"The production and sales of China's auto market are currently at the end of short-term adjustments, and will maintain a moderate growth trend in the future." After rising against the trend in 2021, it is generally believed that the automotive industry will continue to pick up this year.
In 2018, China's auto market began to decline for the first time in 28 years, and sales in the domestic auto market fell by 2.8%, 8.2% and 1.9% respectively from 2018 to 2020. After three consecutive years of decline, China's auto market will finally return to positive growth in 2021. According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (hereinafter referred to as "CAAM"), the production and sales of automobiles in mainland China reached 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units in 2021, up 3.4% and 3.8% year-on-year, respectively.
In the past year, the domestic automobile market has been affected by the repeated scattering points of the local epidemic, the continuous shortage of chips, the rise in raw material prices and other factors, although the annual market growth rate did not reach the expectation of 4%, but the overall automobile market showed a steady and increasing development trend. Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, predicts that domestic automobiles will continue to grow in 2022, and total sales are expected to increase by about 5%.
However, with the upgrading of the automobile industry, the domestic automobile market is also facing policy adjustments such as the liberalization of the joint venture share ratio of passenger cars and the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles, which will also bring new challenges.
Keywords are stable and increasing
The share of self-owned brand passenger cars rose to a record high
In view of the annual automobile sales in 2021, the China Automobile Association concluded that in the first quarter, due to the low base in the same period, the automobile market showed rapid growth year-on-year, the growth rate in the second quarter declined, and the third quarter was most affected by the lack of chip supply, and there was a sharp decline. In contrast, the fourth quarter recovered significantly, better than expected, ensuring a good development trend of steady growth throughout the year.
According to the automobile industry prosperity evaluation index system, the ACI of China's automobile industry prosperity index in the four quarters of 2021 was 80, 74, 9 and 28 respectively. The first two quarters were in the hot range, the third quarter fell into the supercooling range, and the fourth quarter returned to the cooling range.
From the perspective of the development of the whole year last year, domestic automobiles have shown several obvious characteristics, among which the market share of independent brands has exceeded 44%, close to the best level in history. Shell financial reporter combed and saw that the performance of the passenger car market in 2021 was affected by the continuous shortage of chips, but under the chip shortage crisis, independent brands with differentiated product positioning and more flexible response mechanisms, the impact suffered by independent brands was smaller than that of joint venture brands, driving the market share of independent brands.
The China Automobile Dealers Association said that the independent brand industry chain has a strong ability to cope with chip shortages, effectively resolving the pressure of chip shortages.
According to the China Automobile Association, the cumulative sales of self-owned brand passenger cars in 2021 were 9.543 million units, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year, and the market share increased by 6.0 percentage points over the same period last year to 44.4%.
In addition, driven by the recovery of the international market and the improvement of the competitiveness of Chinese brands, mainland automobile exports in 2021 have performed well, breaking historical records many times since April. According to data from the China Automobile Association, the export volume of automobiles in 2021 was 2.015 million units, an increase of 1 times year-on-year, accounting for 7.7% of total automobile sales, an increase of 3.7 percentage points over the previous year. It is worth noting that this is the first time that the mainland's automobile export volume has exceeded 2 million units, achieving a breakthrough of 1 million vehicles that has been hovering for many years.
Fu Bingfeng analyzed that China's automobile is entering a stage of global development, and automobile exports have shown multiple bright spots. First of all, the exports of Chinese brand automobile enterprises have shown rapid growth. Secondly, the export volume of passenger cars and commercial vehicles has grown rapidly, passenger cars have increased by 1.1 times, and SUVs occupy an absolute dominant position, indicating that Chinese brands have more competitive advantages in SUV models. Third, the export of new energy vehicles showed explosive growth, with an increase of 3 times, the most prominent performance. Finally, the direct investment model has played an important role, and in recent years, independent brands have accelerated their layout in overseas markets.
