The recent year of 2021 has been an easy year for people all over the world. In the context of the epidemic has not subsided, many people's incomes have declined, and many bosses have a bad life.
But surprisingly, the world's top luxury goods are unique. Luxury giants such as Gucci, Chanel, Louis Vuitton, Cartier, and Tiffany have raised the price of their products several times last year, and at the beginning of the 2022 New Year, Rolex took the lead in announcing a global increase in the official price from January 1.
Not only luxury goods, but also luxury brands in the automotive sector. Bentley, Lamborghini, Porsche sales have also broken through the record high, the top market luxury car Rolls-Royce is directly breaking the century-old record.
So the question is, is not "business is getting harder and harder to do", why are luxury goods and luxury cars sold better?
Under high profits, "core panic" is not a problem
If you want to talk about the keywords of the car market in 2021, it is not "core panic". Under the situation of chip shortage, the sales of many hot models in the past have been slashed. The reason why ultra-luxury models can buck the trend and sell well is due to the strategy of car companies. As automakers prioritize scarce chips for the most profitable models, this allows ultra-luxury cars to virtually avoid the impact of the chip shortage.
For example, with the support of the Volkswagen Group, supercar manufacturer Lamborghini Gong set a new record in 2021: 8,405 cars were delivered worldwide, an increase of 13% year-on-year.
Coincidentally, Porsche and Bentley, which are also owned by Volkswagen, have also set records. First, Porsche, in 2021 sales also exceeded 300,000 units, an increase of nearly 30,000 units year-on-year, an increase of 11%, also set a historical record. It is worth mentioning that sales increased in all regions, the United States increased by more than 20%, Europe increased by 7%, China sales of nearly 96,000, an increase of 8%, accounting for one-third of global sales, is Porsche's largest single sales market.
On the Bentley side, 14,659 cars were sold in 2021, up 31 percent from 2020 and set a sales record for the company.
Alain Favey, head of sales at Bentley Brands, said: "The lack of cores has had almost no impact on us. "The Volkswagen Group has a highly centralized production process, and profit margins are one of the factors that determine distribution." From this point of view, we get the priority and are able to get the chip we want. ”
Of course, the most surprising thing is the famous top luxury car Rolls Royce. According to official data released by Rolls-Royce, a total of 5586 cars were sold in 2021, an increase of 49% year-on-year, which set a record for the company in 117 years.
In 2021, Rolls-Royce achieved sales growth in the global market, and many markets such as China, the United States, and the Asia-Pacific region achieved the best sales results in history. The most popular models are Gust and Cullinan, which account for 40% of sales. Cullinan's cheapest model is also priced at more than 6 million, with sales of more than 2,000 vehicles, and sales easily exceed 10 billion.
The hot sale of top luxury cars also shows that driven by high profits, the "core panic" problem that the industry is worried about is not a problem at all.
The trouble of rich people is that money cannot be spent
Back to the core question, why are ultra-luxury cars so good? Doesn't it mean that the epidemic has triggered an economic downturn, and many industries in many parts of the world have had a very difficult time? Why is there a record sales of all major super luxury cars?
Rolls-Royce CEO Tosten Miller-Utfords explained this, "The epidemic has made many consumers feel that their lives are shorter and they have to enjoy life, coupled with the reduction of spending in some aspects, many people will be more willing to pay for luxury cars." ”
However, in the eyes of Kung Fu Motors, Torsten Miller-Utefus's explanation should add premise, that is, "rich" consumers. In fact, the epidemic has also accelerated the polarization of the rich and the poor while affecting the economy, "creating" many upstarts, which has led to a wave of consumption of luxury models.
For example, according to reports by the American Institute for Policy and the American Tax Fairness Association, the total wealth of billionaires in the United States has increased by $2.1 trillion, or 70%, since the outbreak of the new crown epidemic last March. Among them, the total wealth of the top and middle layers has increased, but the wealth of the top layer has increased more obviously.
After the stock market crash in March last year, the wealth of the top rich rose sharply, and the wealth of the top 1% increased by $4 trillion, which is more than the wealth held by the 50% of Americans at the bottom of the social wealth that year combined. In fact, these data are very in line with the laws of economics, we start from the perspective of economics, the more economic is not good, in fact, the More obvious the Matthew effect, before the economic development is very good, due to the many opportunities, whether it is rich people or people without money can actually get benefits in economic development, this time on the contrary, the distribution of wealth will be more balanced, ordinary people can also make money.
However, in the event of a serious economic shock like the one after the epidemic, ordinary people will become poorer because it is increasingly difficult to make money, but it will be easier for the rich to make money from capital, which will lead to the polarization of the market.
The same is true of the continent. In the past two years, China's total consumption has been weak, but the demand for high-end consumption is strong, and China's rising affluent class has provided strong support for the high-end consumer market.
According to China Merchants Bank's "2021 China Private Wealth Report", the total scale of China's individual investable assets in 2020 reached 241 trillion yuan, and the number of Chinese high-net-worth individuals with investable assets of more than 10 million yuan reached 2.62 million, which is mainly due to the rapid appreciation of the capital market in the past two years, the recovery of the real estate market in first- and second-tier cities, and the emergence of new wealthy people under the acceleration of domestic and foreign IPOs.
In addition, during the epidemic period, traveling abroad is basically no play, and the young generation of rich people who have money and nowhere to spend have simply come to a shopping spree. Therefore, we can observe that whether it is luxury houses, luxury goods, or luxury cars such as Lamborghini, Rolls-Royce, Porsche, etc., there has been a rapid increase in sales.
Kung Fu shoots
The hot sales of luxury cars are the consumption trend of the current era, and it is also a kind of "helpless" export of money under various "restricted consumption". In addition, it also reflects that the "core panic" that has plagued the automobile market for a whole year is no longer a problem in the face of high profits.
In short, in any era, the happiness of rich people is always unimaginable to you.