File Photo/NBD

March 22 (NBD) -- Chinese EV maker Leap Motor released its 2022 financial report on March 21, 2021.

According to the report, the company achieved revenues of 12.385 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 295.4%. The net loss came in at 5.109 billion yuan, which was 79.52% higher than the same period of last year.

Leap Motor's current gross profit margin remains negative (-15.4%), narrowing from -44.3% in 2021. In comparison, Li Auto, NIO, and Xpeng Motors already achieved positive gross profit margins in 2020.

At the financial report conference, the senior management team of Leap Motor stressed that it will achieve positive gross profit margin in 2023. But due to drastic changes in the car market, the specific time was not yet determined. In terms of sales expectations, Leap Motor said that it aims to sell 200,000 vehicles in 2023, nearly doubling the sales in 2022.

In 2023, with the intensifying price war in the car market, reducing costs has become a trend for car companies.

Leap Motor's management said that in order to reduce car prices, it has done a lot of optimization work to manage costs. For example, for pure electric models, unnecessary configurations such as luggage racks, trunks, and electric door handles have been reduced.

Zhu Jiangming, Chairman of Leap Motor, expressed full confidence in cost control. In terms of the phenomenon in the EV sector "the more they sell, the more they lose", Zhu believes that "scale" has the final say.

Leap Motor said that the main reason for the increase in R&D investment is the increase in the number of R&D personnel. According to the financial report, as of December 31, 2022, Leap Motor has 2,195 R&D personnel, accounting for 26.3% of its total workforce.