The Chinese auto market in 2021 came to an end in wave after wave of terrifying waves. The magnificent and ups and downs of the Chinese market have amazed all kinds of people around the world.
On the other side of the Pacific, the most powerful person in the United States of America today commented on China's electric vehicle market in May 2021: "At present, China is leading the competition, there is no doubt about that. But I'm going to tell them that they can't win this game, we can't let them get away with it, they have to move quickly, and that's what we're doing now. ”
Wolfsburg's owner, Volkswagen CEO Herbert Diess, described the threat from the distant East Wind – China – at the Volkswagen Employees' Union in November 2021: "Yes, I am worried about Wolfsburg! Only by working together can we orient Volkswagen to the future. Dees said: The next golf must not be Tesla! The next golf must not come from China!
But in fact, from January to November 2021, the penetration rate of New Energy Vehicles in China was only 12.7%, and the real protagonists are still those traditional kings.
So, under the impact of the big wave of new energy vehicles, what are the characteristics of the traditional Strongest Car Companies in China? Under the impact of the tide of electrification and intelligence, how long can the "Three Kingdoms Era" of cars composed of them survive?
No. 1: Geely Automobile, sales: 1328029 units
Geely Automobile is still the king of China's strongest car companies. But its growth momentum feels quite "the end of the crossbow". It is not too much to describe it with words like weak growth.
If you compare the sales data of Geely automobiles in the past few years, this feeling is even stronger: In 2018, Geely automobile sales were 1.5008 million units, 2019 was 1.362 million units, and in 2020, it was 1.3202 million units. In 2021, it will increase only slightly by 0.5% compared with 2020, which is lower than the industry average.
If you add the factor of the epidemic - the new crown epidemic in China and the world in 2020 is much more serious than in 2021, Geely Automobile is already the third consecutive year of decline.
Throughout 2021, Geely's only bright spot was Lynk & Co, which achieved 220,500 units that year, an increase of 26% year-on-year. That is to say, in 2021, Lynk & Co sold 220516 more than the previous year, a full 45,060 more than the previous year.
The increase in the entire Geely automobile in 2021 is only 7812, which means that the Geely brand has reduced the number of vehicles by 37248 units compared with the previous year, down about 3.2% year-on-year, which is a red flag.
If you don't advance, you will retreat, this is an obvious truth. This is also a major reason why Geely Automobile will continuously release the "China Star" product sequence and the "Leishen Power" power brand in 2021, and at the same time release the "JiudaLongwan Action".
But it is undeniable that in addition to the traditional business, Geely Automobile's new energy vehicle business started late, among which the extreme krypton automobile, which has been pinned on high hopes, has been unexpected since its official delivery in the second half of 2021.
We believe that from 2022 to 2025, Geely Automobile as a whole will enter a very difficult period of downturn and transformation, which has maintained the throne of China's first place for five years, or as soon as 2022, it will be taken away by the current second ranked Great Wall Motors. In the next 4 years, Geely Automobile can not be successfully transformed, all depends on its new hybrid vehicle business and the extreme krypton brand. However, Geely's hybrid business is difficult to compete with BYD DM-i super hybrid, and there is also a big gap between the Great Wall Motor lemon hybrid DHT ratio. The Extreme Krypton brand will face joint pressure from brands such as Weilai Automobile, Zhiji Automobile, and Xiaopeng Automobile, and the development prospects are full of trembling and trembling like walking on thin ice.
No. 2: Great Wall Motor, with 1280993 units sold
As a traditional car brand, compared with the previous year, Great Wall Motors achieved a 15.2% increase, which is obviously a surprise. After all, Geely Automobile, which ranked first, only grew by 0.5%.
Compared with the data of the previous three years: in 2018, Great Wall Motor sold 1.053 million units, 1.0602 million units in 2019, and 1.1115 million units in 2020.
That is to say, since 2018, although it has also been affected by the new crown epidemic, Great Wall Motors has achieved three consecutive years of growth, and the growth rate has reached a new high in 2021, much higher than the 4.8% growth rate in 2020.
