Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter Shi Enze reported from Shenzhen

"If you don't go to sea, you're out." In 2024, this sentence will be repeatedly emphasized in many industries, and the tide of enterprises going overseas is particularly turbulent.

In 2024, Shenzhen's imports and exports will be 4.5 trillion yuan, of which exports will account for more than 60%, reaching 2.81 trillion yuan, an increase of 14.6%, ranking first in the country for 32 consecutive years.

And in such dazzling results, more than 7 percent are broken out by private enterprises in Shenzhen. Therefore, every move of Shenzhen company is very reference for the whole country.

From the perspective of the industry, the Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter found that Shenzhen's industrial export data is undergoing structural changes, and the "old three" represented by mobile phones, computers, and household appliances are catching up with the tuyere of AI and the "Belt and Road" and are returning to the upward cycle.

In recent years, the "new three", that is, lithium batteries, electric vehicles, and photovoltaic products, which have been frequently mentioned, are facing industrial transformation. Many companies are looking for ways to control transportation costs.

In the new year, with the changes in the international situation, many enterprises and local governments are looking for new increments. To this end, we have selected typical company representatives in the "new three" and "old three", and answered according to their actions in recent years, who has eaten the cake of Shenzhen's foreign trade, and how has this cake been made bigger?

"The old three" ballast: mobile phone exports are rising in volume and price

From the perspective of export scale, the "old three" is still the ballast stone in Shenzhen's exports.

According to the data of Shenzhen Customs in the past two years, the exports of "old three" products in 2023 and 2024 will be 353.82 billion yuan and 377.43 billion yuan respectively, with a year-on-year growth rate of 5.6% and 6.8%. In the same period, the "new three" were 88.76 billion yuan and 99.69 billion yuan respectively, with a year-on-year growth rate of 33.9% and 11.5%.

Among the "old three", mobile phones are undoubtedly in the first place. According to the data of Shenzhen Customs in the third quarter of 2024, mobile phones account for 46% of the "old three".

Among the listed companies in Shenzhen, Transsion Holdings (688036. More than ninety percent of the revenue structure of the business is mobile phones, and more than ninety percent of the revenue comes from overseas, which is known as the "king of mobile phones in Africa" by the market.

At the beginning of 2024, Transsion released its 2023 annual financial report, with annual revenue of 62.29 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 33.69%; net profit was 5.53 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 122.93%.

A number of domestic peer companies have also accelerated their entry into the African market. In September 2024, during Lei Jun's attendance at the China-Africa Entrepreneurs Conference, he said that Xiaomi would increase its investment in the African continent in the future, and specifically mentioned that in the second quarter of 2024, Xiaomi's mobile phone shipments in the African market achieved a substantial increase of 45% year-on-year, with a market share of about 12%, ranking third.

Although Xiaomi was born in Beijing, it settled its international headquarters in Shenzhen in 2020. At the signing ceremony with the Shenzhen government, Wang Xiang, president of Xiaomi Group, said that Xiaomi Group plans to invest 7.76 billion yuan to build Xiaomi's international headquarters in Shenzhen, and it is expected that the cumulative operating income from 2020 to 2024 will be about 51 billion yuan, and the local financial resources will be about 600 million yuan.

In Shenzhen, 95% of the spare parts of a mobile phone can be completed within a one-hour commuting circle; It only takes 2 days to screen 400 kinds of mobile phone parts. At the same time, Shenzhen has also gathered international high-end talents in the fields of mobile phone pre-research, camera, optics, 5G, chip IC, and production technology.

In addition to Xiaomi, mobile phone manufacturers that have set up headquarters in Shenzhen also include Huawei, Honor, OPPO, VIVO, Realme, ZTE and other brands. According to Shenzhen Customs data, the volume of mobile phones exported from Shenzhen accounted for 23.7% of China's mobile phone exports, an increase of 6.8 percentage points over the same period last year.

Coincidentally, these brands have been actively expanding into the African market in recent years. According to the African mobile phone shipment data released by Canalys in the third quarter of 2024, Realme's mobile phone shipments in the quarter increased by 101% year-on-year, and the market share rose to fourth place. OPPO is firmly in fifth place in terms of market share.

It can be seen that mobile phone brands are looking for incremental space through Africa. This can also be confirmed by the Shenzhen customs data. In the first eight months of 2024, Shenzhen exported 4.768 million mobile phones to South Africa, an increase of 275.7% year-on-year.

The Southern Finance and Economics all-media reporter also found that the unit price of mobile phones is rising, which also shows counter-common sense, that is, "electronic products are based on small profits and quick turnover".

In terms of data, in August 2024, the average export price of mobile phones in Shenzhen increased by 16.5% per unit over the same period last year, prompting the overall export value to rise by 51.8%, setting a new high in a single month growth rate in the year.

