2021 is a year of challenges and opportunities for the automotive industry.
Under various pressures, the automotive industry, with tenacious perseverance, ended the downward trend of production and sales for three consecutive years since 2018. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (hereinafter referred to as "CAAM") pointed out to the "China Times" reporter: "In the face of adverse factors such as chip shortage and continuous high raw material prices, the automotive industry has faced difficulties, and the annual automobile production and sales have shown a steady and increasing development trend, showing strong development resilience and development momentum." ”
Automobile production and sales ended "three consecutive declines"
According to the latest data from the China Automobile Association, automobile production and sales in December showed rapid growth month-on-month, production fell year-on-year, and sales fell slightly, reaching 2.907 million units and 2.786 million units, respectively, an increase of 12.5% and 10.5% month-on-month, and production increased by 2.4% year-on-year, and sales fell by 1.6%; in 2021, automobile production and sales were 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units, up 3.4% and 3.8% year-on-year.
Specifically, the market performance of passenger cars in December was generally better than that of the previous month, with production and sales of 2.527 million units and 2.422 million units, up 13.2% and 10.5% respectively month-on-month, and 8.4% and 2.0% year-on-year, respectively, and the growth rate turned from negative to positive in November. Compared with 2019, passenger car production and sales increased by 15.5% and 9.3% year-on-year, an increase of 12.5 and 2.8 percentage points from November; in 2021, passenger car production and sales reached 21.408 million units and 21.482 million units, up 7.1% and 6.5% year-on-year, respectively, an increase of 3.7 and 2.7 percentage points higher than the industry. In terms of different models, the sales volume of the four major passenger car varieties showed an annual growth trend.
According to the China Automobile Association, "Judging from the changes in passenger car sales throughout the year, the passenger car market showed a significant growth rate due to the low base at the beginning of the year, but with the problem of insufficient chip supply gradually emerging, the rapid increase in the base of the superimposed same period, the passenger car market began to decline, and the decline was expanded." Entering the fourth quarter, with the gradual easing of chip problems, the passenger car market has stabilized and the decline has gradually narrowed. ”
High-end brand passenger cars continued to grow, with sales of high-end brand passenger cars reaching 376,000 units in December, up 28.8% year-on-year. In 2021, high-end brand passenger car sales were 3.472 million units, an increase of 20.7% year-on-year, higher than the growth rate of passenger cars by 14.2 percentage points, accounting for 16.2% of total passenger car sales, accounting for 1.9 percentage points higher than the previous year. The China Automobile Association told reporters: "With the gradual improvement of residents' income level, China's automobile market has shown a clear trend of consumption upgrading. ”
Judging from the trend of commercial vehicles throughout the year, the performance in the first half of the year was significantly better than that in the second half of the year. Among them, due to the low base in the same period, production and sales showed a substantial increase, and sales began to decline in the second quarter, and the downward trend in the second half of the year was more obvious. In December, production of commercial vehicles totaled 380,000 units, up 7.7% and 10.5% month-on-month, respectively. The year-on-year decline was 25.3% and 20.1%, respectively, and the decline rate was narrowed by 6.6 and 10.2 percentage points respectively from November. Compared with the same period in 2019, commercial vehicle production and sales decreased by 23.6% and 18.2% year-on-year, a decline of 5.6 and 0.6 percentage points wider than in November, respectively; in 2021, commercial vehicle production and sales reached 4.674 million units and 4.793 million units, down 10.7% and 6.6% year-on-year. Judging from the production and sales of passenger and cargo segments in 2021, among the trucks, heavy trucks, light trucks and mini trucks have been greatly reduced, and the reduction of medium and heavy trucks has been the largest; Among the buses, the growth of light buses has driven the growth of overall bus production and sales.
The China Automobile Association told the "China Times" reporter: "The fluctuations in the commercial vehicle market in 2021 are mainly due to the fluctuations in demand caused by the switching of the national vi emission regulations for heavy-duty diesel vehicles, and the national five products are lower than the national six products in terms of purchase cost and use cost, so the market prefers the national five products." In addition, factors such as the consumption wait-and-see brought about by the "blue card light truck" policy expectations and the colder real estate development industry have also intensified the downward pressure on the commercial vehicle market. From the perspective of long-term development, the policy dividend effect of supporting the growth of commercial vehicles in recent years has gradually weakened, and the commercial vehicle market will enter an adjustment period in the future. ”
The competitiveness of independent brands continues to improve
New energy vehicles have become the biggest highlight of the development of the automotive industry in 2021. In 2021, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 3.545 million units and 3.521 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.6 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 13.4%, 8 percentage points higher than that of the previous year.
At the same time, the vigorous development of independent brands has also become a bright color for the development of China's auto market in 2021. In 2021, a total of 9.543 million Chinese brand passenger cars were sold, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year, accounting for 44.4% of total passenger car sales, and the share increased by 6.0 percentage points over the same period last year. Among the top 15 corporate groups selling chinese brand passenger cars, the top seven have all achieved growth. It is also driven by the recovery of the international market, the improvement of The competitiveness of Chinese brands and other factors, China's automobile exports have performed well, since April, many times refreshed the historical record, the annual export for the first time exceeded 2 million, achieving a breakthrough that has been hovering around 1 million for many years.
Taking saic passenger cars as an example, savoy passenger car sales in December rushed to 105,000 units, breaking through the 100,000 mark for three consecutive months, and the annual sales exceeded 800,000 for the first time, an increase of 22% year-on-year; the annual sales of new energy were 161,000 units, an increase of 107% year-on-year, and the penetration rate exceeded 20%; in overseas markets, the total annual export volume of SAIC passenger cars reached 290,000 units in 2021, an increase of 68% year-on-year.
Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Automobile Association, told the "China Times" reporter frankly: "The improvement of independent brands includes the rise of product competitiveness and the recovery of underlying consumption. At the same time, in addition to the recovery of the international market, the factors of good performance of automobile exports are also directly related to the improvement of the competitiveness of Chinese brand cars. The high proportion of independent brand exports directly drives the market share of independent brands, which is also an important exploration for Chinese brands to develop overseas markets. As he said, Chinese brand cars are pulled by the new energy and export markets, and their market share is close to the best level in history.
Overall, in 2021, under the background of the overall stable and sustained recovery of domestic macroeconomic operations, the resilience of the automotive industry will continue to be maintained. As an important pillar industry of the national economy, the automotive industry is in a critical stage of transformation and upgrading, and the automotive industry under the change has maintained stable development in recent years, which has played an important supporting role in the development trend of macroeconomic stability and improvement.
Talking about the overall operation of the automotive industry this year, caucus predicts that the total sales of automobiles will be 27.5 million units, an increase of 5% year-on-year. Among them, 23 million passenger cars, an increase of 7% year-on-year; 4.5 million commercial vehicles, down 6% year-on-year; and 5 million new energy vehicles, an increase of 42%. And pointed out: "The automotive market demand will remain stable, with the supply side of the chip supply is insufficient, raw material prices running high and other issues in the new year gradually improved, it is expected that in 2022 the auto market will continue to show a stable and good development trend, the annual production and sales performance is better than in 2021." It should also be noted that although the current shortage of automotive chips has gradually eased, it is still tense, and maintaining the stable growth of production and sales still requires the joint efforts of the whole industry. ”
Responsible Editor: Li Yan'an Editor-in-Chief: Yu Jianping
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