The shortage of chips, which has a significant impact on China's auto market, improved in December 2021.
According to the production and sales data of the Passenger Car Market Information Association (hereinafter referred to as the Passenger Car Association), in December 2021, the sales volume of domestic narrow passenger cars reached 2.3667 million units, an increase of 2.3% year-on-year, and in terms of production, the cumulative production of narrow passenger cars in December was 2.4657 million units, an increase of 4.2% year-on-year.
"Since December, the number of manufacturers has increased a lot, and some of the previous backlog of orders has been released." The sales manager of a 4S store of a head independent brand in Shanghai told the first financial reporter. According to the China Automobile Dealers Association, the inventory coefficient of automobile dealers in December was 1.43, up 5.9% month-on-month, but still down 20.6% year-on-year. The China Automobile Dealers Association believes that although the chip shortage problem eased in the fourth quarter, dealers actively prepared inventory to make inventory levels pick up, but it was not as low as the inventory level of previous years, at a historical low in the past three years.
Judging from last year's production data, compared with September and October, when the chip shortage was more serious, most car companies in December achieved a rebound in production data.
From the perspective of different brands and camps, the production reduction of luxury brand car companies has been alleviated. FAW-Volkswagen Audi, which has been plagued by production cuts in the past six months, narrowed its December production decline to 0.7%, compared with the year-on-year cut of more than 60% in September; Volvo, which also cut production by nearly 60% in September, also narrowed its year-on-year production decline to 15.9% in December; Beijing Benz's December products fell 13.1% year-on-year. In contrast, BMW Brilliance and Changan Lincoln continued to maintain a good production growth trend, and the sales volume of the two car companies in December increased by more than 20% year-on-year, of which Changan Lincoln production increased by 43.5% year-on-year.
BMW has been performing relatively solidly in a core-starved environment, and Volkswagen Group CEO Herbert Diess has said that BMW has performed better in the chip crisis and has long worked more closely with semiconductor manufacturers. Even in September and October, when the lack of core was the most serious, BMW still maintained positive growth in production, and thanks to stable supply chain performance, BMW won the domestic luxury car sales championship again in 2021, and opened the gap with the second-place Mercedes-Benz to nearly 80,000 vehicles.
Thanks to the recovery of production capacity, in the process of visiting luxury brand dealers, a number of sales consultants told reporters that the preferential margins of some best-selling products have returned to the normal level of previous years. Due to the shortage of new cars in October and November last year, some luxury brand used cars remained high, and even the price of new cars was reversed. Recently, some second-hand car dealers told reporters that the current price of luxury brand second-hand cars has fallen, and the price of some models has fallen by more than 10%.
In terms of joint venture brands, the joint venture brands that are more seriously troubled by chips also ushered in a "stop-down rebound" in December. FaW-Volkswagen production fell by 2.1% year-on-year in December, the company's production fell by nearly 40% year-on-year in November, faw-Volkswagen's Audi and Volkswagen dual brands both achieved a significant narrowing of production declines, and another joint venture of Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen, saw a 10.9% year-on-year increase in production in December and 18% year-on-year in November, but it is worth noting that the Škoda brand's products in December still fell by 68.7% year-on-year. U.S. joint venture car companies such as Changan Ford and SAIC-GM also achieved a month-on-month increase in December.
Japanese brands with a relatively robust supply chain system saw some differentiation in December. FAW Toyota, GAC Toyota and GAC Honda all rose by more than 10% year-on-year in December, of which GAC Toyota rose by 26.5%, and dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda, two Japanese joint ventures, both fell in December, with output falling by 9.7% and 34.6% respectively.
The relevant person in charge of Dongfeng Honda told reporters: "Due to the flood in Malaysia, there was a shortage of parts and components, which in turn caused the decline in production in December. ”
Compared with overseas brands, the impact of supply chain shortage on independent brands is relatively small. In December, BYD continued to perform far above the industry average, with output increasing by 73.7% year-on-year, but the month-on-month growth rate narrowed. In 2021, the three head independent brands that produced and sold more than one million units also showed a completely different trend in december's production performance: Geely Automobile's December production fell by 1.5% year-on-year, and the decline in production was further reduced compared with previous months; Great Wall Motor's production in December achieved a positive growth of 7.9%, and Changan Automobile's output in December fell sharply by 31% year-on-year. Changan Automobile said that the decline in sales in December was affected by the "lack of core and less electricity".
Judging from the production data of mainstream car companies, most car companies have improved their production in December, but the problem of chip shortage has not been completely solved. Some industry insiders analyzed that the domestic automobile production data in December improved, on the one hand, the supply of chips increased, on the other hand, overseas car companies in December were affected by the epidemic, Christmas holidays, etc., and the demand for parts decreased.
Recently, Toyota Motor motor said that due to the shortage of automotive chips and other parts, the production capacity of Toyota's Japanese plant will be affected, and the global production plan will be reduced from 700,000 units to 550,000 units in February.
Li Shaohua, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Association, believes that from the previous mismatch of demand to the current panic scramble for resources, the recovery cycle of shortages will be extended. Coupled with the fact that the global epidemic is not completely controlled, the impact will still occur everywhere. To be truly alleviated, upstream capacity needs to be formed. The chip industry began to invest in the layout at the end of 2020, and it will take at least more than 1 year to form a production capacity, that is to say, the shortage of automotive chips will basically be fundamentally alleviated until the second half of this year.