On January 11, 2022, the Association of Passenger Vehicles released the domestic passenger car production and sales data for 2021, and the annual production and sales achieved positive growth, ending the three consecutive years of sales decline since 2018.
From January to December 2021, domestic retail sales of narrow passenger cars were 20.146 million units, up 4.4% year-on-year, and wholesale sales were 21.098 million units, up 6.7% year-on-year. In December 2021, the narrow passenger car market retailed 2.105 million units, down 7.9% year-on-year and 15.9% month-on-month.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Car Market Information Joint Association, analyzed that "the unfavorable factors affecting sales in December 2021 are mainly reflected in the sporadic and repeated epidemic situation, coupled with the high sales base caused by the promotion of consumption policies in December 2020, and the growth pressure of the automobile market is large." ”
However, for the passenger car market trend in 2022, the association expressed optimistic expectations. According to the forecast, the growth rate of domestic passenger car retail sales in 2022 is expected to be about 5%, and the wholesale volume is expected to increase by about 10%.
Independent sales rose, and the top three joint ventures declined significantly
According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, in the whole year of 2021, the top three companies in the narrow sense of passenger car retail sales will still be FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM. In addition to the top three, Geely Automobile, Dongfeng Nissan, Changan Automobile, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Great Wall Motor, FAW Toyota, and GAC Toyota are listed in order.
However, unlike the retail sales ranking, the wholesale sales ranking has changed. For the whole year of 2021, the top three companies in the wholesale sales volume of narrow passenger cars are FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and Geely Automobile. SAIC Volkswagen ranked fourth, with its wholesale sales of 1.242 million units in 2021, down 17.5% year-on-year. The remaining top ten manufacturers are Changan Automobile, Dongfeng Nissan, Great Wall Motor, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Chery Automobile, and FAW Toyota.
It can be seen from the top ten enterprises in the wholesale sales volume of manufacturers that half of them are self-owned brand car companies, and they have achieved growth. Geely Automobile slightly increased by 0.6% year-on-year, Changan Automobile sales rose 22.3% year-on-year, Great Wall Motor sales rose 18.2% year-on-year, SAIC-GM-Wuling increased by 24.5% year-on-year, and Chery Automobile sales rose 36.8% year-on-year.
In contrast to the growth of wholesale sales of independent brands, the decline of joint venture brands is obvious. In terms of the three heads, in addition to SAIC Volkswagen's year-on-year decline of 17.5%, FAW-Volkswagen fell by 13.1% year-on-year, and SAIC-GM fell by 9.3% year-on-year.
In December, the production increased, and the impact of the lack of cores was alleviated
In terms of production, from January to December 2021, the cumulative production of domestic passenger cars was 20.951 million units, an increase of 7.7% year-on-year, slightly higher than the annual retail sales.
The Association pointed out that with the early start of the wave of returning to the hometown before the Spring Festival, the retail sales of the car market after mid-December 2021 have improved significantly. However, due to the weak growth of terminal consumer demand, the growth pressure of the automobile market is large.
It is worth mentioning that the retail production in December last year, unlike the 7.9% year-on-year decline in retail sales in December, domestic passenger car production increased rapidly in the last month of 2021.
According to the data of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, in December 2021, a total of 2.466 million passenger cars were produced in China, an increase of 7.2% year-on-year and 10.6% month-on-month. Among them, luxury brands performed prominently, with production increasing by 20% year-on-year and 18% month-on-month; joint venture brand production decreasing by 1% year-on-year and 11% month-on-month; and independent brand production increasing by 13% year-on-year and 8% month-on-month.
In addition, the federation said that the impact of the recent chip shortage has improved significantly, which will help luxury brands and joint venture brands to quickly improve the production rhythm and scale, but there is still a state of large fluctuations in the amplitude of the weekly production situation.
At the same time, the increase in production capacity in December will help manufacturers quickly replenish inventory. "The first three quarters of this year experienced a special cycle from destocking to approaching safety stocks, and the inventory of manufacturers in the fourth quarter was quickly replenished. At the end of December, the inventory of manufacturers increased by 100,000 units month-on-month, and the inventory of channels increased by 90,000 units month-on-month. Cui Dongshu said that December of the calendar year is an important node for building inventory, and the inventory in December this year is well established, laying the foundation for the year-end sales sprint.
However, from January to December 2021, the inventory of manufacturers decreased by 130,000 vehicles, which was larger than the inventory reduction in January and December of previous years; the channel inventory was relatively reduced by 560,000 vehicles, and the shortage pressure of 200,000 vehicles was still huge compared with the same period in 2020.
The new energy vehicle market is hot, and some substitution effects have emerged
Although 2021 continues to be affected by the epidemic and the lack of cores, new energy vehicles have shown a continuous hot trend and have become the biggest highlight.
The Association mentioned that of the 860,000 year-on-year net increase in retail sales in 2021, the traditional fuel vehicles decreased by 1.02 million units year-on-year by 6% year-on-year, while the increase in new energy vehicles by 1.88 million increased by 169% year-on-year, and new energy vehicles contributed 9 percentage points to the year-on-year growth rate of passenger cars.
From January to December last year, the domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles was 14.8%, which was significantly higher than the penetration rate of 5.8% in 2020. In December, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in independent brands was 39%, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in luxury vehicles was 32.7%, while the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainstream joint venture brands was only 3.3%.
Specifically, in December 2021, the wholesale volume of new energy passenger vehicles reached 505,000 units, an increase of 138.9% year-on-year; retail sales reached 475,000 units, an increase of 128.8% year-on-year and 25.4% month-on-month. From January to December, the wholesale volume of new energy passenger vehicles reached 3.312 million units, an increase of 181.0% year-on-year, and retail sales reached 2.989 million units, an increase of 169.1% year-on-year.
The domestic new energy passenger car market has shown a trend of diversification, and there are 14 companies with wholesale sales of manufacturers exceeding 10,000 vehicles in December, a significant increase over the previous period. Among them, BYD 93338, Tesla China 70847, SAIC-GM-Wuling 60372, Great Wall Motor 20926, Chery Automobile 20501, Geely Automobile 16831 vehicles, Xiaopeng Automobile 16000 vehicles, SAIC Passenger Car 14868 vehicles, GAC Aian 14500 vehicles, Ideal Car 14087 vehicles, FAW-Volkswagen 11213 vehicles, Weilai Automobile 10489 vehicles, Changan Automobile 10404 vehicles, Hezhong Automobile 10127 vehicles.
Based on the trend in 2021, the association will increase the sales of new energy passenger cars in 2022. The 4.8 million units originally expected were adjusted to 5.5 million units, and the penetration rate of new energy passenger cars reached about 25%. The overall number of new energy vehicles is expected to exceed 6 million, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles is about 22%.
With the expansion of the scale and cost advantages of the new energy industry chain, new energy passenger vehicles have achieved strong growth, which is a strong contrast with traditional fuel vehicles. This means that consumer demand has changed, and some of the substitution effects of new energy vehicles on fuel vehicles have begun to appear.