We first compare these companies by size by selecting the size analysis module in enterprise comparison. We can see that in 2019, AAL (in red) has the revenue and gross profit comparable to its largest competitors, such as DAL and UAL, but net income and profit before tax smaller than all others except the smallest competitor, Alaska airlines. 

GM and BYD are close in terms of profitability; Ford is a bit shy on Return on Assets and Net Margin. Tesla out performed in 2022.

Now let’s take the perspective of investors by comparing these companies on their return on equity, return on invested capital and ROAs. Again, GM and BYD are close, Ford was weaker and Tesla is the best among them.

Total Revenue of Ford and GM have been close. However, Operating Income of Ford has been up and down within a certain level. Tesla has been grown rapidly since 2019. 

A look at the enterprise trend on financial health may shed some insights. Both Ford and GM  have high Liability Asset Ratio and Long term Debt Ratio (since year 2015). Ford tops GM in both terms. Long term debt is a big burden for both companies.

Let’s first look at US airlines 2017-2019, we found a quite strong negative correlation between ROA and Liability asset ratio, that is, a higher liability asset ratio may lead to a lower ROA.

Ford, comparing to GM, has a higher Liability Asset Ratio and a improving ROA. This may indicate that, even with big burden, Ford is improving its profitability.

In general, higher gross margin is positively related to higher revenue growth. Ford is pretty stable in terms of both.
 

Retailing: inventory turnover drives down SGA / revenue.
Not AUTO

This value driver analysis of gross margin vs operating margin on semiconductors from 2017-2019 reveals the answer. As I said before, usually the … go in the same directions but if you can find an opposite case, then you may discover another Dell vs Compaq case that we discussed at the beginning of this course. Indeed, TSM vs INTC is another Dell vs Compaq case: INTC has a higher gross margin (ie., a higher pricing), but even with a high pricing, it made less operating margin than TSM. So in my opinion, it is not technology that sets TSM above INTL, but operating efficiency. 

 From this chart, we can see clearly that Ford has way too much Other Costs ate up its Net Income.

Ford has a higher than average of Net Receivables(21.28%) and lower Cash and Cash Equivalents(9.82%).

This chart clearly shows that American automobile company stockholders have lower ownership comparing to Chinese companies. Further more, both Ford and GM stockholders have lower than industry average level ownership, which explains why their stocks are not favored by investors.