The author | Nie Yiyao
The source | Auto Grand view
Remember that on May 31 this year, when the three-child policy was proposed at the national level, the automotive industry was like ushering in a spring breeze. For a time, the discussion of "three-child policy is good for the car market" has risen rapidly in the industry.
Some people boldly predict that "the three-child policy is the outlet for MPV", and some people believe that "the three-child policy will be more favorable for medium and large SUVs". No matter who is good, everyone seems to see a long-lost incremental market, which is beckoning and money coming.
Is this really the case? Just half a year has passed since the release of the three-child policy, whether it is an outlet, good or bad, at present, it is not known. The industry also generally predicts that the next two years will usher in a window of concentrated volume in the medium and large MPV home market.
However, this does not prevent us from studying the pursuit of the three-child policy by car companies, as well as the sales performance of the two market segments of MPV and SUVs in the past six months, and the social repercussions of the three-child policy, to foresee some clues about the impact of the three-child policy on the automobile market.
After the three-child policy, medium and large high-end MPVs "heated up"
"China's auto market has entered the era of stock, and market segments such as MPV are likely to become new growth zones. Only by grasping the market segment can car companies develop better. Wang Qing, deputy director of the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said this about the impact of the three-child policy on the automobile market.
The liberalization of the three-child policy has indeed injected a "stimulant" into the MPV segment of the car market, and car companies have taken the lead in agitating, stepping on the rhythm of the three-child policy and launching new MPV models.
On June 20, GAC Toyota announced that it will introduce a well-known Toyota MPV XENA into its production. On October 30, the 7-seat MPV priced at 309,800-405,800 yuan was officially listed. At present, the popularity of this model is high, and many car owners said that they need to increase the price to pick up the car as soon as possible.
On August 5, Beijing Hyundai's first MPV Kusitu was released, and it was immediately launched in September. This is a medium and large 7-seat MPV priced at 169,800-218,800 yuan to meet the needs of "2 big + 2 old + 3 small" family travel needs.
On September 13, Dongfeng Yueda Kia listed the fourth generation of medium and large MPV New Jawa. After the suspension of production for 15 years of the previous generation of Jiahua, Dongfeng Yueda Kia rushed to the moment of implementation of the three-child policy and quickly launched this flagship MPV priced at 288,900-339,900 yuan, which is very obvious for the three-child policy and consumption upgrade deployment.
At the same time, electric luxury MPV has begun to become a new home for car companies.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show on November 17, Lantu and SAIC Maxus also exhibited electric versions of MPV models - Lantu Dreamer and SAIC Maxus MIFA 9, respectively; Hechuang Automobile launched a new pure electric MPV concept car Concept-M.
Positioned as a large luxury MPV, The Lantu Dreamer is the second new car it has released. Available in two seat designs, the 7-seat version and the 2+2 four-seat customized version, the power is still pure electric and extended range two optional forms. At present, the body-in-white of the car has been rolled off the production line at the factory and will be released as soon as the middle of next year.
For Dreamer, Lu Fang, CEO of Lantu Automobile, said: "As the world's first large-scale luxury electric MPV, Lantu Dreamer will lift the ceiling of Chinese brand MPV and become a new choice for luxury MPV users. ”
The SAIC Maxus MIFA 9, the first pure electric full-size MPV mass production model in China, has been scheduled and is expected to be delivered in May next year. This pure electric MPV with a range of 520 kilometers has two versions, 6-seater and 7-seater, and is priced at 269,900-379,900 yuan. The main pure electric intelligent highlights, equipped with 7 high-definition cameras, 5 millimeter wave radar, hash rate of 10TOPS.
On November 26, BYD executive Zhao Changjiang tweeted that BYD may develop a high-end 7-seat MPV, IKEA business and government. Combined with the news that has flowed out before, BYD's high-end MPV may be launched at the Beijing Auto Show next year.
In addition, the news that Geely's high-end electric vehicle brand, Extreme Kr, will launch a high-end pure electric MPV, and the extreme KrYPV is likely to be released before the Hangzhou Asian Games next year and put into use in the Asian Games pick-up and drop-off work, which is also widely circulated.
It can be seen that the MPV field is attracting a large number of products represented by the characteristics of "medium and large, high-end, luxury, electric, intelligent" and other characteristics, and various car companies are also taking advantage of their own advantages and characteristics to take advantage of the continuous consumption upgrade of the domestic car market and the trend of family users with a favorable three-child policy to open a beautiful imagination of the MPV market segment.
MPV sales have been poor in the past six months, and the short-term stimulus effect of the three-child policy has not been seen
Looking at the sales data from January to November 2021, after the three-child policy, the market performance of MPV in the past six months has not been good, and the industry's long-awaited three-child policy has not shown its early stimulation effect on MPV.
According to the data released by the Association of Passenger Transporters, from January to November 2021, domestic MPV sales were 978,100 units. Among them, the highest sales month was January, with market retail sales of 113,600 units, followed by March with 106,000 units, and other months with sales of less than 100,000 units.
Almost at the same time as the landing of the three-child policy, MPV monthly sales entered a downward situation of negative growth year-on-year and month-on-month. The most typical is July and August: In July, MPV sales were 87,000 units, down 8.8% year-on-year and 14% month-on-month. In August, MPV sales were 77,000 units, down 22.1% y/y and 11.6% month-on-month.
