SAIC Volkswagen's lost 2021: Executives were investigated, market share shrank, and new energy did not meet expectations

Beijing, January 5 news (reporter Guo Jun) At the beginning of the new year, the new car-making forces can't wait to announce the sales in 2021 for the first time, and the report card of more than 200% year-on-year rise is more than 200%, which reflects the loss of traditional car companies represented by the above automobile volkswagen in this year. According to the SAIC Group Production and Sales Express, as of the end of November 2021, SAIC Volkswagen achieved sales of 1.105 million vehicles, down 17.99% year-on-year, and there is still a gap of 400,000 vehicles from the annual sales volume in 2020, and negative sales growth for three consecutive years has become a foregone conclusion. This is the third consecutive year of negative sales growth for SAIC Volkswagen. However, for SAIC Volkswagen, it is not only the scale of sales that has never returned, but also the future full of more uncertainties.

Sales have declined for three consecutive years, and market share continues to be swallowed up

On January 4, the first trading day of 2022 A-shares, as of the close of the market, the wind automobile manufacturing industry index rose by 0.65%, and the stock price of SAIC Motor Group rose by 0.29%, continuing to outperform the market.

On the same day, SAIC Passenger Vehicle officially released the news that in 2021, SAIC's annual sales of passenger cars exceeded 800,000 for the first time, an increase of 22% year-on-year, setting a new sales record high. The sales of SAIC passenger cars are good news, why has it not driven the stock price of the parent company to rise sharply like other car companies?

In fact, if you zoom in on the sales volume of the entire group, it is not difficult to find that the "delay in production" of the former profit cows - the joint venture brands represented by the automobile Volkswagen in the past is dragged down or an important reason.

According to the production and sales report released by SAIC Motor, from January to November 2021, SAIC Volkswagen sold a total of 1.105 million units, down 17.99% year-on-year. Annual sales decline, almost a foregone conclusion.

In public, SAIC Volkswagen executives blamed the decline in sales on environmental objective factors such as market downturn and epidemic, and in fact, SAIC Volkswagen fell not only in sales, but also in terms of market share being gradually eroded, and the scenery was no longer beautiful.

SAIC Volkswagen's sales peaked in 2018, a year in which SAIC Volkswagen's sales increased slightly by 0.10% year-on-year to 2.065 million units, and since then it has turned into a downward channel. In 2019, SAIC Volkswagen's sales began to decline, with annual sales falling by 3.07% year-on-year, and in 2020, there was a cliff-like decline, and the decline expanded to 24.79%, and only 1.506 million units were sold in the whole year.

In 2019, FAW-Volkswagen achieved a rebound overselling SAIC Volkswagen's sales, saic-volkswagen retreated from the champion position for many years, and in November 2021, SAIC Volkswagen's monthly sales of 113,000 units, lower than Geely's 123,000 vehicles, fell one more place in the ranking, and the market share also fell to 6.2%.

New energy sales have not met expectations, and the brand premium halo is no longer there

It is undeniable that the overall decline in sales of SAIC Volkswagen is related to the comprehensive seizure of the market by new energy vehicles, and SAIC Volkswagen is also working in the field of new energy, trying to reverse the unfavorable situation that has been declining for three years.

Similar to some traditional car companies, SAIC Volkswagen entered the field of new energy, and the first choice was a hybrid model. At the end of 2018, SAIC Volkswagen successively launched the new energy hybrid version of the Passat, Tiguan L and other models, in addition to the pricing is tens of thousands of yuan higher than the pure fuel vehicle, the hybrid version does not let the market feel the advantages and determination of SAIC Volkswagen in the field of new energy, and the market feedback is difficult to say satisfactory.

At that time, some media found that several hybrid models launched by SAIC Volkswagen, from the perspective of the technical parameters of the power battery, their main parameters such as battery capacity and energy density were all lagging behind the mainstream independent brand new energy vehicle companies at that time. According to the statistics of the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in November 2021, the monthly sales of SAIC Volkswagen Passat 1.4T PHEV have fallen to 856 units, down 40.1% year-on-year; SAIC Volkswagen Tiguan 1.4T PHEV monthly sales of only 480 units, down 63.1% year-on-year. With such low sales, it is hard to imagine that it was created by the Volkswagen brand with the VW logo hanging.

