Recently, at the 2022 China Auto Market Development Forecast Summit, Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, analyzed that China's auto market will usher in a better development period, and a new round of scientific and technological revolution is empowering the transformation of the automotive industry.
Affected by the "lack of core", major car companies have to slow down the pace of production, but due to the strong premium ability of luxury brands, high customer stickiness, and large market demand, most car companies give priority to ensuring the supply of luxury brand products.
In addition to consumption upgrades, new energy vehicles have become a new growth point that many experts and scholars have high hopes for. From January to November this year, the cumulative output of new energy vehicles has exceeded 3 million units, with sales of nearly 3 million vehicles, and the cumulative sales penetration rate has increased to 12.7%.
Since 2020, due to the continuous "bearish" impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the shortage of in-vehicle chip supply, the development of the global automotive market has fallen into a trough.
As the country with the largest number of car ownership, China has played the role of the "locomotive" of the world's automobile industry for a long time in the past. Nowadays, under the background of the continuous improvement of the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in China, the every move of China's automobile industry will attract the attention and discussion of the entire industry.
"As a pillar industry of the national economy, the automobile industry has been fully valued by the state in this year. Despite the adverse effects of chip shortage and continued high raw material prices, the vitality of enterprises has still been significantly enhanced, market consumer demand continues to show a trend of quality upgrading, and the overall production and sales of automobiles have maintained stable growth, and there is no lack of bright spots. Recently, at the 2022 China Auto Market Development Forecast Summit, Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, expressed his views.
As Fu Bingfeng said, on the one hand, the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic and the shortage of chips have caused a lot of impact on China's auto industry; but on the other hand, the automotive industry has withstood severe tests, overcome many unfavorable factors, the whole industry has faced difficulties, taken the initiative, the market operation is generally stable, showing strong development resilience and endogenous power.
Standing at the end of 2021 and looking forward to 2022, can China's auto industry continue to buck the trend, what new opportunities and outlets can be seized, and how will the market perform in 2022? Who is the vane of the 2022 auto market? These problems not only affect the hearts of automobile practitioners, but also have a profound and significant impact on all aspects of people's food, clothing, and housing in the future.
China's annual automobile production and sales are expected to rank first in the world
The automotive industry, which has been trapped by "lack of cores" for a long time, has finally ushered in a period of "respite", and as Malaysian chip production gradually recovers, automobile production and sales have also risen simultaneously.
According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (hereinafter referred to as "CAAM"), production and sales of automobiles in November totaled 2.585 million units and 2.522 million units, respectively. From the perspective of growth rate changes, production and sales increased by 10.9% and 8.1% respectively month-on-month, down 9.3% and 9.1% year-on-year, respectively, the decline in production was 0.5% larger than in October, and the decline in sales volume was narrowed by 0.3% compared with October.
"From January to November, automobile production and sales reached 23.172 million units and 23.489 million units, up 3.5% and 4.5% year-on-year, respectively, and the growth rate continued to decline by 1.9 percentage points from January to October." Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that compared with the same period in 2019, the production and sales in November increased by 0.5% and 1.5% year-on-year, respectively, compared with the same period last year, the production and sales of the four major types of passenger car varieties showed an increasing trend.
In Chen Shihua's view, under various pressures, the automobile industry still showed strong resilience in November, striving to overcome the tight supply of chips, the rebound of the epidemic in some areas, and the adjustment of policies and regulations, and the overall production and marketing situation was slightly better than expected at the beginning of the month.
Among them, the luxury car market became one of the most prominent segments in November. Statistics show that the sales of luxury cars produced in China reached 319,000 units, an increase of 3.5% year-on-year. From January to November, domestic luxury car sales reached 3.112 million units, an increase of 19.5% year-on-year, and the growth rate far exceeded the market average.
Although affected by the "lack of core" problem, the production rhythm of major car companies continues to slow down, but due to the strong premium ability of luxury brands, high customer stickiness, and large market demand, car companies are making every effort to ensure the supply of luxury brand products.