After entering the Golden Nine silver ten, MPV sales have improved slightly, but they are relatively limited. In September, MPV sales were 83,500 units, down 21.6% year-on-year and up 8.6% month-on-month. In October, MPV sales of 87,000 units decreased 18.4% year-on-year and 4.4% month-on-month.
However, the good times did not last long, and MPV sales fell back to 84,000 units in November, down 25% year-on-year and 3.4% month-on-month.
In this way, although the second half of the year is blessed with the favorable information of the three-child policy, the overall sales volume of the MPV market this year may be about the same as last year's 1.054 million vehicles.
In fact, after sales peaked at 2.467 million units in 2016, MPV entered a fast downward channel. In 2017, MPV sales were 2,070,600 units, down 17% year-on-year. In 2018, MPV sales continued to decline to 1,664,400 units, down 17.4% year-on-year. In 2019, MPV sales fell to 1.372 million units, a drop of 17.57%. In 2020, MPV sales were 1.054 million units, down 23.8% year-on-year, less than half of sales in 2016.
The reasons for the huge decline in MPV are mainly as follows: First, with the consumption upgrade of the MPV market itself, the original "tool car" low-end MPV, which was the largest part of MPV sales, is being abandoned by users in large numbers year by year, and the sales decline is the largest, thereby pulling down the overall sales of MPV.
Second, domestic users love SUV models deeply, and SUV products in recent years of high-end intelligent upgrades are obvious, hanging related household MPV products in the intelligent stagnation, so home users in the MPV and SUV to make choices, more inclined to SUVs, squeezed a part of the home MPV market.
For the first reason, taking the national god car Wuling Hongguang as an example, in 2016, Wuling Hongguang not only became the highest sales model of the annual MPV with a sales volume of 650,000 vehicles in the whole year, but also the highest sales of all models in the year. In 2017, Wuling Hongguang's sales volume became 537,000 units; in 2018, this sales continued to decline to 476,000 units; in 2019, it was 375,000 units; and in 2020, it fell to 262,000 units.
The second point can be seen from the rapidly rising new forces representing the ideal ONE of "Daddy Car". Since the Ideal ONE sold 7,827 units in June this year, it is far ahead of the highest-selling family MPV models: Trumpchi M8, Alissen. Just this past November, the ideal ONE sold 13,485 units, which is 1,071 units higher than the combined sales of the Trumpchi M8 (7,118 units) and Alexand (5,296 units) combined.
Will the three-child policy, which comes with the upgrading of the automobile market consumption, become the outlet for MPV growth? Or can you peek at the whole leopard from the ideal ONE - the three-child policy is more favorable to the medium-sized and large-scale smart SUVs with good reputation and quality?
The fertility rate is low, and the three-child policy may not be the outlet for anyone
While the good afterheating of the discussion of the three-child policy has not faded, a disheartening news has followed.
At the end of August this year, the news that the birth population in the first half of 2021 fell by 16% came out online. The news pointed out that according to the statistics on the number of newborns in Zhejiang, Ningxia, Sichuan, Jiangsu, Anhui, Guizhou, Shandong, Henan and other provinces and cities in the first half of this year, it is comprehensively calculated that compared with the same period last year, the proportion of births in the first half of 2021 fell by about 16%.
The "China Statistical Yearbook 2021" also recently disclosed a set of data: in 2020, the birth rate of Chinese was 8.52 ‰, falling below 1% for the first time, and the natural population growth rate fell to 1.45 ‰.
A series of data show that the fertility desire of Chinese is greatly reduced, and the fertility rate continues to decline. Especially young people who are in marriageable age, there are always some post-90s and post-00s around us, who do not get married for one reason or another, or delay in having children after marriage, and at the same time insist on not marrying and infertile. The number of marriageable young people itself is also decreasing, "post-90s" is about 31 million less than "post-80s", and "post-00s" is about 41 million less than "post-90s".
When the number of people aged 25 to 29 who are the main force of marriage and childbearing has fallen sharply, and the desire to have children has continued to decline, the first child is not willing to have children.
In October 2015, after the country fully liberalized the two-child policy, it ushered in a wave of fertility peaks, but with the release of the demand of the main two-child birth force after the 70s and 80s, the newly admitted post-90s did not care about the "life event" of having children, and the three-child policy may not even be a short-lived flash in the short-term fertility peak brought about by the two-child policy.
"The three-child policy is not expected to have a great effect in the short term, after all, the number of people who have three children is relatively limited," said Huang Kuangshi, an associate researcher at the Chinese and Development Research Center, "unless active supporting policies are introduced to encourage fertility."
Perhaps, counting on the three-child policy to become the outlet of the MPV market can only become a good wish after all. For the MPV market, there is no outlet, only opportunities and challenges.
This opportunity and challenge is reflected in the fact that compared with cars and SUVs, MPV has just begun to fully upgrade to the market with the characteristics of "high-end, luxury, electric, and intelligent".
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, predicted that "in the future, the competition in the high-end MPV market will be very fierce."
The so-called outlet is who runs fast enough in this market upgrade and captures the user.