In the same period, the same as the traditional automobile company, what caused the difference between Geely Automobile and Great Wall Motor in "one drop and one increase"?
Great Wall Motors and Geely Motors originally had too many overlaps: they also created a high-end brand (Lynk & Co and WEY), and also started late in the field of new energy (Euler and Geometry, Extreme Kr and Salon), but in terms of corporate strategy, Geely Automobile and Great Wall Motors presented completely different visions.
In May 2016, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, told investors at the shareholders' meeting that the Great Wall made electric vehicles in response to the national fuel consumption limit, he said: "We mainly rely on coal power generation, in the process of energy conversion, in fact, electric vehicles are not energy-saving and environmentally friendly, electric buses are 10 times more polluting than natural gas buses." At that time, Wei Jianjun and Li Shufu were both the guardians of traditional cars.
In response to the impact of electrification and intelligence, Geely Automobile did not launch the electric vehicle brand Geometry Car until April 2019, while the Great Wall launched the electric brand Euler Automobile in August 2018. In July 2020, Great Wall further released the three major technology platforms for future-oriented lemon/tank/coffee intelligence, and in December of that year, it released lemon hybrid DHT technology. In contrast, Geely released the "Nine Dragon Bay Action" for the future in October 2021, and released a new power brand "Raytheon Power" in November, and released the corresponding hybrid technology. From a strategic point of view, Geely Automobile is exactly one beat slower than Great Wall Motors.
In May 2018, Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Automobile, interpreted the surging Internet car-making in that year: "Internet companies are fooling the people all day long." The outside world can fully read the paralysis and passive resistance of Geely Automobile from this judgment of Li Shufu. This kind of thinking will obviously have a certain impact on the overall decision-making of Geely Automobile.
In July 2020, Great Wall Motors, led by chairman Wei Jianjun, sent out the deafening question: "Can Great Wall Motors survive next year?" Great Wall Motors' sense of urgency and pressure can also be seen.
Under such circumstances, under heavy pressure, the marketing team of Great Wall Motors created a series of marketing "miracles" that initially made the entire industry "scorn"--these "movements" initiated by Great Wall Motors initially had the meaning of "three fools and big troubles in Bollywood":
1. Great Wall Motors set off a vigorous "naming" movement that later affected the whole of China, such as the launch of the "Big Dog" car, the launch of the "Great Wall Cannon" pickup truck, the launch of the "tank" car, and the entire series: white cat, black cat, good cat, mocha, first love, red rabbit, etc.; later car companies that obviously "followed" the great wall include: such as Xingtu's "Moon Sweeping" and "Lingyun", such as BYD's "Dolphin" and "Destroyer"; such as Geely Geometry's "Kung Fu Cow" and so on. Behind this series of names, I am afraid that what is hidden is China's cultural awakening. For example, comparing the names of geometry "ICON", "Geometry C" and "Geometry A" with the names of Euler's "Cat" series, the latter's cultural identity in the current era of China's new awakening is obviously much stronger than the former. Of course, the failure of geometry mainly includes problems at the product level.
2. Under heavy pressure, Great Wall Motors launched a rather crazy "category innovation" and "brand creation by category" campaign, such as the launch of the popular "tide play off-road SUV" - "tank" brand, "pickup leader" Great Wall pickup truck, "new generation of intelligent cars" Wei Pai, "the world's more women-loving car brand" Euler, and "mecha technology brand" salon, plus the previous "Chinese SUV leader" Haval and so on. These slogans were initially very confusing and even dismissive. In contrast, Geely Automobile shouted out very few slogans, such as "China's new high-end" - Lynk & Co, such as the "China Star" series; among which the Extreme Kr brand was even released at a Geely Automobile performance conference, so far, it is difficult for several people to remember what the brand slogan of Extreme Kr Automobile is, and it is even more lack of impression on who Extreme Krypton Wants to become.
