Dear online investors, good morning, good afternoon, or good evening. My name is Anqi Yu, the response person for the customer relations in Geely Auto. Because of this whole pandemic, we have to meet online again to give you a report on our interim results for the first half of 2021. With us, the senior management of the company. They are the CEO of Geely Holding Group and the Vice-Chairman and Managing Director of Geely Automobile Holdings, Daniel Li Donghui. The Chairman of Geely Auto Group and CEO of Zeekr, and Managing Director of Geely Automobile Holdings, An Conghui. CEO of Geely Holding, Gan Jiayue. CFO of Geely Automobile Holdings. We also have with us Gui Shengyue, the Managing Director of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited, and Hong Shaolen, the Managing Director of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited.
Well, today's announcement conference is comprised of three parts. First of all, we'll give you the disclosure of the interim results in 2021, and then our senior management will deliver presentations, and this conference will be run up by a Q&A session. Let's invite Mr
Dear friends, good afternoon. My name is Dai Qing, CFO of Geely Auto Group. Let me introduce to you the interim results of Geely Auto Holdings 2021. First of all, the general performance of the first half of 2021. The profits attributable to shareholders increased by 31% to CNY 3.022 billion, excluding share-based payments. For the first half of this year, the product mix improved with sales volume up by 19% year-on-year. The strong export sales growth recorded up by 173% year-on-year. The average selling price, including Lynk & Co, increased by 10%. The margins improved at about 17.2%, OP at 6.1%, with strong financial positions standing at about CNY 19.92 billion with cash. We have really strong financial performances. Let's take a look at the following few figures.
First of all, in terms of the sales volume for the first half of this year, we have achieved 630,200 sales, up by 19%, in which for Geely, the figure is 522,400, up by 10%. Lynk & Co, 107,900, up by 97%. In terms of revenue, the first half of this year, I've seen an operating revenue of about CNY 45.032 billion, up by 22%. For Lynk & Co, the figure is CNY 14.32 billion, up by 78%. The combined operating revenue for Geely and Lynk & Co stands at about CNY 59.352 billion, up by 32%. For profit attributable to shareholders, the figure is CNY 3.022 billion, up by 31%. Sorry, this is the profit attributable to shareholders excluding share-based payments. That's CNY 3.022 billion. For PAS, that's CNY 2.381 billion, up by 4%.
In terms of the regional distribution of the sales, domestic sales increased by 13%, international sales increased by 173%. For the distribution of car models, sedan up by 22%, SUV increased by 18%, MPV down by 22%. In terms of brand, Geely up by 8%, Geometry up by 154%, Lynk & Co up by 97%. For NEVs and electric cars or EVs, up by 3%. BEV and PHEV increased by 189%. This is the analysis of the sales volume composition. The China Star series sales up to about 77,200, up by 556%. For the average sales revenue or ASP for Geely brand, that's about CNY 75,258, up by 6%. Lynk & Co, CNY 127,406, down by 0.9%. The combined ASP for Geely and Lynk & Co is CNY 84,184, up by 10%. The Zeekr brand average order price is about CNY 335,000. The pre-order sales has already started.
For GPM or gross profit margin, with the soaring cost of raw materials and chips, the GPM for the first half of this year is 17.2%, up by 0.1 percentage points compared with the first half of the year 2020. For EBITDA, the figure is 13.3%, up by 0.7% compared with 12.6% for the same period of last year. For the expense ratio, we have seen continuous investment for R&D. The R&D expense ratio is 5.1%, up by 0.4 percentage points. For other expenses, that's down by 0.5%. The sales expense rate is about 5.7%, down by 0.2%. This is a clear reflection of the improvement of the efficiency for the operation of the company. For the cash flow, for the OCF for the first half of this year, that's about CNY 4.117 billion. For investment, that's CNY -3.086 billion. For free cash flow, CNY 1.031 billion.
For the financing, that's about -CNY 185 million. Also for foreign exchange, you can also see the figures on the chart. Let's take a look at some of the key highlights of the operating results. First of all, we have seen the comprehensive improvement on key financial indicators. Sales up by 19%, revenue up by 22%, profit up by 31% year-on-year. Profit distribution and contribution was largely diversified, with technology services and licensing income accounting for about 29% of the total profit. The profit contribution from joint ventures, Lynk & Co and Genius AFC up by 62% year-on-year, in which Lynk & Co up by 144%, Genius AFC net profit up 41% year-on-year. We have seen prudent cash flow management of CNY 19.92 billion. Also we have fully embraced the version 4.0 module architectures, existing models covering SEA, CMA, BMA, SPA.
The product competitiveness has significantly improved. At the same time, we have introduced the China Star series and it was well received by the market like the Preface, flagship SUV Xingyue L and Xingyue S. We also stick to high efficient and high quality development of our technologies, and it accounts for about 29% of the total profit. We have set up the Zeekr JV targeting the high-end smart electrical vehicle market. We have seen really strong momentum for the growth in BEV and the PHEV sectors, up by 189%, and we hope to see more improvement for the latter half of this year. Export recorded high growth of year-on-year growth by about 173%, with Lynk & Co covering Western European markets with subscription models. For the JVs, we have also seen really rapid improvement as well.