"Overall, luxury brands still can't meet the production plan requirements in July and September, but this situation has improved continuously in October and November, releasing a positive signal, which has become an important reason for the continuous growth of luxury brand sales." Chen Shihua explained.
While luxury brands continue to occupy the market, in the first 11 months, the market share of independent brands has also risen steadily. From January to November, a total of 8.406 million Chinese brand passenger cars were sold, up 25.1% year-on-year, accounting for 44.1% of total passenger car sales, and the share increased by 6.4% over the same period last year. Chen Shihua revealed that the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars has maintained positive growth for 8 consecutive months year-on-year, with a strong upward momentum.
In addition, in the case of the overall negative pressure of the market, new energy vehicles have achieved continuous growth for many months. In November, its market penetration rate has reached 17.8%, which is higher than last month, and the market penetration rate of new energy passenger cars has reached 19.5%.
From the perspective of market segments, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles reached 2.504 million units and 2.466 million units, up 180% and 170% year-on-year, respectively; the production and sales of plug-in hybrid vehicles were 517,000 units and 522,000 units, up 130% and 140% year-on-year, respectively; and the production and sales of fuel cell vehicles were 0.1 million units, up 23.0% and 16.0% year-on-year, respectively.
"It is expected that the cumulative production and sales of domestic new energy vehicles will reach 3 million units this year, which is of great significance to China's auto industry." Chen Shihua told reporters that on the one hand, "3 million vehicles" is a new historical record in China's automobile market; on the other hand, this figure shows that the new energy automobile industry has achieved upgrading from quantitative change to qualitative change, completed the transition from the introduction period to the rapid growth period, and has occupied a very important position in China's automobile industry.
Chen Shihua frankly said that the reason why new energy vehicles can achieve such outstanding results is due to many reasons. First of all, as the world's largest automobile producer and consumer, China recognized the importance of developing the new energy automobile industry earlier, so it gave a lot of preference in terms of policy.
At the same time, from technology research and development to market promotion, to infrastructure construction and other areas involving new energy vehicles, China has laid out earlier and more perfectly.
"In addition, the industry and enterprises in the field of new energy early efforts, in the industrial development, technology research and development, upstream and downstream raw materials and other aspects of the layout is well-planned, the current products are also rich and diverse, can meet consumer demand." Chen Shihua said that at present, the concept of Chinese consumers has undergone great changes, and the concept of green consumption is gradually strengthening for new energy vehicles from "tentative consumption" to "assured consumption".
"Looking forward to December, with the macroeconomic stability and development, the demand for automobile consumption will remain stable." Chen Shihua pointed out that there is still uncertainty on the supply side, the problem of tight chip supply still exists, and the orderly use of electricity in various places and the spread of the epidemic in some parts of the country at the end of the year have increased the potential risk of industrial chain supply interruption.
"Coupled with the impact of high base factors in the same period last year, the pressure on automobile production and sales to maintain stability is still large." The industry generally believes that China's annual automobile production and sales will be slightly higher than the same period last year, and it is expected to exceed 26 million vehicles, which is expected to rank first in the world. Chen Shihua predicted.
Find market growth points in new opportunities
"China's auto market will usher in a better period of development. A new round of scientific and technological revolution is empowering the transformation of the automobile industry and accelerating the progress towards 'electrification, networking, and intelligence', which is also an important strategic choice to promote green development, support the national 'double carbon' goal and high-quality development." When talking about the prospects for automobile development in 2022, Fu Bingfeng analyzed.
In his view, the prospect of the automobile market is still broad, the demand is still huge, and the new development pattern of double circulation is accelerating. In addition, the continuous improvement of people's living standards continues to drive the consumption upgrade of the automobile market, and the proportion of high-end automobile sales has increased year by year, which has also brought new development opportunities for automobile companies.
