2021 high-end car sales "multinational killing" list: BMW won the "top spot"

In 2021, the "final exam" was completed, and BMW won the sales championship of China's luxury car market in 2021.

In 2021, bmw group sales in China hit a record high, delivering 846,200 BMW and MINI vehicles, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year. Mercedes-Benz followed suit, delivering a total of 758,900 units in the Chinese market. The third place Audi delivered 701,300 vehicles in China.

"Expected." In the face of the news that BMW won the 2021 China luxury car market sales championship, auto analysts pointed out to the "China Business Daily" reporter that "BMW's sales in many months in 2021 are stronger than its competitors, mainly because of the small impact of semiconductor shortages." ”

The second-tier high-end car market also ushered in "full bloom" in this year. Among them, Hongqi has sold more than 300,000 vehicles in the whole year, winning the championship for the first time and pushing the overall market size to a new historical height; although Cadillac lost the opportunity of "five consecutive championships", it set a new record for the brand in the past 18 years with the sales of 233117 vehicles. In addition to the "head", Porsche delivered 95,671 new cars in China, and China continued to win its world's largest single market; Lincoln set a new record with 91,621 units, and the localization process continued to "blossom".

In the field of traditional fuel vehicles, traditional luxury brands represented by BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi) dominate. However, in the field of electrification, in 2021, the products of the above brands will not perform as well as the new forces of car manufacturing.

The reporter paid attention to the realization of the gap, under the siege and interception of tesla, Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng and other new car-making forces, traditional luxury brands are speeding up the electrification strategy.

BMW wins the "top spot" in the BBA camp

On the afternoon of January 12, 2022, the BMW Group released its sales data for 2021. At this point, the sales of the first-line luxury car brand BBA in 2021 have been released.

In 2021, the BMW Group delivered 2,521,500 BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles worldwide, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year. Among them, the global sales of the BMW brand hit a record high, reaching 2.2138 million units, an increase of 9.1% year-on-year, leading the global luxury car brand.

In the Chinese market, BMW also won the championship. In 2021, the BMW Group delivered a total of 846,200 BMW and MINI vehicles in the Chinese market, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year.

Among them, BMW's main models BMW3 series, BMW5 series and BMW X3 have sold more than 150,000 units. BMW X5 sales exceeded 50,000 units for the first time in the whole year.

It is worth mentioning that BMW will sell more than 48,000 new energy models in 2021, an increase of 69.6% year-on-year. Among them, the sales of pure electric BMW iX3 exceeded 21,000 units. It is understood that since 2014, BMW Group has delivered nearly 140,000 new energy vehicles in China. At present, BMW's new energy vehicles include iX3, X1, 5 series new energy and so on. In November 2021, the innovative BMW iX was launched at the Guangzhou Motor Show, launching a new round of BMW's electric offensive.

A few days before that, Mercedes-Benz officials also announced the sales results for the whole year of 2021. According to the data, Mercedes-Benz passenger cars and light commercial vehicles delivered more than 2.4 million units worldwide in 2021, of which 758,900 units were delivered in the Chinese market.

Affected by the shortage of semiconductor supply, Mercedes-Benz's total sales in 2021 have declined. The passenger car segment decreased by 5% from 2020 to 2,093,500 units, while the light commercial vehicle segment increased by 2.6% to 334,200 units.

Although Audi did not participate in this year's "one brother" dispute, it also achieved relatively good results. Official data shows that due to the shortage of global chip supply, Audi delivered a total of 1.6805 million vehicles worldwide in 2021 and 2020, a slight decrease of 0.7% year-on-year. Audi Group delivered 701,300 vehicles in the Chinese market in 2021, down 3.6% year-on-year.

According to Audi, the chip shortage has seriously interfered with the production of its localized models, but the demand for imported models has increased significantly, up 53% year-on-year. Among the main models, sales of Audi A5 increased by 96.7% year-on-year, Audi Q7 increased by 74.4% year-on-year, Audi e-tron electric models increased by 68.7% year-on-year, and sales of high-performance sports models increased by 113.4% year-on-year.

According to the sales report released by Hongqi on December 31, 2021, in December, Hongqi's sales volume was 39,100 vehicles, setting a new single-month sales record, and the cumulative sales volume of the whole year exceeded 300,000 vehicles, an increase of more than 50% year-on-year. However, Hongqi only completed 75% of the annual sales target, and some experts analyzed that Hongqi failed to complete the sales target, mainly affected by chip supply.