You can see we have seen high growth rate on both sales and profits for Lynk & Co, and also the profit increase margin is much larger than that of the sales. So far, we have seen the delivery of more than 556,000 units by July 2021. We have delivered our cars of Lynk & Co in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Sweden and other Western European countries. In terms of the customers management, we have seen 285 Lynk & Co clubs in China and more than 2,500 offline functions were organized. In 2021 WTCR, Lynk & Co racing ranking number one after the first three rounds. For Genius Auto Finance JV, we have seen continuous and a strong momentum of its growth of profit, standing at about 41% year-on-year growth.
At the same time, we have seen the establishment of a sound and healthy risk management system with a default rate at a very low level, standing at about 0.18%. We have also seen the issuance of ABS, maintaining adequate capital level. We are ranking number one in the retail credit segment of JD Power China Dealer Financing Satisfaction Studies. This chart is about Zeekr JV. First of all, this company was established already. In the next three years, we are going to launch more cars based upon SEA configuration. More than two car models will be launched every year for the next few years. This April 15th, we have seen the debut of the first model, Zeekr 001, which a shooting brake. The 2021 delivery capacity are all sold out.
The average order price was over CNY 335,000, with more than 40% customers choosing the high-end versions. Zeekr is now working actively on the experience centers and some charging facilities. In the future, we are going to work continuously on the three electrical equipments, charging facilities, and more international R&D center facilities. The Zeekr app was launched on debut since July 1st of this year, and so far more than 450,000 fans were signed up in this application. So much for the first half of this year, now let's take a look of what Geely has been doing in terms of ESG. We have issued the first standalone ESG report, which strengthened our ESG disclosure based on the inputs from various shareholders, both home and abroad. We are working actively on the Blue Geely Action Plans.
Plan one is to launch new products equipped with GHS 2.0 intelligent hybrid powertrain systems. Plan number two is to launch Zeekr 001, the first intelligent pure electric vehicle built on SEA structure and architecture. We actively participated in the ESG ratings and enhanced ESG performance continuously. Also, we have been upgraded from the Performer to Achiever this year, ranking among top 20 among HSI constituents in the Hong Kong Business Sustainability Index. We received MSCI ESG BBB rating and reviewed material ESG issues. So much for ESG. Now let's take a look at the plans for the next half of this year. First of all, new technologies and new cars. We are going to launch the Generation 2.0 GHS 2.0 technology, including HEV and PHEV, including Xingyue L and the fourth-generation Emgrand, Lynk & Co 09, based upon SPA, and Zeekr 001.
Altogether, five new car models will be launched. The last slide is about the outlook for the second half of this year. We hope to further optimize our product mix to see much higher performances. We're going to increase the sales of China Star series and its Lynk & Co series models. We are going to sell and launch more high-end models. We are going to further improve the development of BEV sectors and PHEV sales volumes. These two will be the two priorities for the last half of this year. The first EV model, Zeekr 001 delivery starts from early October this year. We are going to be moving ahead with full momentum with GHS 2.0 hybrid technology, and this technology will find its place in all brands.
We are also going to work continuously on the promotion of the globalization of Lynk & Co to expand our business in the Western Europe market and execute a Lynk & Co Asia Pacific plan and enter the new markets in the Middle East. We are quite confident about the future because we have seen strong order demand and new products in the second half, providing strong support for the sales target of 1.53 million units. At the same time, we also bear in mind some uncertainties arising from COVID-19 and a chip shortage. The annual sales target is still facing challenges to some extent. Much for the main content of the interim report. Thanks for listening. Thank you.
All right. Thank you Ron , for your presentation. Now let's invite the management members to deliver speeches. First of all, let's invite Mr. Gui. Mr. Gui, the floor is yours.
Welcome to Geely Auto. [Foreign Language]
At the same time, we announced that our products will move from version 3.0 to version 4.0. While it's fair to say that if we take a look at the absolute number of the business performance in the first half of this year, it is not very satisfying due to the impact from the short supply of chips, COVID-19 pandemics, as well as the price surge in raw materials. If you take a look at the momentum of our product performance, especially the version 4.0 products, it's fair to say that we're still moving rapidly towards our strategic goals. What is that?
Let's invite the CEO of Geely Auto Group and the Chairman of Geely Auto Group and CEO of Zeekr, Mr. An Conghui, as well as Mr. Li Donghui, the CEO of Geely Holding Group, to give you presentations on Geely, Lynk & Co, and Zeekr's future strategies. Also, I want to invite Mr. Li Donghui to give you the introduction of the general strategy, which is the 0715 strategies. I would like to give the floor back to Mr. Gan Jiayue.
Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Gui, for your introduction. Dear friends from the investment circle, good afternoon. My name is Gan Jiayue. You can call me A Gan by Chinese and Jerry by English. This is my first time to attend the interim results report announcement seminar for Geely Automobile Holdings Limited. It is my great pleasure to meet with all of you to discuss about the future growth of Geely Auto. Also through today's interaction and more to come in the future, we can really deepen our understandings about each other so that we can have a bright future for Geely in general. Currently, the new four modernizations have embraced a big era for the auto industrial growth in China in general. For Geely, we are very fortunate enough to be involved into this great transformation.