The reason for the increase in the unit price of mobile phones may be related to the intensive release of AI mobile phones by Chinese mobile phone manufacturers in the second half of the year.

Taking Transsion as an example, since September last year, the company's brands have successively released a number of mobile phones equipped with AI functions, and mentioned in the financial report that the company will continue to focus on the application innovation of large language models, Agent agents, AI voice, imaging and other fields on the mobile phone.

The innovation of AI mobile phones in terms of functions has also led to the upgrading of electronic components, which has caused enterprises in the industrial chain to raise prices one after another, forcing many mobile phone manufacturers to increase the price of mobile phones. Similar to this logic, computers and household appliances in the "old three" will also usher in a wave of price increases when paired with AI applications.

It can be seen that in the future, the mobile phone industry chain will take advantage of the tuyere of going overseas and AI, and the volume and price will rise together and fully recover.

The growth rate of the "new three" has slowed down: all parties have worked together to reduce the cost of export transportation

Judging from the data released by Shenzhen Customs, the export growth rate of the "new three" has slowed down in the past two years.

According to the data, in 2023, the overall export volume of the "new three" will be 88.76 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of 33.9%. However, by 2024, although the total export volume of the "new three" is still rising, at 99.69 billion yuan, the growth rate has fallen back to 11.5%.

At the same time, the product structure of the "new three" exports is also changing. In 2023, lithium batteries will occupy the absolute main force in the "new three", accounting for more than seventy percent. However, in the first quarter of 2024, lithium battery exports will show negative growth.

The growth momentum of electric vehicles is very strong. According to data from Shenzhen Customs, from the first to the third quarter of 2023, the growth rate of electric vehicles will reach 1380%, 943.2%, and 432% respectively. However, in the first quarter of 2024, Shenzhen's electric vehicle exports also entered a negative growth range, with a growth rate of -55.6%. However, Shenzhen's EV exports are very resilient, and Shenzhen's EV exports returned to the positive growth range in the second quarter of that year, with a growth rate of 51.7%, and will continue to rise to 67% in the third quarter of 2024.

The rebound in Shenzhen's electric vehicle exports may be related to Shenzhen's construction of Xiaomo International Logistics Port. As the east wing port area in the strategic layout of "one body and three wings" of Shenzhen Port, Xiaomo International Logistics Port is developed and operated by Yantian Port Group, a state-owned enterprise in Shenzhen. Among them, the investment in the first phase of the Xiaomo International Logistics Port project alone is as high as 1.334 billion yuan, but the throughput capacity is expected to reach 4.5 million tons per year after completion, filling the gap in Shenzhen Port in automobile ro-ro.

At the beginning of 2022, Xiaomo Port's automobile ro-ro ship made its maiden voyage, and sailed to Europe through Shanghai Port, successfully expanding the automobile ro-ro ship business. In January 2024, BYD's first "Pioneer No. 1" ro-ro ship was unveiled publicly, docked at the Shenzhen Xiaomo International Logistics Port terminal, and 4,060 new energy vehicles were transported onto the ship in turn. This also made Yantian Port usher in a "good start" in the first quarter of 2024, with revenue of 199 million yuan, an increase of 3.13% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to the parent company was 257 million yuan, an increase of 34.52% year-on-year. At the end of April 2024, Xiaomo International Logistics Port successfully opened the "Xiaomo Port-Thailand" ro-ro foreign trade route, and 564 BYD Yuan Plus cars with a total value of about 100 million yuan will be exported to Thailand by ship here. In addition, Xiaomo Port has also opened foreign trade ro-ro routes in the Middle East, the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, South America and other regions, accelerating Shenzhen car companies to enter the international stage.

With the joint efforts of many parties, BYD has also continued to consolidate its position as "Di Wang" in the export of electric vehicles. According to data released by BYD, in 2024, BYD will export 433,000 electric vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 71.8%, ranking first among Chinese auto brands in terms of growth rate.

In addition to repairing ports and opening routes, in order to give full play to the advantages of "port-factory linkage", Shenzhen Expressway Group, another Shenzhen-owned directly managed enterprise, has built a road to the port, which will be opened in the first half of 2025. At that time, it will only take 5 minutes for new energy vehicles to go to sea from the second phase of Shenshan BYD Automobile Industrial Park to Xiaomo International Logistics Port, providing strong transportation support for Shenzhen cars to go to sea.

The path explored in Shenzhen's port transportation has also attracted important enterprises in the automobile industry chain such as BYD, Dongfeng Lear, and Yanfeng International to settle in the Shenzhen-Shantou Special Cooperation Zone. It is estimated that by 2025, the annual transportation volume of automobile foreign trade in Xiaomo Port Area will exceed 1 million, and the total output value of automobile foreign trade will exceed 300 billion yuan. A new generation of world-class automobile cities is emerging in Shenzhen.