Written by | Chen Hao, Zhao Lingwei
Edit | Yang Guang
Produced | Automotive Sankei
In 2021, domestic automobile production and sales have reversed the downward trend of three years, the year-on-year growth has turned from negative to positive, and the expectation of the Automobile Association for this year's automobile market is "stable and good", and it is expected to surpass last year's annual sales.
However, Shen Jinjun, president of the China Automobile Dealers Association, has a different view, he believes that the situation in the automobile market is still very severe, and it is not a good one. "This year is characterized by the spread of the epidemic at many points, coupled with disasters such as heavy rains, as well as some geopolitical reasons, which have made the automotive supply chain deteriorate, and the external environment of the automotive market is extremely complicated."
Shen Jinjun is the president of the China Automobile Flow Association
In order to interpret the complexity of the auto market in 2021, he used four dimensions of data decline to explain -
The first data is the year-on-year change in monthly vehicle purchase tax for 2021 published by the Ministry of Finance. Except for the year-on-year growth rate maintained at a high level in the first quarter of 2021 (due to the severity of the epidemic in the same period of 2020 and the almost total stagnation of auto trading), only June after April was upward, and the rest declined month by month.
Purchase tax is a necessary cost for the purchase of fuel vehicles at this stage, and is an important indicator to judge the automobile market. Even under the epidemic in 2020, this part of the income is oversized the annual task, but this year it has not completed the task.
"Tomorrow (January 20) the treasury's full-year data will come out, and I believe it will also be a year-on-year decline of about 20%. The decline is so great that it's rare in these years."
The second data is the total retail sales of consumer goods in the automotive category.
From the perspective of total retail sales of automotive consumer goods, this year's trend is roughly the same as the purchase tax, but the decline is not significant, the main reason is that the Ministry of Finance, the State Administration of Taxation, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in order to support the development of the new energy automobile industry, from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022, the purchase of new energy vehicles are exempt from vehicle purchase tax. This year, the new energy market has maintained a high growth trend, so the total retail sales of automotive consumer goods show a relatively moderate downward trend in the market.
The third is the retail sales data of the multiplying association, the first quarter is also a peak, into the second quarter began to decline all, the second half of the year is mostly in a negative year-on-year growth trend. The passenger car market sales increased by 860,000 units for the whole year, of which new energy vehicles increased by 1.88 million units and fuel vehicles decreased by 1.02 million units.
In addition, there is the growth rate of total profits in the automobile manufacturing industry, in January to October 2021, the total profit of the automobile industry showed a negative growth state, after entering November, the total cumulative profit ushered in a more substantial year-on-year decline.
"The trend of the above data is almost exactly the same, with a downward trend throughout the year. So for the overall auto market in 2021, it is very severe from the perspective of circulation."
But in such a severe situation, there is no lack of bright spots, Shen Jinjun proposed three subdivisions to maintain growth in 2021 - the first is new energy vehicles, last year's passenger car increment is all contributed by new energy vehicles, it can be preliminarily judged that the market for preliminary oil vehicles has peaked, and the future growth of automobiles depends on new energy vehicles; the second is second-hand cars, and the second is second-hand cars, and the second is that the second-hand car transaction volume last year was 17.58 million, an increase of 22%. According to the data of the Ministry of Public Security, the number of transfers of vehicles in use is greater than the number of license plates on new cars; the third is the automobile export market.
For the expectations of the auto market in 2022, Shen Jinjun believes that the market demand is still not optimistic.
Regarding the external environment, he mentioned the 2021 financial statistics conference held by the New Office of the State Council on January 18. At the meeting, Liu Guoqiang, deputy governor of the central bank, said that Liu Guoqiang said that the current economy is facing triple pressure, and before the downward pressure on the economy is fundamentally alleviated, "stability" itself is the biggest "advance".
Shen Jinjun further interpreted the difficulties of the automobile circulation industry under three pressures.
First, the contraction of demand, the epidemic in the past two years has made it difficult for a large number of small and medium-sized enterprises to sustain, and a considerable number of people facing economic instability are potential automobile consumers in the past. Under the influence of the epidemic, although the luxury car and ultra-luxury car market continues to grow rapidly, the demand for popular car purchases has been seriously weakened. Second, supply shock, chip shortage. Third, expectations have weakened. Everyone is not optimistic about the future benefits."
"These three judgments are also appropriate in the automotive industry."