This is a great opportunity and a fresh opportunity endowed by the new era. I want to dwell upon a little bit about what happened lately, especially some of the details of the interim results. Early this year, Geely has formulated two Blue Geely Action Plans centering on new energy development, smart technology, and intelligence-based connectivities. The first action is to really have a full strike on the intelligence-based energy saving and small discharge new electric vehicles, including BEVs, and PHEVs, and range extended PHEVs. The Action Plan number two is to work on the high-end pure electric vehicles. So far, we have formulated the brand new Zeekr company, which is a high-tech company, to be fully engaged into the market competition in this smart, pure electric vehicle market.
These two plans not only can maintain our advantages and the merits for energy conservation and new energy vehicles, but also work diligently on the future intelligent or smart vehicles development for high-end markets. I want to dwell upon the following few details by centering on the main direction of our strategy. The first point I want to share with you is to work on GHS version 2.0, which is a hybrid strategy, which is also a center of your attention. What on earth is our core competency for our hybrid technologies? To be more exact, three keywords. First of all, highly intelligent. Secondly, highly powerful. Thirdly, extreme low oil consumption.
For highly smart or highly intelligent, it is fully compatible with a Volta, it can change the power mode according to different driving habits, driving intentions, and road conditions by providing much better driving experiences for the users. For strong power output, our hybrid engines with the highest heat efficiency, which is about 43.32%, coupled with a three-level or three-gear hybrid transmission box based upon nearly 20 smart or intelligent modules to cater to different scenarios for car use every day. This can really ensure a great power output. Compared with the same category of HEV products of Japanese manufacturers, the acceleration time is much better by two seconds for each 100 km, we hope to be the benchmark of the industry. For low oil consumption, we can achieve the target as low as 3.6 liters of oil consumption per 100 km.
For SUV, 100 km oil consumption is lower than 4.3 liter. The oil consumption rate, conservation rate is above 40%, which is also above the benchmark of the industry. The next main point is to work actively on Geometry as part of our new energy vehicle development strategy. This is mainly to target the so-called mass production electric vehicle market segment, especially by launching those highly competitive products with best price performance ratio, and also to be striking the market with a differentiated market position with that of Zeekr. Geely now really stress a lot about the coffee culture. Since March, I spend much of my time on Geometry.
We really depend upon the driving force from the top 20 dealers by enhancing the management expertise for each outlet to attract more high-caliber personnel to be involved into the management and sales and the marketing of Geely cars. So far, we can see really rapid and substantial improvement of the sales volumes of Geometry electric vehicles and the PHEV models. The figure for April is over 2,900 units, and by June, the figure is over 6,000. July figure is over 7,000 units. In other words, the accumulated growth rate for the first seven months of this year is up by 184% year-on-year. This is by no means a low figure. On one hand, we need to stabilize the so-called key account market. On the other hand, we need also work actively on the distribution of the so-called pure electric private car market.
For the latter half of this year, we are going to launch the Level A00 electric vehicle products to face the mass production segment. Hopefully, within the short period of time, our new EV sales volume will top 10,000 units per month. So far, we have in our hand over 10,000 or nearly 15,000 units in our order book. Of course, you have to bear in mind about the short supply of chips, so you can see there is a shortage of supply of Geometry vehicles, and for some dealers, they are also running out of stocks. Not long ago, I've been talking a lot with the dealer representatives to see whether we can do something to optimize the production of new EVs. The third main point is to really develop our GHS version 2.0 technological merits and to launch those new EVs with long durations or range.
Based upon GHS 2.0, we are going to further optimize the battery capacity, and the PHEV and HEV range will be further enhanced to about 100 km-200 km, with the battery density up to about 18 kWh-36 kWh. You know, the current pure electric EV market is what we call a dumbbell state, without due growth of the very central part, mainly because of the mileage anxiety. Because of our Geely technology expertise, as I said, about 100 km-200 km, which can cover hopefully 80%-90% of the scenarios for use. By 2022, we are going to launch five vehicles with long extended range hybrid modules to provide better mobility experiences for the market and also for the users. Of course, the oil consumption in general can also be further lowered.
The new electric vehicles based upon GHS 2.0 technologies will become our core competencies for the future Blue Geely Action Plan number one. Here I want to tell you that Geely Auto Group is also a new electric vehicle company. It is also a new force company with new great smart power, because we have the power of a new force, but also have the new power of a new power. In essence, change is our DNA. We have every reason, and we have every competency to embrace such a world of change. The fourth main point is to efficiently enhance the so-called modularization-based car-making practice. Last September the 26th, Mr. An has announced that we are going to enter an era, which we call version 4.0, with a brand-new configuration.
