and in the meantime effectively increase sales of existing models? That's my second question. Thank you.

Alex Xie (Head of Investor Relations)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thank you for your question. To be honest, this is really quite a tough question, and I believe that different alternative companies will have different ways to deal with competitions. For us, really, to answer your question from two perspectives, the first one is from a macro perspective, and I think it's really important about building up a systematically very strong foundation. The second one is all about innovation, and having innovative products is the only possible way to avoid competition. Thirdly, we are always pursuing quality first and then to scale. If you do it the other way around, if you start with scale first, it would be very difficult to improve quality. Secondly, if we talk about on the short-term micro level, I think that it would have the following areas, and the first one would be marketing.

We are always looking at how to spend less money to improve the marketing results. Secondly, it's all about the sales and service capability. As I talked earlier, last quarter of 2023, we had terminated 130 dealers, and those were the underperforming ones. By Q2 this year, once we have built up our new dealer partners and matured and nurtured all these dealers, we believe that this is the dealers who would help us to be able to further promote our vehicles in the third and fourth-tier cities. Thirdly, it is about the functionality and the capability of your product. So from the micro level, it is all about marketing plus sales plus service and plus your product.

Alex Xie (Head of Investor Relations)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thanks for sharing all the details. Thank you.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Bin Wang wit Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Ming Lee (Managing Director)

[Fl]

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

So my first question is regarding your cooperation with Volkswagen. Could you give more quantified answers regarding your cooperation? For example, how many components you are able to co-purchase along with Volkswagen, and how much cost do you expect to save?

Ming Lee (Managing Director)

[Fl]

Charles Zhang (VP)

Hi, Ming. This is Charles. I think a few weeks ago we announced that we have entered into the master agreement for the platform and the software services. That is a major development milestone for the projects we're working together based on our G9 platform. In the meantime, we also entered into the joint procurement program that we will joint procure the components for both our models on top of the G9 platform and also the Volkswagen's models building on our G9 platform. I will say that that's a very high degree of the platform and the component sharing. And through the joint procurement program, also leveraging Volkswagen's world-class supply chain capabilities, we have seen the initial good results coming out from the joint sourcing program.

We believe that such a joint sourcing program will continue to allow us to optimize our cost structure and also quickly bring our bottom cost structure to the competitive level in the market. Also, I think last point is that, as Xiaopeng mentioned in his remark, the revenue generating from the platform, the software services will start kicking in from 2024. And it is a recurring once you started recording our P&L, it will be a recurring revenue, and it will have meaningfully positive impact to our GP margin. And so it will continue to give us the positive contribution to our profitability.

Ming Lee (Managing Director)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

My second question is related to your Mona Project product. So how do you think about your integration level between XPeng brand as well as the Mona Project brand? And could you also give us more details about the progress for you to launch the to B model and also to C model? And also lastly, is the autonomous driving functions provided by Mona similar to XPeng 3.5? 谢谢。

Brian Hongdi Gu (Vice Chairman and President)

Hey, Ming. It's Brian. Let me address your question on this Mona Project. Yes, we're very excited that we'll be launching the Mona sub-brand in a very short time. And also we think it will be, I would say, one of the blockbuster products in its category. The reason we think there's a potential is because, one, we think it's a very well-designed product, has, I think, I would say, best-in-class design, as well as in some of the functions, especially as it relates to smart functions, we think it will have differentiations compared to similar products in this category. At the same time, we have done a lot of effort to try to make sure the product is also very competitive from both cost as well as competitiveness in terms of focusing on both to C and to B channels.

Needless to say, we have high hopes for this Mona product. Also in terms of strategy, we think it will have actually the dual-pronged channels. I think it will start from the to C channel first to make sure it will be received as a premium product, and then followed by, I think, to B channel sales. That's likely to be the sequence of our marketing. From the specific product functions and capabilities, I will probably leave that to the launch event to give the full details. Needless to say again, we think it's a very competitive product. We also have plans to steadily improve on this product based on additional, I would say, development planned for later this year as well as early next year. This is also going to be improving as a platform in this A-class.

So again, I think this is a lot to expect for, and I think I would love all of you to wait until our launch event, which will happen probably very soon.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you, Brian.

Speaker 10

Your next question comes from Ming Hsun Lee with Bank of AmericaPlease go ahead.

