At the end of 2021, the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security announced the amount of motor vehicle traffic compulsory insurance in November. Due to the impact of chip shortages and epidemics, the "Golden Nine Silver Ten" did not appear in 2021. According to relevant data, the insurance volume of new cars in November 2021 was 1.8396 million units, down 9.94% year-on-year. I believe that many readers can't help but worry about the current situation of the automobile market after seeing this figure. However, it should be noted that in the context of the decline in sales in the overall automobile market, the sales of independent brands have risen against the trend, with an increase of 8.73% year-on-year, with sales of 768,000 units.
After sorting out the sales data of the United States and Japan, the author found that the sales volume of the Japanese and German systems fell by 20.91% and 19.28% respectively. Although the sales base of the US system is small, it still has a decline of 26.47%. So, why can the sales of independent brands rise against the trend?
Innate advantage, seize the blue ocean market!
The reason why independent brands can achieve a contrarian rise, the author believes that a large part of the reason is that independent brands have a deeper understanding of domestic consumer needs than foreign brands. When it comes to understanding users, we have to mention one of the hottest words in the car circle in 2021, "user co-creation". Judging from the activities held by major car companies during the year, it can be seen that at many new car launches, users have been invited to the stage to tell their own car purchase process. In this regard, Fan Junyi, executive deputy general manager of Geely Automobile Sales Company, believes that this form is greater than the content of co-creation and has no practical significance. In Fan Junyi's view, the real user co-creation should be included in the construction process of the systematic development of the enterprise.
Of course, in this regard, Geely Automobile did. It is understood that Geely Automobile's systematic construction of "user co-creation" is concentrated in three stages, including product modeling stage, R & D configuration definition stage, and user communication stage. Thanks to the in-depth understanding of "user co-creation", we can see that Geely Automobile has achieved good results in the upcoming 2021, in addition to launching mainstream models such as the fourth generation of Geely Emgrand, it has also created a relatively niche model such as Geely Boyue X that meets the personalized needs of young consumers, and won the favor of consumers.
According to the latest data, geely automobile's cumulative total sales from January to November 2021 reached 1169264 vehicles, of which the cumulative sales of the Lynk & Co brand from January to November were as high as 194,670 vehicles. It can be seen that based on the innate advantages of local enterprises, by understanding the needs of users and anchoring accurate user groups, car companies can go further. At the same time, under the influence of policies such as carbon neutrality, Geely Automobile is accelerating its transition to electrification, such as the release of Raytheon hybrid technology. Of course, Geely is only a representative of its own brands, including Chery, BYD and other brands, all of which are constantly deepening in technology and marketing!
In addition to making efforts in technology and marketing, independent brands have also opened up a number of markets that were once controlled by foreign car companies in 2021. For example, at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, the Tank 500 successfully opened up a new market with hard-core off-road configurations such as three differential locks and 3.0T V6 twin-turbo engines, enabling independent brands to successfully step into the hardcore SUV market, breaking the situation that the market has been controlled by foreign brands for a long time, attracting the attention of a large number of consumers. There are many similar strategies, such as BYD's high-quality new energy models that attract consumers. Thanks to this, the overall sales volume of independent brands has been able to rise against the trend when they have successfully opened up multiple market segments.
The underlying technology is in your own hands!
As we all know, independent brands start much later than foreign countries, so there is a "stuck neck" phenomenon in many underlying technologies. However, over time, the phenomenon of technical "stuck necks" began to fade away. Taking chips as an example, the author believes that the sales of independent brands can rise against the trend, which is inseparable from the "chip shortage" in the global automotive industry.
Although the strength and scale of chip manufacturers in China at this stage are not as good as those of international giants, such as Infineon, Texas Instruments, etc., it should be noted that because the above chip suppliers have always maintained a stable supply speed, similar to BBA and other car companies in the production of automotive products need to use the chips are provided by them. In this process, independent brands can also purchase from these chip manufacturers.
Due to the impact of chip shortages and other factors, foreign brands have successively announced the suspension of production or reduction of production. On the other hand, independent brands, because China has the ability to make chips, such as BYD, as early as many years ago has begun to lay out the chip field, at this stage can achieve self-sufficiency. In addition to BYD, some domestic technology companies and OEMs have the ability to produce chips, such as Unigroup Guowei and so on. Therefore, although the scale of our chips is not as good as that of foreign chip suppliers, to some extent, we can achieve self-sufficiency and meet the production needs of independent brands.
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Finally, what I want to say is that perhaps we have been strangled by foreign forces for a long time in the past because of technical problems, but with the development of time, we have not only solved the problem of technical "stuck neck", but also gradually achieved transcendence. It is worth mentioning that the production of smart electric vehicles requires more chips than traditional vehicles, assuming that we can ensure a stable production speed during this time, then we can accumulate more experience, when the realization of corner overtaking will not be just a vision, but a fact.