For the first half of this year, we have launched China Star Series car products with CMA configuration. You know, the Geely Xingyue is also a game changer in China's sedan industry. The average selling price is over CNY 130,000. For this July, we have seen another big product of China Star Series, which is Xingyue L. Within 48 hours after it is launched, we have picked up over 10,000 order sheets on a book. So far, within less than one month, we have sold about 30,000 cars in our order book. I got a confirmation from the sales department that the current figure is over 35,000 units in our order book. For the next few months of this year, we are going to launch the version four Emgrand based upon BMA and SPA-enabled Lynk & Co 09.
By 2024, almost all the main products of Geely Auto will be transferred to such modules like CMA, BMA, SPA, and SEA. We are going to weed out those low-price and outdated products so that modularization-based car-making practice will help us to launch those star products and blockbuster products in the market. The fifth main point that I'm going to share with you is to work actively on the high-quality growth, because high-quality growth is always our bottom line. From version one to version two, you can see our sales volume was increased to a new margin. The underlying logic is to stick unswervingly to the high-quality growth.
From version three to version four, we are going to launch the so-called full value chain quality ecology. Lynk & Co, as a mid and high-end car brand in China, has taken the lead to make its entry into the European market, and we have delivered our cars of Lynk & Co in Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, Sweden, and other countries. We expect that our order volume from Europe will also be enhanced to a new high based upon the current scale. Of course, because of the chip issue, we cannot meet fully the growing demands of Europe. Through the abovementioned product mix and the product distribution, in the near future, we are going to see great improvement of our brand image and our profitability. These abovementioned 5 main points hopefully can serve as explanation of some of the details and effects of the financial statements.
Within internal organizational structures, we have also done a lot of optimization. We have set up a new entity called Geometry Brand Research Institute. As a standalone organization, it is devoted to the development of EVs. Currently, we also have a central research institute, research institutes for Geely brand, Lynk & Co brand, and the Geometry brand. By addressing such issues related to smart driving, smart cabin, and electric and electrical configuration, we have also set up some corresponding organizations. The product development today is different from what it was in the past, mainly in that we use matrix to fulfill the so-called generically applied modules, like for chassis and the development of electronic and electric configurations. It can be reused by different projects at the same time by enhancing our efficiencies for R&D.
We have set up some highly nimble and highly agile liquid organizational structure. Some key personnel can be allowed to give full play to their talents so that we can have an enabling environment for the young people, so that there will be an accountability-based corporate culture in our company. Since this March, I spent most of my time on product planning and marketing. Of course, we're going to invest resources on R&D of new products. At the same time, the Geely Auto Group is committed to the formulation of a five-year development plan. We're going to fully embrace the revolution in the auto industry in the world. According to our initial plan, by 2025, our market share will be number one in China. The annual sales volume will reach 3.65 million units, in which new energy vehicle will account for more than 30%.
We believe we can fully capitalize on the advantage of modular-based manufacturing and scale of economy to ensure the sustainable development of Geely Auto. In the near future, we're going to disclose the details of our five-year plan. Dear investment friends, due to the time limitation, I have to cut it short. My team and myself will be fully committed to the implementation of the abovementioned strategies to create and maximize the value for our shareholders. Most importantly, we're going to provide the high-quality product experience to our users in the market. Thank you very much. Now let's invite the CEO of Zeekr, An Conghui, to deliver a presentation.
Dear investors, a very big welcome to all of you for joining this Geely Automobile Holdings Limited 2021 Interim results anouncment conference. You're very interested in the development of Zeekr, and of course you would like to know more about Zeekr. Of course, you have very high expectations for the development of Zeekr in the future. As a brief review of the history, we announced the establishment of SEA last October. In March this year, we made a public announcement for the establishment of a Zeekr company. On April the 15th, we launched the Zeekr brand, and we started to accept orders, and the first delivery will take place in October this year. This is a very brief review of the history of the development of Zeekr.
I would like to share with you some information about the orders of Zeekr. We started to accept orders on April the 15th, and in two months' time, we've accepted the orders that is large enough to cover our production capacity in 2021. As for the orders received after June the 15th, the delivery will take place in 2022. The orders we're accepting right now will be fulfilled after the Spring Festival in 2022. Well, the Zeekr is well accepted by the market. None of our customers has personally experienced the Zeekr, yet we still have a very full order book. Very soon we're going to offer offline driving experience activities for our potential customers. I believe once we launch these activities, we'll have a fuller order book. The order I'm talking about is the order with the CNY 5,000 non-refundable down payment.
By the end of yesterday, the average selling price for Zeekr reached CNY 335,000. Zeekr is positioned as a high-end luxury, pure electric brand. This positioning is well accepted by the market and customers, as evidenced by the selling price per unit. Well, talking about our product strategy, indeed, we have a full-fledged product strategy based on SEA. We're going to deliver our 001 product from SEA. In 2022, we're going to deliver two products from SEA. In 2023, we have three new launches. In three years' time, we're going to launch a total of 6 new models based on SEA. This product mix includes SUV, sedan, MPV. The SEA architecture is flexible enough to support vehicles of different dimensions. You might have similar feelings with regard to CMA. Once we have established a new architecture, the development of new models will be expedited.
