According to statistics of iFinD, total research cost of 23 automobile companies of year 2013 is 20.9 billion CNY, which has increased 8% over last year. Research cost of SAIC is the highest among them. From the research cost- sales ratio perspective, JMC takes the top rank with 5.69%.
As reporter known, research cost seems do not connect with sales. Take Great Wall for an example. The company spends 1.7 billion CNY into research in year 2013 with 770 thousand cars sales. On the other side, research cost of BYD is 2.9 billion CNY, and sales are 506.2 thousands cars.
“Investment not always contributes sales, but no investmentdefinitely no gains. Investment may fail, but it is necessary. Product upgrade relays on research.” JIA Xinguang, senior analyst of automobile industry tell reporter.
Research cost of SAIC Group mounts to 5.3 billion CNY of year 2013. The figure for year 2012 is 5.76 billion CNY and 5.9 billion CNY for year 2011. Research cost is ranked top first among all the listed automobile manufacture companies. Percentage between research cost- operating income decreases from 1.36 of year 2011 to 1.2% of year 2012 to 0.93% of year 2013. Therefore, percentage of SAIC tends decrease year by year.
“Research cost of SAIC does not include Shanghai VW, Shanghai GM and Shanghai- GM- Wuling.”Some automobile analyst tell reporter.
From the annual financial report view, SAIC Group includes SAIC Passenger Car, SAIC Commercial Car, SAIC Sunwin Bus, SAIC Iveco Hongyan Commercial Car and Nanjing Iveco besides the above 3 companies.
If assume the same research cost- operating income percentage over the above 5 companies, which as it known the entire sales of the above 5 companies amount to 405 thousands, research cost shall around 5.3 billion CNY.
Compared with BYD, research cost of the company is 2.9 billion CNY of year 2013, and sales is 506.2 thousands cars. Great Wall spends 1.7 billion CNY for research of year 2013 with 770 thousand cars sales.
Therefore, research cost does not proportional to sales. Research cost of Great Wall is not the highest, but car sales are very good. The above analyst tells reporter “it because of research efficiency of automobile companies. Investment volume is one thing, but efficiency is another story. Large investment does not mean high efficiency. Besides, research cost of part companies already contributes to sales, which will cause low research cost and high sales.”
