Text: Qingli
Since the reform and opening up, China's manufacturing industry has made great progress, today, China's manufacturing has long been famous in the world, and as more and more core technologies are mastered by ourselves, many of China's manufactured products have surpassed the West and become the leader in the industry. For example, in the agricultural sector, as of 2018, the cumulative planting area of crops cultivated through space breeding has exceeded 2.4 million hectares, and the increase in grain production has increased by about 1.3 billion kilograms. The field of beauty, which has been occupied by european and American big names before, is now rapidly seizing the market. According to the 2021 annual data released by the domestic platform Vipshop, six of the top ten beauty brands with sales have been domestic brands, and Perfect Diary and Winona have won the second and third places.
It can be seen that in many fields, China's manufacturing industry has made remarkable achievements. In terms of the automotive industry, as the world's largest automobile market, China's automobile sales in 2021 were 26.275 million units, and its Chinese-made car sales were 9.543 million units, accounting for 44.43% of total sales, an increase of 6 percentage points over 38.42% in 2020. At present, German cars account for 20.6%, Japanese cars account for 20.6%, American cars 10.2%, Korean cars 2.4%, French cars 0.6%, it can be seen that the proportion and popularity of China's domestic car brands are rising rapidly.
Facts have proved that with the continuous improvement of China's manufacturing technology and the mastery of related core technologies, more and more domestic automobile brands have begun to go abroad and go to the world, and are increasingly welcomed by countries around the world. As the German media said, China's automotive industry is changing lanes to overtake, and domestic production is no longer what it used to be!
Especially in the market of luxury car brands, everyone knows that once upon a time, domestic luxury brands had almost no room for survival. In this segment, most of the share is in the hands of the BBA, and the second-tier luxury brands behind it also occupy their own place. But now, with the development of China's automotive industry, the ranking has undergone new changes in the second-tier luxury car brand camp, and the future "bellwether" of second-tier luxury cars may change owners.
The impact on the current second-tier luxury car market pattern is China's domestic luxury car brand Hongqi. Hongqi is a high-end automobile brand operated by China FAW Group. In 1958, China FAW took a month to hand-build the first domestic car, but at that time it was not called "Hongqi", but "Dongfeng", numbered CA71. In 1959, the Faw-hongqi car was officially numbered CA72, and China's first numbered Hongqi car was officially born. At the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the founding of New China, 10 brand-new CA72 Red Flag cars were officially unveiled, and domestic and foreign media competed to report on it, calling it "China's Rolls-Royce".
However, at that time, Hongqi did not have any market competitiveness, with large fuel consumption and high manufacturing costs, and was ordered to stop production in the 1980s. In the more than two decades since its birth, only 1540 vehicles have been produced. After the resumption of production in the 1990s, FAW took advantage of the cooperation with foreign companies to build CA7220 (commonly known as Xiaohongqi) based on the Audi 100, produced CA7460 (commonly known as big red flag) based on lincoln city models, and later launched Models such as Mingshi, Century Star, HQ3 and so on. However, the performance was not satisfactory, with only 4702 units sold in 2017.
It was also in this year that FAW decided to "use the strength of the whole group to support and build the Hongqi brand in multiple dimensions", abandon the image of the past "official car", and put down its body to build cars for the common people. Just after this decision, FAW continued to lead Hongqi Automobile to create a series of "miracles" with the courage to break the boat. In 2018, Hongqi's sales reached 33,000 units, 100,000 vehicles sold in 2019, and 200,000 vehicles in 2020, while in 2021, Hongqi's cumulative sales exceeded 300,000 vehicles, an increase of more than 50% year-on-year. Among them, more than 39,100 vehicles were sold in December, once again setting a new monthly record. As of December 24, 2021, the cumulative number of users has exceeded 600,000. Facts have proved that Hongqi has created an industrial miracle with 63 times growth in four years with its own practical efforts.
According to the disclosure of relevant information, Cadillac achieved cumulative sales of 233,117 vehicles in 2021, a year-on-year increase of not much; in addition, Lexus's performance in 2021 is not outstanding, according to the data, in October 2021, Lexus sales were only 8642 vehicles, a year-on-year plunge of 59%; in November 2021, Lexus sales of 12,366 vehicles, down 50.9% year-on-year. After two consecutive months of sales plunge, according to the latest statistics, Lexus sales in 2021 will be 201857 vehicles. From the comparison of data, it can be seen that the current sales volume of the Hongqi brand has far exceeded cadillac and Lexus, and if there is no accident, it has become a new "bellwether" of second-tier luxury cars.
It is worth mentioning that Wang Jianlin, who is as high as Ma Yun's level and is good at saying golden sentences, attended the strategic cooperation ceremony between Wanda Group and China FAW in October, and said at the event site that he would personally take the lead, and all the senior executives above the vice president of Wanda changed to Hongqi Motors, which could not help but remind people of: "First set a small goal, first earn him a hundred million", "Not big, not big, five hundred million, not big"... It can be said that it has caused quite a stir
Up to now, the Hongqi brand has formed a car family composed of E-QM5, H5, H7 and H9, and an SUV family composed of HS5, HS7, E-HS3 and E-HS9, and the product system covers the high-end market of 150,000-700,000 yuan. Among them, H5, HS5 and other car brands aimed at the young market have become the sales pillar of Hongqi. The Hongqi H9, which will be listed in 2020, is the first C-class sedan of China's own brand with a starting price of more than 300,000 yuan, and competes head-on with the Audi A6L, BMW 5 Series, and Mercedes-Benz C-Class, with sales of more than 40,000 vehicles in 2021, performing well.
Looking ahead, Hongqi Automobile is getting closer and closer to the brand sales target of 400,000 vehicles in 2022, 600,000 vehicles in 2025, and 800-1 million brand sales in 2030. With Hongqi Automobile recently opening its car experience store in Osaka, Japan for the first time, and plans to open a store in Tokyo, Japan in 2022, this also means that China is another domestic car brand, representing China to go abroad and go to the world. I wish hongqi automobile a more brilliant future, and I also wish that china has more domestic brands and can stand on the peak of the world in the future!