That's our product strategy, our product plan in the next three years. For sales forecast, we're very confident and positive about our future development of Zeekr. We once said that we're going to sell about 7,000 Zeekr this year. Right now we're trying to work towards a higher number. In 2025, Zeekr is going to sell about 650,000 units. In our niche market, we will be one of the top three in the world. We have the SEA architecture right now. We have a long history of investment in the smart technology, in automobile ecology. The entire Zeekr team is fully confident about the future of Zeekr. As I said, we're trying to work toward the target or a number that is higher than 7,000 units. The production volume as well as the sales volume will be restricted by the short supply of chips.
On Zeekr, we're going to install new chips, and we're going to equip many world debut technologies and equipment on our new Zeekr. Thanks to our friendly relationship with our suppliers, we still have the potential to increase our production and sales volume. Before the conference, we received some inquiries about our future strategies in the capital market from our investors. In the announcement 0715, it was made clear that we will make very good use of the capital market to support the rapid growth of Zeekr.
We're making pretty smooth progress in this regard so far. 0175 is the largest shareholder of Zeekr. 0175 will continue to play an important role in the future development of Zeekr. This is inevitable. Right now, the Zeekr team is fully geared up to ensure the delivery in October, and also we're working towards a higher delivery volume this year. Well, that basically wraps up my presentation. I would like to leave more time for Q&A.
Thank you, Andy. Last but not least, let's invite Mr. Li Donghui to deliver a speech.
Dear investors, dear analysts, thank you very much for your long-term interest in Geely. Jerry and Andy gave you the report on business performance of Geely and Zeekr during the first half of 2021. We had a solid performance of both Zeekr and Geely, and Jerry, as well as Andy, announced their strategic sales target in 2025. Right now, we can see that there is a very complicated competitive landscape in the world automobile industry. Geely Auto is committed to becoming a high-tech company that provides high-end mobility service.
While the different brands under the umbrella of Geely Holding Group will collaborate with each other in terms of the sharing of architecture, in terms of the co-procurement, to support the growth of each other and to reduce the cost of production and maintain a competitive edge in the auto market. Geely Auto has always been the important component in Geely Holding Group. In the future, the Geely Holding Group will invest more resources in the development of new technologies to make sure that there is a smooth transition from version 3.0 to version 4.0 in terms of our product upgrade, and to provide the mobility service to our customers that exceeds their expectations and to create higher value for investors.
In order to capture the opportunities in science and technological development, the Geely Holding Group and Geely Auto Group, and Zeekr, made significant improvement over corporate management and talent strategies. Based on our new operational strategies, we've established resilient organizational structures, and we made full use of the young talents, and after months of explorations, I believe that this new strategy is suitable for the future growth of the company. We're going to create a favorable environment for the young talents to grow and develop. We are focused on the domestic circulation, at the same time, we are committed to the development of the international market. We will further explore the domestic market, at the same time, we will join in the world economy steadfastly. We have a strong system.
We have the scaled economy. We have international presence. We will support the rejuvenation of Proton in Malaysia. At the same time, the Geely Auto will gain access in the Malaysian market as well as the ASEAN market. We're going to invest more in Lynk & Co and Zeekr to increase our international influence and impact. Global presence is based on sound and robust business performance and financial performance. During the recent couple of years, as a result of the cross-brand development, co-R&D, co-procurement, Geely Holdings enjoys fairly stable business performance.
This year, our profit sales revenues exceeded that in 2020 and also exceeded the same period in 2019. We have ample cash flow. Our financial structure is pretty robust. As we extend our collaboration with our suppliers and partners, Geely Holdings will witness further improvement over its technological capabilities and financial robustness. The development of Geely Holding will lay the solid foundation for the development of Geely Auto Group, and we're going to invest more resources to Geely Auto. Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel. Now, let's move on to the Q&A session. Before the Q&A session, I'd like to explain to you that after the invitation letter was sent out, we have picked up a lot of questions from the investors, but due to the time limit and also the format of the conference, we only selected a couple of representative questions that most of you have raised.
For those questions that are not covered within this session, my apologies for that, and we will have some other follow-up sessions where you can have a further chance to discuss these issues with our leaders. The first question is about the chip supply. You know that the chip shortage has become even worse since August. My question for you is, how would you comment on this issue, and how would you comment on the future trend of the chip supply shortage, and when can we see the burdens relieved? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Moderator, and also thank you, our friends from Investment Circle. Ever since this year, for automotive industry and also for the CE industry, consumer electronics industry, we are under the impacts of the shortage supply of chips to different extents.
We can see that it has delivered some impacts and blows to the automotive market in general. We're no exception. Yesterday, in the WeChat moments, there is a picture bearing the words of a senior official of a certain company describing about the worsening situation of Delta variant of COVID-19 in Malaysia that has resulted in the uncertainties of the production of chips that will deliver its impacts over the automotive industry and the IC industries in general in China. You can see that this has sparked some discussions. Actually, chip supply shortage was not something new. Ever since the latter half of last year, the supply chain has experienced some ups and downs. Since last June, I was rotated to some positions in charge of the supply chain.