In contrast, Lynk & Co's "China New High-end" and Geely's "China Star" series give people a feeling of home and country, and the style is extremely high. Obviously, Lynk & Co's brand slogan of "China's New High-end" is far more successful than the Great Wall 'WEY', which has undergone a change from "China's luxury SUVs" to "a new generation of smart car 'Wei brand'". But in addition, With a series of more personalized and grounded brand slogans, Great Wall Motors has properly captured the minds of consumers in the current secular society. This "high" and "low" distinction between Jili and the Great Wall has the meaning of being defeated by the Lower Riba people in Yangchun White Snow, and some of them make people cry and laugh.
In fact, such a change in culture and consciousness is also reflected in BYD, that is, the BYD "Dynasty" series, which looks more at home and country, is now changing to a more personalized and more in line with the minds and cognition of young consumers.
It is the series of "riot operations" of Great Wall Motors that makes it stand out from the times and become a "leader". Of course, in the end, the "name trend" and "category trend" of the Great Wall are the expedient measures of short-termists, or the clever moves of long-termists, or it still needs to be verified by the times.
3rd place: Changan Automobile Sales: 1.2 million units
Changan Automobile's year-on-year increase in 2021 is 23.1%, meaning its overall status is still online. However, compared with the first and second places of this and the other, Changan Automobile staged its own "roller coaster" market.
According to past official data, in 2018, Changan's Chinese brand sales were 1.5 million units, but in 2019, it fell to 1.28 million units; in 2020, it returned to 1.5 million units, of which 978398 passenger cars; in 2021, it was 1.75 million units, including 1.2 million passenger cars. Changan Automobile's "up and down" state reflects that the brand has not fully identified the position it should go to.
In fact, this is related to Changan Automobile's survival mainly in the low-end market, and it is difficult to form a driving force of "brand upward".
In recent years, Chinese brands have collectively sought "brand upwards", including Geely's Lynk & Co, Great Wall's Wei brand, BYD's "blade battery" series models and so on. However, Changan Automobile's high-end model UNI series is far inferior to Geely's Lynk & Co and great wall's Wei brand. In order to pursue the high-end brand, Geely's Lynk & Co and Great Wall's WEY have been launched as "brand independence" many years ago - and brand independence is also the active choice of many Chinese brands seeking "brand upwards" in recent years, but Changan's UNI series has not yet taken this step.
In the field of electrification, Changan Automobile initially wanted to rely on Weilai to establish "Changan Weilai" in the name of mixed reform, and later found that Weilai had no intention of participating, pulling up the Ningde era to create a new "Avita" brand at the end of 2021, but this new brand was spit on by the entire automotive circle as soon as it was released: many times shouted that Huawei "built cars" Huawei was ultimately not deeply involved, and the name "Avita" was obviously contrary to the overall cultural awakening of the Chinese brand, which made people sweat for the prospects of this brand.
According to the 2020 financial report data, the average bicycle price of Great Wall Motors is about 93,000 yuan, Geely Automobile is about 73,200 yuan, and Changan Automobile is stuck in the range of 60,000 yuan, and its main survival trend in the lower-end market is obvious.
Write at the end:
It is surprising that the differences in the management mechanism, product strength and corporate culture behind the three Chinese car companies are so large.
If Geely Automobile and Great Wall Motors are extremely assertive and far-sighted in multiple directions of intelligence, electrification and high-end and have the courage to try, changan automobile, the only state-owned enterprise in the top three, will hand over an answer sheet to the world, which is even more eye-catching.
In addition, under the impact of the tide of intelligence and electrification, it is clear that whether it is Geely, Great Wall or Chang'an, it is far behind electric vehicle companies such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Tesla and BYD in the field of electrification. Today, a series of electric vehicle companies represented by BYD, Weilai and Xiaopeng are threatening the status of the "top three" of traditional cars with a running attitude.
In the future, how long can the "Three Kingdoms Era" composed of Geely, great wall and Chang'an be sustained, and at this moment, the variables are so large that no one can give a final answer.