In fact, as Fu Bingfeng said, "consumption upgrading" has become an important driver of change in major industries. The inflection point of the new demographic dividend led by the "pan-90s" (1985-2000) is breaking out, and the purchasing power of the overall group tends to be stable, but it prefers "good quality, excellent service, and high unit price" products, and this change is deeply affecting the development of the automobile industry.
In the view of Chen Bin, executive vice president of the China Machinery Industry Federation, paying close attention to the construction of a safe and controllable industrial chain is the key to the healthy development of the automobile market next year.
"In the first half of 2021, the automobile industry maintained steady growth, affected by chips, the production capacity in the third quarter was blocked, the supply in the fourth quarter improved slightly, and the annual automobile production and sales are expected to increase slightly compared with the previous year." The overall characteristics of the market are summarized as 'supply is constrained, consumption is still space; new energy vehicles have multiplied, and export cars have soared'. Chen Bin said that the strategy of expanding domestic demand should be implemented, the sustained recovery of consumption should be promoted, effective investment should be actively expanded, the endogenous power of development should be enhanced, and the steady and healthy development of China's auto market should be promoted.
In addition to the keyword of "consumption upgrade", the "new energy market" has also become a new growth point for the automobile market where experts and scholars in various fields have high hopes.
From a technical point of view, the average mileage of new energy vehicles has increased year by year, from 2018 to 2020, whether it is passenger cars, buses or logistics vehicles, the increase in the average mileage is very large.
"With the advent and widespread use of new structural batteries, lithium iron phosphate batteries have been favored by passenger cars. The trend of diversification of vehicle charging scenarios, the combination of charging and replacement, especially in the field of commercial vehicles, is more obvious. Wang Zhenpo, director of the National Engineering Laboratory for Electric Vehicles at Beijing Institute of Technology, predicted.
Li Bingyang, director of the Data Department of the Data Resource Center of China Automobile Center, believes that the new energy vehicle market shows the characteristics of "four highs": one is the high proportion of increased purchases, the second is the high proportion of women, the third is the high proportion of luxury brands, and the fourth is the high proportion of young users after 80 and 90.
"My forecast for new energy passenger car sales last year was 1.5 million units, but the actual market performance exceeded expectations, which was a big surprise. New energy passenger car sales are expected to exceed 4.8 million units next year. Li Bingyang is full of expectations for the development of new energy vehicles.
The reporter learned that the "China Auto Market Development Forecast Summit" is the industry's top forecasting summit sponsored by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, which has been successfully held for six sessions since 2016. Professionalism and authority have become its two important labels.
For a long time, the summit has been adhering to the purpose of "bringing together the wisdom of the whole industry to contribute to the development of China's auto industry", and worked together with the whole industry to draw a blueprint for the development of China's auto market and promote the high-quality development of China's auto industry.
Therefore, at the end of the summit, Chen Shihua made a comprehensive and in-depth study on the development of China's auto market in 2022. He believes that overall, China's auto market will maintain a moderate growth trend in the future. From the perspective of long-term development, the current Chinese market is still in the transition stage from the early stage of popularization to the late stage of popularization, and the sales of new cars have gradually shifted from the incremental market to the stock market.
Chen Shihua said that although China's automobile market has fluctuated after 2018, throughout history, developed countries in the automobile have also fluctuated for about 2-4 years in the popularization stage. Judging by this law, the production and sales of China's automobile market are currently at the end of short-term adjustment and will maintain a moderate growth trend in the future.
"China's total auto sales in 2022 are expected to be 27.5 million units, up 5.4% year-on-year. Among them, passenger car sales were 23 million units, an increase of 8% year-on-year; commercial vehicle sales were 4.5 million units, down 6% year-on-year; and new energy vehicle sales were 5 million units, an increase of 47% year-on-year. Chen Shihua concluded.
China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Zhang Zhenqi Source: China Youth Daily
Source: China Youth Daily Travel Weekly