When I was overseeing the supply chain departments, I can feel keenly about the impacts of the shortage of chip supply. According to the instruction of Mr. Li, we are supposed to re-screen some issues related to the short supply. Since last July, we were working on the issues related to the undersupply of chips. Some timely actions were taken, some adjustments were made. We have set up a new business unit called the Commodities Purchasing Department for the main commodities purchasing unit. For this unit, we found that a chip supply is a very main issue. We have started the stockings and the pre-stockings of some chips that can hopefully serve as a cushion to ease the supply shortage of our cars for the first half of this year. We have done something in time. This is the first response.
Second response to this issue is that internally, we have been quick enough to set up some liquid organizations. By liquid, I mean, we have put into place a so-called squad or some ad hoc groups to deal with issues related to the replacement of chips by approaching some domestic suppliers. This is very important to ensure the stable and steady supply of supplies, supply of raw materials, and also the chips to stabilize the production of cars. Thirdly, which is also our advantage, we have an international practice over the management of chips. Through the collaborative efforts between Geely and Volvo, Geely and Proton, and especially through our collaboration with Proton, we can fully mobilize the resources locally in Malaysia. This can help us to mobilize some of this supply in Malaysia. This is not only a contribution to Geely, but also to China as well.
We benefited immensely from the coordinated management of our international supply chain. Of course, admittedly, we have also to bear in mind the stark reality of shortage of chip supply. Many people ask me to give some clear instructions as to when we will see the ease of the burdens of the shortage of chips. To tell the truth, it is really hard to give you any forecast at this moment. We have the confidence to depend upon our resources, both domestically and internationally, and also benefiting from the nimble response and active response from all business units along the supply chain, and also benefiting from the scale of economy of a big group. I think we will feel the impacts of the shortage of supply of chips to a lesser extent. I hope that you can have a correct understanding of this issue.
I'm sure this issue can be resolved sooner or later. Please really focus on whether or not we can give full play to our strength as a result of our sustainability strategy. We, Geely Auto, will surely play a pivotal role in this regard. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Gan. The second question is about Zeekr. Since its launch, Zeekr has attracted most of the attention. Zeekr 001 has been sold out for the first batch. My question for Andy is about the products and also the future sales plan, and also can you share with us about the next MPV Zeekr's competitiveness and also some key features of MPV version of Zeekr.
Thank you. Actually, just now over my briefings to you, I've already mentioned that some of the details of the Zeekr.
I also want to mention and stress that this year we have one model of Zeekr. We have two, followed by three, the year after the next. In other words, within three years after its launch, altogether six models will be launched. The first model is already made public to you. This is a 001. One of the two cars to be launched next year will be an MPV. In the highly smart and high-end market for MPVs, this is a blue ocean. You can see premium luxury high-end MPVs in the traditional ICE markets that are also quite popular among the markets. Now we are in the electric and smart era, so the high-end MPV will even more popular among the future customers and potential customers.
I'm sure that the launch of Zeekr MPV next year will surely help us to earn our market niche in this blue ocean. Thank you. Thank you, Andy. Next question. By the end of this June, you have announced some external financing for Zeekr. Is there anything on your mind about so-called external financing for Mr. Gui? I want to thank investor for your question. Over the past few years, our working style is bear in mind or give full consideration to all different type of demands for all investors and shareholders. Based upon our collective and consensus-based demand, we will come up with a correct arrangement of the financing decisions and strategies. For the Geely Automobile Holdings Limited strategy, on one hand, we should focus more on the action plan number one, number two for Blue Geely.
Jerry and Andy have come up with some quite clear explanations of the strategies. These action plans will leave you an impression that we, in the future, will become a fully science-based company or tech company, to be sure enough, for the whole Geely Automobile Holdings Limited in general. Based upon these fundamentals, we are going to launch more effective measures to ensure that the company in general can deal with such a challenge from this transformation. Zeekr, as a spearhead of this transformational campaign, will quicken its steps to identify its leading position in the future pure electric vehicle market niche.
When Mr. An is explaining this issue, he also stressed that 0175 will continuously and will always account for a very important position for the whole group in general.
We will give you some timely updates in accordance with the changes of times and external environment for Zeekr. As to the details, we will bear in mind the real tangible demands for Zeekr, and also we will bear in mind the environments that are most suitable for the growth of 0175. These are the generic descriptions, and we will wait until the actions were taken by Zeekr before I report back to you what happened really to all investors and shareholders. Thank you. Next question is about the signing of MOU between GAH and Renault. What impacts did you see from such collaboration? Also there are a lot of collaborations between Geely and other external partners. How would you comment on the significance of such a practice and such collaboration? Daniel, would you please answer these two questions? Thank you. Okay, no problem.
Our collaboration between Geely and Renault is based upon our friendly and well-intended discussions, and we have a really high recognition of the competencies of each other before some consensus were reached. Of course, as to the details of the agreement, currently, it is not long after the MOU was signed, so currently we're still working on the details. We will release these details to all investors when time is appropriate. What I'm going to stress at this moment is Geely is actually moving ahead along with our collaboration with Renault, just as our collaboration with Proton, our acquisition of Proton, which took place about three years ago. At that time, when we were releasing the information to the investors and the analysts, I told you already that Geely will always be the beneficiary of such a collaboration.