In terms of different models, Hongqi H5 and HS5 are still the "mainstay", contributing major sales to the brand; flagship models Hongqi H9 and E-HS9 have gradually gained market recognition, with sales of 40,000 and 5,400 vehicles respectively in 2021.

Cadillac sold 233,100 units in 2021, up 1.4% year-on-year, setting a new annual sales record. Among them, the "new American high-end rear-drive sedan family" composed of CT4, CT5 and CT6 has accumulated sales of 94,600 units in the whole year, an increase of 13.6% year-on-year.

The CT5, the main model in the mid-duty premium sedan segment, sold 62,100 units in the whole year, an increase of 37.9% year-on-year. In addition, Cadillac's XT6, which was released in the 400,000-yuan large-scale high-end SUV market, sold 38,000 units in the whole year, an increase of 43.1% year-on-year.

Volvo's annual sales in the Chinese market in 2021 exceeded 170,000 units, an increase of 3.1% year-on-year, a record high. In terms of specific models, Volvo XC60 sold 65,000 units in the whole year, an increase of 6% year-on-year; S60 sold a total of 28,000 units, an increase of 29% year-on-year; XC90 sales increased by 16% year-on-year.

New car-making forces are chasing and breaking through the traditional high-end

In the high-end car market, BBA has always had an absolute right to speak and dominate, but with the rise of new car-making forces in the past two years, their right to speak and dominate are gradually weakened, especially in the field of electrification.

According to the data released by the Association of Automobiles, in the top 15 of the 2021 new energy SUV retail sales list, there are 8 products of new car-making forces, namely Tesla Model Y, Ideal ONE, WEILAI ES6, WEILAI EC6, Xiaopeng G3, Nezha V, WM EX5, and WEILAI ES8. In the traditional high-end brand camp, only the BMW X3 BEV made the list with a cumulative delivery of 21,000 vehicles throughout the year.

At present, in the field of new energy cars, it is the world of new forces of independent brand car manufacturing and traditional car companies.

"The gap between traditional high-end brands and new car-making forces in the field of electrification is not only sales, 'Wei Xiaoli' and other new car-making forces rely on intelligent electrification offensive to be labeled as 'technology', but this is the shortcoming of traditional high-end brand electric products." Some auto industry analysts told reporters, "For example, some of BBA's electric products cannot achieve OTA upgrades." Compared with competitors, the mileage does not have an advantage. ”

New car-making forces have seized the minds of users, and traditional high-end brands led by BBA have clearly felt the crisis from their opponents. In the surrounding of opponents, the electrification transformation of traditional high-end brands is accelerating.

In order to further accelerate the electric strategy in China, BMW said that it plans to launch 26 new products in 2022, of which 7 are new energy products, including 5 pure electric models: innovative BMW iX, innovative BMW i4, BMW iX3, pure electric BMW 3 series, a pure electric flagship, and two plug-in hybrid models.

In 2022, Mercedes-Benz will launch 21 new products in China, including 8 new energy products, including pure electric and plug-in hybrid models. A Mercedes-Benz insider said, "The new energy market has entered a period of rapid growth in the past two years, which is also in line with our expectations. Based on the brand strategy and its understanding of the market, its customers and, especially those in the Chinese market, Mercedes-Benz will actively launch new energy products covering all market segments. ”

Relying on the Volkswagen Group, Audi has recently released news again that it will accelerate the transformation to an intelligent network and sustainable high-end travel provider, and the pre-investment in future model projects will increase to about 37 billion euros in the next 5 years, of which about 18 billion euros will be planned in the field of electrification and hybridization.

Second-tier high-end brand Lexus is transforming into a pure electric brand, Toyota Motor President Akio Toyoda said, "Toyota from 2022 to 2030 in the nine years, a total of 8 trillion yen for electrification transformation, the introduction of 30 electric models, including pure electric, plug-in hybrid, hydrogen fuel and ordinary hybrid." At the same time, the Lexus brand will be transformed into a pure electric brand. ”

Su Hui, executive deputy director of the China Automobile Dealers Association Tangible Market Chamber of Commerce, told reporters that the overall car market will be good in 2021, but the decrease in revenue and the decline in purchasing power will have an impact on the high-end car market, while the electrification and intelligence of automobiles are accelerating their development, and high-end brands will face more challenges.