In 2021, the Honda brand seems to have developed too smoothly, but it has not had the enviable situation of previous years. In 2021, national car sales increased by 5% year-on-year, but the Honda brand failed to outperform the car market. Although there is no obvious prominence at the brand level, it has not encountered netizen thunderstorms; there are not too many explosive models at the product level, and the product strength of each car is not bad, just like a hello, hello, hello, everyone's good state. Coupled with the global "lack of cores" and the high manufacturing costs of raw materials, the sales volume has been affected. Just at the end of the year, we will review the 2021 year of the Honda brand in China from the three aspects of sales, new product planning and key events.
● Honda's sales in China in 2021: restricted by chips, but strong ability to resist blows
According to the official sales data, Honda China's sales in 2021: 1.5615 million units, down 4% year-on-year. Specifically, the total sales of Guangqi Honda in 2021 is 768,200 units, while the sales of Dongfeng Honda are 793,300 vehicles, the gap between the two is not large, and it is considered to be stable and progressive as a whole. Vehicles equipped with the SPORT HYBRID hybrid system achieved full-year terminal sales of 233,801 units, an increase of 16.0% over the same period, setting a record for the highest terminal sales of hybrid models in history. The main reason for honda's sales decline is affected by the shortage of components, of which chip shortage should be Honda's most "headache" problem.
Looking at the 2021 sales data alone, you can't do any comparison. Let's take a look at Toyota's sales data in China in 2020 and 2019. In 2020, Honda sold more than 1.62 million units in China, 809,000 units at GUANGQI Honda and 850,000 units at Dongfeng Honda, while in 2019, Honda's sales figures were 1.554 million units, up 8.53% year-on-year, GUANGC Honda had 788,900 units, and Dongfeng Honda had 765,500 units. The gap between Guangqi Honda and Dongfeng Honda has been narrowing, thanks to Honda's "sister twin car" development strategy that began in the domestic market.
In terms of Hiromoto, accord is still the main model of GUANGQI Honda, with cumulative sales of 201,301 units in the whole year. As the sister car of cr-V, Honda Haoying also performed well in 2021, reaching 166,240 vehicles. Binzhi's cumulative sales for the year were 173,870 vehicles, and Fit's sales reached 96,326 vehicles.
In terms of Dongfeng Honda, CR-V accounted for the largest proportion of sales, with cumulative sales of 222,325 units in the whole year, and it is also the sales champion of the joint venture brand SUV. In addition, XR-V and Civic sales were 191417 and 166127 units respectively, which were equally eye-catching in the same segment. In terms of MPV, Alissen sold 52,200 vehicles, and won the first title of MPV retention rate.
● 2021 Honda new car products combing
Guangqi Honda hopes that the type can replicate the success of Haoying and further improve the product layout of Guangqi Honda. As a model of the same origin as the Civic, the price of guangqi Honda model has become the key product competitiveness.
In 2021, most of the models honda launched in the Chinese market are actually mid-term redesigns, and the new models are only the eleventh generation Civic and model. Mid-term modifications to Accord and redesigned INSPIRE, mid-term redesign of Odyssey and renamed Alexander iterative replacement, with intensive products to occupy a fuller market segment. Next, Honda will also focus on the new energy market. In addition to deeply cultivating the sharp and hybrid brand, allowing more models to carry Honda's latest oil-electric hybrid technology, and enjoy the low fuel consumption and high power output performance brought by technology, in this year's Honda e:N brand product matrix, Dongfeng Honda's e:NS1 and Guangqi Honda's e:NP1 will be introduced to the market.
● 2021 brand event node
(1) Pure electric "e: N" brand
Although Honda brand models are in the fuel vehicle market and the hybrid car market, with product reputation and even fans' consistent trust in the Honda brand, they have been widely recognized by new and old car owners. However, in the future development, in the face of the general trend of the industry as a whole to electrification, almost all car companies are sparing no effort to transform. Perhaps in the eyes of many radicals, Honda is a bit "lazy" in planning future products, and there is no real pure electric vehicle in 2021. In fact, Honda has been experimenting with HEV technology in the Chinese market since a long time, and has clarified the strategy of gradually developing based on HEV. Now to flip through Honda's models on sale, Dongfeng Honda and Guangqi Honda have achieved full coverage of cars, SUVs and MPV hybrids.