As to what type of models that we are going to embrace in the future, being Geely play the pivotal role or other parties play the pivotal role. No matter what type of collaborative models we are going to embrace, all these will be quite conducive to the so-called highly coordinated, synergic development for both parties. All these collaborations will help us to reduce the cost, enhance our efficiencies, and enhance our bargaining powers for all parties concerned. Of course, for Geely Automobile Holdings, collaborations and partnerships with others, our eventual goal is to ensure that 0175 will benefit immensely from such a collaboration.
Give you an example. The Geely Holding set up a smart company together with Daimler. Geely Auto 0175 boasts of its own electric system, and well, it can transfer the technology to smart technology company and get the benefit of that transference.
I hope that we'll have more time to engage in in-depth discussion with you in the future. Next question is related to finance. An investor asked, what are the reason for the changes in the profitability and sales volume in the sales revenue in the first half of 2021? What is your revenue forecast when the products move to version 4.0?
Thank you very much for the question. When we disclose our annual result in March this year, I remember we said that we saw the transition from version 3.0 to version 4.0 by the launch of new Xingrui. Asset revenue increased by 22% during the first half of this year. When excluding the equity-related payment, our profit increased by 31%. During the first half of 2021
We took significant effort to overcome the difficulties imposed by the short supply of chips and the price surge of raw materials. You know that the copper price increased by 50% during the first half of 2021. It increased from $40,000 per ton to $60,000 per ton. For other precious metals, we also experienced a significant price increase. Our gross margin in 2021 is at par with that in 2020, and our gross profitability increased by 1%, even in the context of a sales decline. We can see that there is a significant improvement over the profitability. At the same time, we also diversify the profit contribution. Lynk & Co registered a 144% increase in profit. At the same time, its sales volume increased by 97%.
I believe in the future, we can continue to rely on the full potential of the profitability from Lynk & Co. I believe there will be a significant improvement over the profitability from Lynk & Co. As to our auto finance business, its profit increased by 41% during the first half of 2021. That growth rate outnumber the growth rate of our sales revenue. Thanks to many years of investment in new technologies, Geely Auto is capable of transferring new technologies to our partners, which will become a constant source of revenue and profit. Looking into the future, our Xingyue L is the third model in the Star Series. We're going to launch more products from the Star Series, and we're going to launch models from the Lynk & Co. brands.
As we increase the product mix, we're going to make full use of the new architecture to drive down the per unit manufacturing cost. Well, you might be concerned about our dual-credit policy pressure during the second half of this year. We're going to increase the percentage of HEV and PHEV as a % of our total sales mix to ensure that we'll start to see a neutral dual-credit policy point. In the future, we will continue to commit resources and investment in new technology, to ensure that the technology will become a constant source of revenue in the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dai. Our next question. The sales volume is 630,000 during the first half of this year, and the total year's sales target is 1.53 million. You're going to sell approximately 900,000 units during the second half of this year. How are you going to do that?
I think in the disclosure of our interim results, we said that we've sold a total of 630,000 units. It accounts for 41% of our annual target. I think that's in line with our expectation, because in our annual target, our annual plan, we're going to sell a little more than 40% of our annual target during the first half of this year, and we're going to sell a little more than 50% of our annual target in the second half of 2021. That is something to do with our product mix, our product plan, because, in the second half of 2021, we're going to launch some new models. New models will drive new sales volume. In the second half of 2021, we're going to launch four new models. On July the 20th, we launched the Xingyue L, which is a new SUV.
It was very well received by the market. So far, we have a total of 35,000 orders of Xingyue L in our hands. As I've said, the Xingyue L is in a short supply status. Our fourth generation of Emgrand will be launched by the end of August. The Emgrand has been in pre-sales for a week, and so far we've received 15,000 orders. As to the Lynk & Co 09, which is from the SPA architecture, we're going to launch it in the second half of 2021. We're going to launch pure electric vehicles in the A00 class, also in the second half of 2021. I believe these four new products will drive new sales, and the order books are quite positive. In the first half of 2021, Lynk & Co enjoyed a 97% increase in sales volume.
In the international market, we got a very positive feedback on our Lynk & Co series in Europe. We believe our sales volume in European market will be higher than our original forecast, but I don't think we can fulfill all the orders from European market because of the short supply of chips. We're still confident about the target of 1.53 million units. We're in August right now. The COVID-19 pandemic is causing some uncertainty, and the short supply of chips still lingering around. The combined effects of these two uncertainties might have negative impact on the fulfillment of our annual target. From the product perspective, we are very confident about our target. That's it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Gan. Next question. Next question is about Zeekr. How to adjust the Zeekr organizational structure to ensure that your organization is customer-centric? Andy, you may take up the question.