Edison Yu (Head of Research)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

My question is about the full year 2024 volume target. From the media report, that your target is 260,000-280,000 units. Is that in the wide range you are thinking about? If that's the case, which means in each quarter you actually need to sell about 75,000 units, implied monthly 25,000. So when you can achieve this 25,000, if it's true. Separately, do you actually got some commitments from Didi to have a certain to B from Mona and how much volume from the export? Thank you.

Brian Hongdi Gu (Vice Chairman and President)

Hey, Bin, it's Brian again. I think good try, but I think as usual, we do not give specific annual guidances on delivery numbers as our policy. But what I can say, at least for our perspective, is we are very optimistic about this year given the product lineup and the launch schedule. We think we can achieve on a full-year basis a much greater than market sort of growth rate, and I think we will be gaining significant market share increases. That's our expectation. We also think this year will be similar to last year in terms of first half will be light given, obviously, the industry dynamic as well as our product launch schedules.

But we think we will start to pick up steam towards the second quarter as well as the second half based on the changes we're making in our sales and marketing channels as well as our product launch in the third and fourth quarter. For Mona, I think, like I said, it's a very exciting product. We'll be launching the to C channel first, which we think will likely happen in the third quarter in terms of delivery. And also for the to B channel, we'll probably be a few months behind. We do not have a specific number to give you in terms of what the Mona expectation is. But I think, as you can tell, to be a successful product in the A-class category, I think you will have to deliver on a sort of range around about 10,000 a month type of scale to be successful.

So obviously, at a steady state, we think Mona should be achieving that level of sales. So again, I think I don't have specific numbers, but you can tell that this is how we envision the full-year delivery will look like for us. Oh, in terms of all the details, also, let me just comment on that. Again, this year, we will be making significant expansion efforts into many new markets. I think that we will start to see the delivery results from those efforts. And I think from the volume perspective, we think we will be generating tens of thousands of sort of delivery from international sales.

Edison Yu (Head of Research)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

In the recent conference over the weekend, Huawei said that XPeng is an obstructive leader in autonomous driving. However, Huawei wants to make the situation change. Can you describe what's the technology differentiation between the XPeng technology and Huawei, and how you maintain the leadership? Thank you.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thank you very much for your question. Actually, when Mr. Yu Chengdong from Huawei was making this statement, I happened to be among the audience, and I was sitting down there in the audience. I would say that for Huawei and XPeng and both companies, we are working together and putting in our efforts into something that we both truly believe. Huawei obviously is an excellent Chinese technology company, and we have a lot of respect for them. I would say that both companies have our unique advantages. For XPeng, in terms of what we have done, we really started working more on our brand as well as our marketing from the end of last year. In terms of autonomous driving, I believe that there are four areas that would really be very important. Number one would be the capability or functionality of your car.

Second would be safety. Third would be the cost of the vehicle. Fourth would be how international that you can expand into for your product and to obtain more revenue and profit. In China, obviously, we can see that autonomous driving is something that everybody loves. However, in terms of the general public demand, it is not quite yet met. This is something that we need to work hard on in the next 18 months. We can see that, for instance, in terms of the application in all areas, an all-round application and cost-reducing as well as more marketing work that's to be carried out. In the next 18 months, in addition, I do believe that huge changes will be brought by with the Large Model being applied to autonomous driving. This is something that we should watch out for.

We believe that this will bring great benefits to the industry. Since the first quarter of last year, we have also worked hard in bringing down the cost as well as working more on our marketing. Same as Huawei, what we want to do is that we want to become an excellent company. But then coming back to autonomous driving, I would still say that we are a company that is more specialized in vehicle, and autonomous driving is really our strength, and this is our uniqueness. Thank you.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you very much. Xie xie.

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Tina Hou with Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Tina Hou (Analyst)

[Fl]

Speaker 13

Thanks, management, for taking my question. So the first question is about our new brand. Since in terms of the pricing segment, it's actually quite separate from the XPeng brand, so wondering would our sales channel share the current sales channel or have a separate sales channel considering the target customer segment would be differentiated? And then the second also related is that considering we are at a lower price range for the new brand, wondering the designed gross margin level, would it be also lower than the XPeng brand? Thanks.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thank you very much for your question with respect to the new brand. For the new brand, we will be launching them into our existing stores, and we will have independent exhibition halls for the new brand. In the future, we are also looking at building more dealerships and more independent stores dedicated to these new brands. We hope that there will be hundreds of these new independent stores for the new brands dedicated to them. With respect to your other question, I will invite our finance VP and Mr. James Wu to take your question.