Keywords: Electrification
New energy vehicles have become "stable man", driving the automobile market to accelerate the transformation to new energy
In the industry's view, under the supply chain crisis such as chip shortage, the domestic automobile market can still maintain positive growth, behind which is the contribution of new energy vehicles.
The China Automobile Association said that in the domestic automobile market in 2021, new energy vehicles have become the biggest highlight, and the new energy vehicle market has shifted from policy-driven to market-driven, showing a good development situation of double improvement in market scale and development quality. According to data from the China Automobile Association, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 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.
It is worth mentioning that at the beginning of 2021, the China Automobile Association predicted that the sales of new energy vehicles in 2021 would be 1.8 million units, an increase of 40% year-on-year. Since then, as the sales of new energy vehicles have risen rapidly every month, the China Automobile Association has repeatedly raised its forecast, raising its annual sales forecast to more than 3 million units in November.
"At present, consumers in first-tier cities have a strong desire to buy new energy vehicles, and at the same time, through new energy vehicles going to the countryside and other ways, they are also more popular in the sinking market, and the acceptance of new energy vehicles as a whole continues to increase." Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, analyzed in an interview with Shell Financial Reporter that at the same time, new energy vehicles are generally intelligent and highly networked, which also attracts young consumers to buy to a certain extent.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the National Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Association, told Shell Financial Reporter that the trend of new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles has formed a strong differentiation characteristic, realizing the partial substitution effect of new energy vehicles on the fuel vehicle market. The user's market-oriented choice proves the change in consumer demand and accelerates the transformation of the automobile market to new energy.
Guo Shougang, deputy director of the First Department of Equipment Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, said that new energy vehicles in the mainland have entered a new stage of accelerated development, and the leading role in the electrification transformation of the global automotive industry has been further enhanced.
Fu Bingfeng predicts that new energy vehicles will reach 5 million in 2022, an increase of 42% year-on-year, and the market share is expected to exceed 18%. In contrast, the forecast of the Association is more optimistic, and the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles in China are expected to exceed 6 million in 2022, and the market penetration rate is about 22%. Among them, the cumulative sales of new energy passenger cars in China will exceed 5.5 million units, and the market penetration rate will reach about 25%.
For the prediction of the new energy vehicle market, Cui Dongshu explained that based on the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles in 2022, although the subsidy has declined by 30%, while maintaining the current purchase subsidy technical indicator system framework and threshold requirements unchanged, the subsidy scale has also changed from the original expected upper limit of 2 million vehicles to no limit, and will achieve subsidies throughout 2022. In addition, the termination of subsidies for new energy vehicles at the end of 2022 will also prompt potential consumers to buy cars during the year to enjoy subsidies, so the overall will bring a huge increase to the new energy vehicle market.
However, there are also views in the industry that the development of new energy vehicles cannot only look at the increase in sales. Li Bingyang, director of the market data room of China Automobile Data Co., Ltd., said that from the current development of the new energy vehicle market, there is a strong trend of weak in the middle and two ends, and there are hidden dangers in this trend.
He further explained that in the fuel vehicle market, A-class cars have always been the main consumer goods, and the proportion of personal consumption is basically 91%. However, in the field of new energy vehicles, 95% of the A00-level market is personal consumption, while only 56% of the A-level market is personal consumption, and if the new energy vehicle market wants to make a qualitative leap in the future, it must occupy the main consumption position in the A-class car market.
In addition, Guo Shougang also believes that the current development of the new energy vehicle industry is facing new problems such as supply security risks in the industrial chain and increasing pressure on international competition, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology will formulate a series of policy measures to support the accelerated development of new energy vehicles in the next step to maintain the effective convergence of the policy system.
Keywords and potential for this year
Full-year sales are expected to grow by 5%, facing the challenge of policy adjustment
Although the domestic auto market has maintained a stable and increasing development trend, the supply of automotive chips is still obviously tight, raw material prices have not yet stabilized, and whether the domestic auto market will continue the growth trend in 2021 this year has also become the focus.