This is a very good question, high-quality question from our investors, and also it is a very general question. Due to the time limitation, I have to be very brief and succinct. The mission of Zeekr is to create ultimate experience of mobility. It takes a systematic approach to turn Zeekr into a customer-centric organization. Our mission is to create the ultimate experience of mobility together with the customers, but the mission itself is a guidance for the company to turn itself into a customer-centric organization. We need to collaborate with our internal partners, external partners, and customers. We need to renovate our business models. Take our Zeekr team, for example. Some of the members are from the electric vehicle business sectors of Geely. We have introduced and have recruited many crossover talents into our organizations.
Some of them are from the internet industries, from mobile phone industries, and fast-consumable industries. We can see there is a diversified composition in our product team, in our research team, in our marketing team. Talking about collaboration with the customers, Zeekr is well accepted by the customers. Zeekr offers a very positive product experience to our customers because we develop these products together with our customers. This has been a very fruitful experience for us. I would like to provide detailed examples in the future. If you take a look at the results or if you take a look at the business performance of the Zeekr, if you take a look at the order books of the Zeekr products, you will buy in that we develop these products together with our customers.
Talking about the sales model, we would employ a direct sales model to sell our products to our customers. Of course, there were a whole lot of things going on around this strategy of building a customer-centric organization. Well, this is indeed a very general and very big topic. I have to stop here. Thank you.
Thank you, Andy. Because of the time limitation, we only have time for our last question. The question is related to the international strategy of Geely. In 2021, there was a significant increase in the export volume from Geely. What is your international strategy? The question is for Mr. Li.
I'm sure you all see the figures that for the first half of this year, our export has increased by 173%. Malaysian Proton's market share has increased from 8% three years ago to 23% now. Lynk & Co has made substantial progress in Europe. Previously, Jerry has mentioned about some of the distributions and our plans to roll out our products in the Western European countries, so I won't repeat his words.
For the latter half of this year, hopefully we can export over 10,000 units of Lynk & Co cars to Europe. You have to bear in mind some new subscription models in Europe, bringing to us fresh opportunities, but also some potential pressure on cash flows. In the Middle East, some Middle Eastern countries, we are also going to launch more Lynk & Co products there. Xingyue and Haoyue and Emgrand and many other products can hopefully be exported to Middle East countries.
In general, no matter whether it is an already existing layout or some new layout that we are going to launch, we work always together collaboratively with our partners like Volvo and other areas of the world. In Europe, in Asia, and in the longer term in America, there are more export opportunities waiting ahead for us. I hope that our export businesses will become a quite unique advantage for us in the future. Thank you.
Thank you, Daniel. In conclusion, let's invite Mr. Gui to give a quick wrap-up of today's session.
Okay. I want to thank you all investors and shareholders for your continuous support to us. My colleagues have already shared with you some of their observations about some key issues arising from the interim reports. Today's briefing is about the interim results. Due to the time limit, we don't have much time to dwell upon some of the more details. Our colleagues have already mentioned a lot about these important aspects, and in addition to the information, they have also pointed out to our future plan for the next five years. By 2025, our Geely Automobile Holdings Limited sales target is about 3.65 million units.
I'm sure you have different observations and comments on this figure. I want to tell you that we are going to interact with you within the next two to three weeks about what we are going to do to support such a target. Such a target is made and set as a result of the efforts and collaboration and consensus of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited. Maybe some of you might not feel that the figures are that aggressive, but I hope you can understand some of the relevant targets or some of the sub-targets of this 3.65 million units. We are going to also be the number one for all the self-proprietary brands in China, the market share. The market share should be number one in China. This is another parallel goal.
Just now, Andy has also stressed that Zeekr electric vehicles will also be among the top three in the world in the future. This is also another parallel target. I'm sure that the automotive industry in the future will undergo profound changes, but there are a lot of uncertainties as many of you can see. These uncertainties will also deliver some impacts over the future products and also the volumes. More importantly, the market share and how our company will be perceived by others in this industry will be more important. We treat these two items as the most important directions for our future endeavor. Just now, Daniel Li has also mentioned that currently in our progress of internationalization, we are moving ahead with a lot of success stories. Our strategy now is totally different from what it was in the past.
Currently, we have already seen our products into some well-developed countries in Europe. If we can do everything in accordance with our plan now, in the next five years, you can easily imagine what will happen amid the general context of the great transformation of the automotive industry of the world. I'm sure you will arrive at the conclusion that Geely Automobile Holdings Limited will become one of the most competitive groups in the world for this industry. That's my brief comment on this issue. From tomorrow onward, there are a lot of road shows, so your participation will be more than welcome by raising more questions to our officials and leaders at all levels for more discussions. Last but not least, I want to say a big thank you to all of you here. We are not perfect, of course.
Over the past so many years, we've been always so active and so modest and so pragmatic and humble enough to learn from your comments and learn from our past experiences. We welcome comments, advice, suggestions, and criticism of all kinds. No matter they are bad things or good things, we accept all those comments and observations. Long as they are constructive to our future development, we are all the more open to those comments and suggestions. That's all for my brief comment and a wrap-up. Thank you. Thank you very much for your participation. That concludes today's session. Thank you. Bye-bye