James Wu (VP of Finance and Accounting)

Yeah, on the margin front for Mona, typically we won't give a specific margin for a particular car line. As Brian and Xiaopeng mentioned, Mona will be focusing on the A-class segment. Obviously, we won't imagine that A-segment products to make the highest profit in our portfolio. But overall, our expectation is Mona will achieve healthy, positive margin for this brand overall. And as Brian mentioned, Mona that will be launched in the Beijing Auto Show will just be the first model. There will be additional models that's coming through the platform. The other thing that over the long term we might be thinking about is a different commercialization strategy in terms of our software, and we'll give more guidance and information in the next couple of quarters.

The other thing I want to mention is in terms of Mona, because it's large scale, the target customer base and our partnership with DD, so they will help us to market the product. Eventually, we expect relatively lower associated sales costs for Mona compared to XPeng brand overall.

Tina Hou (Analyst)

[Fl]

Speaker 13

So my second question is regarding, I think in the February delivery report, we mentioned that there were some supply chain bottlenecks regarding to X9 before the Chinese New Year, and the company expects after Chinese New Year these bottlenecks would be resolved and the delivery volume of X9 should increase. So just wondering what kind of bottleneck were we facing, and also going forward, how do we plan to prevent these similar situations from happening again? Thanks.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

That is an excellent question, and thank you for putting this forward. So in terms of the supply chain issue that you had mentioned encountered by X9, end of February after Chinese New Year, this problem has already been resolved. And yes indeed, in the past we have also encountered similar issues. Internally we have also been reflecting how to resolve this problem. And since taking over the supply chain myself personally last October, we have combed through a new management system and we are now reducing the number of suppliers, and we mainly focus on these high-quality private Chinese companies which are listed, and those are the ones who can also provide us with certain flexibilities. And so in the future I don't think that we need to worry about this issue because we do now have long-term strategic partners in place.

Second, in terms of our products and we now have standardized modules, and generally speaking, we have about one to two partners who provide us with these modules that can be used in quite a broad spectrum of different models of cars, and this will improve the efficiency and bring down the cost as well as ensure the quality. They are very flexible partners to work with. Thirdly, in terms of supply chain management team, we have also done work to adjust our existing supply chain management team, and in terms of the organizational structure, we now have a new system in place. Internally our company have the determination that we are ready for all of these products to be launched for the first three months, and we want to make sure that we will achieve a very good scale of sales.

Tina Hou (Analyst)

[Fl]

Operator (participant)

Your next question comes from Xinzhi Yin with CITIC Securities. Please go ahead.

Speaker 11

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Thank you very much for your question. Yes indeed, for this year and I do believe that we would be able to complete the task a little bit ahead of time, ahead of schedule as what I have mentioned the last year. First of all, in terms of the large model and being adopted in our system, and through our testing we had already been able to discover that the large model could really help with the speeding up and realization of the generic intelligence and smart autonomous driving. So it is definitely an advantage, and we have already done the testing and it has already approved this.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Secondly, we know that in terms of hardware cost and for XPeng obviously we would like to bring it down, and we also would like to see that providing support to our systems by a large scale. Not only just that, for others XPeng believes that and would like to see the cost to come down, and we also see out there in the market there are other people providing even cheaper solutions. What we have discovered is that with the large model and it definitely would be able to provide more computing power and more GPU, and this would be able to help and push for the faster and better achievement in our vehicles and to bring the success faster to the market.

Another point I would like to mention is that in certain restricted scenarios or in certain scenarios whereby there are a lot of limitations, and we can see that the large model has actually helped with the speeding up of realizing fully autonomous driving. And this is something that we are focusing on, and we have a lot of confidence in this.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Speaker 12

Apologies, and I have one last point to add, which is that in terms of the non-HD map and we in the beginning and when we looked at this and we thought that yes it will speed up the process and in a linear process. However, it wasn't linear, it was actually extremely fast in terms of how it has ramped up, and we do believe that having this data in our hand and having witnessed the non-HD map how it's working in reality, and we do think that this is something will help again with the large model and its adoption and helping further advancing the others in autonomous driving. Thank you.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

[Fl]

Operator (participant)

Thank you. That is all the time we have for questions. Now I'd like to turn the call back over to the company for closing remarks.

He Xiaopeng (Chairman and CEO)

Thank you once again for joining us today. If you have further questions, please feel free to contact XPeng's investor relations through the contact information provided on our website or the Piacente Financial Communications.

Operator (participant)

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect your line. Thank you.