"Based on the prediction of major vehicle companies, mathematical model analysis and the research results of various relevant institutions, we make a basic judgment that China's auto market will continue to grow in 2022." Fu Bingfeng said.
Regarding the favorable factors for the continuation of the growth trend of the domestic automobile market, Fu Bingfeng said that first, the long-term macroeconomic fundamentals of the mainland will not change, ensuring the sustained growth of the automobile market. Second, the automobile market has great potential, the demand is still strong, especially the continuous improvement of consumer acceptance of new energy and intelligent networked vehicles, and the rapid development of the industrialization of new energy vehicles have jointly promoted the development of the automobile market. Third, the normalization of epidemic prevention and control, the market impact brought by the epidemic has gradually weakened. Fourth, with the gradual easing of chip shortages, the supply capacity of automobiles will be further released.
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that overseas market demand will still maintain rapid growth, and it will also become one of the factors driving the overall sales growth of automobiles.
For the forecast of the domestic automobile market this year, the China Automobile Association said that the total sales of mainland automobiles this year are expected to reach 27.5 million units, an increase of about 5% year-on-year. Among them, passenger cars were 23 million units, up 7% year-on-year, and commercial vehicles were 4.5 million units, down 6% year-on-year. In addition, new energy vehicles will reach 5 million units, an increase of 42% year-on-year, and the market share is expected to exceed 18%. The China Automobile Association expects that the growth rate of automobile exports will be around 20%.
However, it is worth noting that with the upgrading of the automobile industry, the current domestic automobile market is facing new challenges brought about by policy adjustments such as the liberalization of the joint venture share ratio of passenger cars and the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles.
The industry believes that with the 30% decline in subsidies for new energy vehicles in 2022 and the official termination at the end of the year, the competitiveness of some new energy automobile enterprises will decline significantly, and it will also bring certain pressure to the profitability of new energy automobile enterprises, requiring enterprises to pay more attention to product quality and create product competitiveness.
In addition, on January 1 this year, the restriction on foreign ownership in passenger car manufacturing and the restriction that the same foreign investor can establish two or less joint ventures in China to produce similar vehicle products, which means that the red line of the joint venture that has lasted for nearly three decades of foreign ownership ratio of no more than 50% has disappeared, and the mainland automotive industry has completely opened up to the outside world.
The liberalization of the joint venture share ratio means that independent brands will face more severe competition, and joint venture brands will fall into the game of share ratios. At present, the brands involved in the adjustment of the share ratio include bmw brilliance, Volkswagen Anhui, Dongfeng Yueda Kia and other joint venture companies. Xu Haidong said, "In the first year of the opening of the joint venture share ratio, in addition to the changes in the share ratio of several joint ventures that have been agreed upon, there will be no more major changes. ”
After the joint venture share ratio is liberalized, the adjustment of the share ratio is no longer limited by time, and the joint venture brand will inevitably fall into the game of the share ratio in the future. However, Autohome auto analyst Zheng Yi and other industry insiders believe that the liberalization of the joint venture stock ratio has a stimulating effect on the development of the domestic automobile market and is conducive to enhancing the development of independent brands.
Despite the policy changes, the industry believes that it will not affect the trend of the domestic automobile market. In the long run, caucus is optimistic about the development of the auto market during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, and it is expected that the sales volume of the Chinese auto market is expected to reach about 30 million units by 2025. Among them, passenger car sales will reach about 25.26 million units, and commercial vehicle sales will reach about 4.75 million units.
Chen Shihua believes that although the mainland automobile market has fluctuated in 2018, throughout history, developed countries in automobiles have also fluctuated for about 2-4 years in the popularization stage. From the perspective of long-term development, the current Chinese market is still in the transition stage from the early stage of popularization to the late stage of popularization, and the sales of new cars have gradually shifted from the incremental market to the stock market.
Beijing News shell financial reporter Wang Linlin Editor Wang Jinyu Proofreader Jia Ning
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