It's just that we have to follow the times and fully promote the road of electrification transformation. To this end, Honda once said at the electric strategy conference that in the future, the sales of pure electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles will reach 40% in 2030 and 100% in 2040. The most important work is to promote the pure electric "e: N" brand, and it is reported that Honda will launch 10 pure electric vehicles in the Chinese market in the next five years.
The "e:N" brand provides "e:N Architecture F" and "e:N Architecture W" two different driving methods of intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture. Among them, those with the suffix "F" will be installed in small and medium-sized cars, while those ending with "W" will be applied on medium and large vehicles. Guangqi Honda introduced the e:N brand and launched the honda brand's first pure electric vehicle e:NP1; Dongfeng Honda launched the e:NS1. Both models are positioned as pure electric SUV models, based on the e:N Architecture F platform architecture, and will be available this spring.
Both cars equipped with Honda e: N OS full-stack intelligent control ecosystem can also be regarded as product highlights.
Honda e:N OS Full Stack Smart Control Ecosystem is an operating system developed for the new pure electric model, equipped with advanced HMI system, with the largest 15.2-inch HD ultra-thin bezel central control screen in its class, and a 10.25-inch color full LCD digital instrument cluster. Honda CONNCET 3.0 pure electric vehicle special version, a collection of natural and smooth AI voice assistant, car home interconnection, energy management, OTA online upgrade and other more than 20 functions. In addition, the digital key with the mobile phone as the terminal, the door, window, air conditioner, etc. are remotely controlled, and the keyless start can be carried out through the mobile phone. However, these seemingly fancy functions of domestic cars Weilai, Xiaopeng, ideal can do; on the power performance and endurance level, BYD blade batteries and self-developed chips have overwhelming technical advantages; in the joint venture brand, the Volkswagen ID. series customer volume is not on the same line as Honda. The problems facing Honda are not small.
(2) User marketing
Pay attention to user experience, create user emotional resonance, and do user experience marketing. In this matter, the Broad Book Dream Festival is definitely a textbook representative. Through strong brand appeal, GUANGQI Honda continues to cultivate users and establish links with users with rich activities and marketing initiatives. Honda's "Dream Festival" is jointly created by the brand and users, held for three consecutive years, and has become a phenomenon-level automotive culture carnival in the industry. An event attracted the attention of 8.5 million + Guangqi Honda car owners across the country, and the owners and fans of Tiannanhaibei went to the scene together, and more than 1,000 Guangqi Honda vehicles gathered to talk about modification, racing, motorcycle, and two-dimensional culture, making playing with cars become the most fashionable urban synonym. At the same time, Guangqi Honda also established an automotive culture organization "Dream Club" to work with local auto culture opinion leaders, car owners and fans who are keen on auto culture to promote the development of local auto culture.
Based on the continuous deepening of user reputation and fan economy, Guangqi Honda gives car owners the care and service guarantee of the whole cycle of the car, so it has won the J.D. Power sales satisfaction, after-sales service satisfaction, new car quality and dealer satisfaction of the champion Grand Slam, becoming the trust choice of users.
The 2022 Honda new car plan exposed on the Internet
summary:
Steady and steady, it can indeed be used to describe the pace of Honda's development in China. Each of the brand's star models can achieve stable monthly sales fluctuations and occupy the top spot in their respective market segments. But this steady attitude is not necessarily an advantage, in the face of the wave of electrification in 2021, as a representative of japanese brands, Honda continues to cultivate the fuel vehicle market, oil-electric hybrid is the main development direction, but the rapid development of the electric vehicle market is delayed in layout. The product did not have eye-catching performance, and near the end of the year, it only released a new e:N brand, if it cannot quickly reverse the situation, Honda will lose at the starting line on the track of new energy. It is hoped that with the launch of the new generation of Civic hatchbacks, Civic TYPE R and new CR-V, e:NS 1 and other models in China in 2022, it will bring new sales growth to Honda in the fuel vehicle and pure electric markets.