A SAIC Volkswagen digital city exhibition hall in Beijing (Photo by Guo Jun, CCTV)

The ID.4X, which was first launched, was initially regarded by SAIC Volkswagen as the most important model of the year, and when it was launched, Yang Siyao, executive director of the Volkswagen brand marketing business of SAIC Volkswagen Co., Ltd., said in an interview with the media that SAIC Volkswagen set a sales target of about 300,000 new energy vehicles in 2021, of which ID.4X will contribute 50,000 to 60,000 vehicles. The vision is beautiful, the reality is cruel, and it turns out that saicid Volkswagen management obviously overestimated the appeal of volkswagen brands in the new energy market. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, from January to November, the cumulative sales of SAIC Volkswagen New Energy were only 48,894 vehicles, which was less than the sales expectation of the ID.4X car.

In the case that ID.4X and ID.6X cannot conquer the new energy market of 200,000-300,000 yuan, SAIC Volkswagen has exclusively introduced Volkswagen's sales champion model ID.3 in Europe, and gave an attractive battery rental plan, trying to conquer the market with Volkswagen brand + low entry threshold. However, the ID.3, which is already lower than the price in Europe, still has not been able to deliver a satisfactory answer, and the monthly sales have not exceeded 3,000 units.

The multi-brand strategy is not smooth, and internal crises are swirling around

Sales continue to decline and cannot "stop bleeding", and the expansion of the new energy field is hindered... This is not enough to summarize saicutical Volkswagen's lost 2021.

In addition to the VW brand, SAIC Skoda, which also belongs to SAIC Volkswagen, and the newly established SAIC Audi, are not going well in 2021. According to the statistics of the Association of Automobile Associations, the cumulative sales volume of SAIC Volkswagen Skoda from January to November 2021 was about 51,800 vehicles, of which the monthly sales volume in November was 7,800 vehicles, down 59.59% year-on-year, and the proportion of market sales shrank to 0.43%.

Even Volkswagen Group (China) CEO Feng Sihan has admitted to the media that "individual brands of the group have fallen into a difficult situation in the Chinese market." Skoda maintains a market share of 1% or slightly less than 1%, and a market share of 1% is an important threshold for being able to have visibility in this market and maintain sustainable development. According to Feng Sihan's judgment standard, SAIC Volkswagen Skoda has obviously fallen out of this threshold now.

Sluggish sales made Skoda lose its market voice, but in another less glorious way to help SAIC Volkswagen "out of the circle". On December 29, the Supervision Commission of the Discipline Inspection Commission of Jiading District of Shanghai released the news that Ren Yun, the former manager of the marketing department of the Skoda brand of SAIC Volkswagen Automobile Co., Ltd., was suspected of serious violations of the law and is currently under supervision and investigation by the Jiading District Supervision Commission. This is following the october 15, SAIC Volkswagen Co., Ltd. Skoda brand marketing executive director, Skoda brand business executive director Xie Jinhui suspected of serious violations of the law, under the supervision and investigation of the Jiading District Supervision Commission, the person in charge of another brand line of Skoda was investigated.

SAIC Audi, which has had difficulty giving birth many times, finally officially unveiled its new car in 2021, but it is another corruption incident that has grabbed the headlines. On July 6, according to the official website of the Discipline Inspection Commission of Jiading District, Shanghai, Yang Zhenyu, manager of the Audi brand product management department of SAIC Volkswagen Automobile Co., Ltd., was suspected of serious violations of the law and was subject to supervision and investigation by the Jiading District Supervision Commission.

The person in charge of the brand line has been investigated one after another, which has not affected SAIC Volkswagen's large-scale investment in endorsement cooperation. Behind a series of expensive celebrity endorsement cooperation, we can see that SAIC Volkswagen wants to please the minds of young consumers, but the endorsement joint name is only the surface of the brand after all, it may be able to support the "wallet" of the person in charge of the brand line, but how to find the lost influence is what the management of SAIC Volkswagen should think and act in the future.