Introduction: In 2021, Changan Group's sales will once again exceed 2 million vehicles. Among them, the sales volume of independent brands accounted for more than 76%, provoking the sales beam of Changan Group.
(Text/Yu Waijun Editor/Lou Bing) After a three-year adjustment period, Changan Automobile Group's sales volume in 2021 was 2.3 million units, an increase of 14.8% year-on-year, which is also the second consecutive year that the group's sales exceeded 2 million vehicles. Among them, the annual sales volume of Changan Chinese brand passenger cars in 2021 was about 1.2 million units, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year.
For this report card, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, said: "In the face of the lack of core and less electricity, repeated epidemics and intensified competition, Changan Automobile is undergoing transformation and reshaping, and has entered the moment of 'the most Chang'an'. ”
Pick the girder independently
In 2021, Changan Group's passenger car sales were 1.636 million units, up 20.21% year-on-year. Among them, the annual sales volume of Changan Group's own brands was about 1.2 million units, and the sales volume of joint venture brands was 436,000 units. From the perspective of the camp, the independent brand has carried the banner of Changan Group's passenger car business, accounting for 73.35% of sales.
As the main force of Changan Group's independent business segment, the Annual Sales volume of the Changan Brand was 982,000 units, an increase of 17.46% year-on-year. In the face of the dual pressure of the epidemic and chip shortage, the Changan brand has been able to maintain double-digit growth, mainly due to the pull of changan CS75 series, Changan CS55 Plus, Changan Yidong and UNI series.
Among them, Changan Yidong single-handedly carried the banner of the Changan brand in the car market, with annual sales of 170,000 vehicles.
In the field of SUVs, The Changan brand layout is relatively perfect and has created a number of explosive models. Among them, The Changan CS75 series and Changan CS55 PLUS models both have good market performance in their respective market segments, with sales of 280,000 units and 140,000 units respectively last year, an increase of 5.6% and 27.9% respectively.
In addition to the Chang'an brand, the Auchan brand, which focuses on cost performance, will also achieve a higher growth in 2021. Auchan brand sales reached 211,000 units last year, an increase of 51.8% over the same period in 2020, becoming a new growth point for Changan Group in the passenger car sector. However, at the moment when consumption is constantly upgrading, how far the Auchan brand that takes the cost-effective route can go in the future is still a question mark.
However, since 2017, Changan's joint venture sector has seen a sharp decline in sales for many years, and has gradually become a "drag oil bottle" of Changan Group.
Among them, Changan Ford's sales fell from 957,000 units at its peak to 214,000 units today, a drop of 77.64%. In the past five or six years, the Ford brand has not introduced new products and main sales models including the Focus to fully switch three-cylinder engines, which has become an important factor in the sharp decline in Sales of Changan Ford.
Changan Mazda is facing a similar dilemma, although the North and South Mazda achieved a merger last year, but Changan Mazda and Mazda in the Chinese market are still deeply mired in the dilemma of declining sales. According to the data, Mazda's sales in the Chinese market in 2021 were 184,000 units, down 14.3% year-on-year. Among them, Changan Mazda's annual sales volume was 131,000 units, down 4.8% year-on-year.
In the view of industry insiders, although the resources of Mazda are more concentrated after the merger of the north and south Mazda, the slow iteration of Mazda's products in the Chinese market will not change essentially: in 2020, Mazda has announced that it will not launch new models before 2023, and will only launch some annual models and minor modifications. After the merger, Changan Mazda did not escape the fate of decline.
Compared with Changan Ford and Changan Mazda, Changan Lincoln has become the only joint venture business of Changan Group to achieve significant growth. For the full year of 2021, Changan Lincoln sold 88,000 units, up 124.5% year-on-year. With the help of the Changan Lincoln brand, the Lincoln brand's sales in the Chinese market climbed to 91,000 units last year.
It should be pointed out that the sales growth of Changan Lincoln is based on the use of the localization process, the use of "high to fight low" and low price competition to achieve. As the competition in China's auto market gradually changes from an incremental market to a stock market, the competition in the luxury car market will gradually become fierce, and it is still very difficult for Changan Lincoln to further break through.
The road to high-end is frustrated
Although Changan Group achieves rapid sales growth in 2021, behind the high growth, Changan Group still has near-term worries and long-term concerns.
Up to now, the product layout of the Changan brand is mainly concentrated in the low-end market, including the current price of major models such as Yidong and Changan CS55 Plus, which are mainly concentrated in the market range below 100,000 yuan. Although the price of the Changan CS75 series exceeded the threshold of 100,000 yuan, it still failed to break through the threshold of 150,000 yuan.
Even as a high-end sequence under the Changan brand, the price of UNI series models is still concentrated in the market range of 100,000 yuan to 150,000 yuan, which is easy to form an embarrassing situation of internal friction with Changan CS75 series. In contrast, the mainstream price of the products of the Lynk & Co brand and the WEY brand, which also takes the high-end route, is in the market of 150,000 yuan and above.
It should be pointed out that although the sales volume of the UNI series in 2021 reached a record high of 120,000 units, achieving a year-on-year increase of 74.97%, it has begun to show growth weakness. In the second half of 2020, the average monthly sales of the UNI series with the UNI-T model exceeded 10,000; by 2021, the monthly sales of the UNI series after the addition of UNI-K will barely reach 10,000 units per month.
Too many product layouts in the low-end market, so that even if the Changan brand has a number of explosive models, its profitability still has not brought much improvement, but also led to the Changan brand's premium ability is not as good as Geely, Great Wall and other independent brands. The lack of profitability of the independent business and the joint venture business has made Changan Group's profit decline in the past four years.
According to the data, during the period from 2017 to 2020, the net profit of Changan Group was 7.137 billion yuan, 681 million yuan, -2.647 billion yuan and 3.324 billion yuan, respectively. Among them, the net profit growth of Changan Group in 2020 was mainly due to the profit of 1.4 billion yuan from the sale of Changan Peugeot Citroen brand and the profit from holding NINGDE times shares of 1.2 billion yuan.
In terms of new energy, the current sales volume of Changan New Energy mainly comes from the micro-electric vehicle Changan Benben E-Star, accounting for more than 70% of sales. For the full year last year, Changan Benz E-Star sold 76,000 units, up 318.7% year-on-year. Relying solely on micro-electric vehicles, Changan Automobile obviously cannot compete with other independent brands or even joint venture brands in the field of new energy.
In the past two years, independent brands have launched high-end new energy brands to the mid-to-high-end new energy market, including Geely's launch of Extreme Kr and Dongfeng Motor's creation of Lantu. Compared with the above-mentioned independent brands, the launch speed of Changan Automobile's high-end new energy brands and products is much slower. Behind the unsympathetic rhythm of the impact on the high-end market of new energy is the lack of capital reserves and new energy core technology accumulation of Changan Automobile.
In order to impact the high-end new energy market, Changan Automobile finally chose to cooperate with Huawei and CATL. In 2020, the three parties jointly released the intelligent architecture Ark and the CHN architecture of the intelligent electric networked vehicle platform, and will build three major electric platforms including EPA0, EPA1 and EPA2 based on the two major architectures.
Until 2021, Changan Automobile joined hands with Huawei and CATL to jointly launch the high-end electric brand Avita and released the first model, Avita 11. Although the three-party cooperation can alleviate the pressure on Changan in terms of funds, it will also lead to Changan Automobile's control of new energy core technologies is not as good as that of INDEPENDENT brands such as BYD, Geely and Great Wall. It is worth mentioning that in the field of new energy, there are no successful cases of multi-party joint development, which undoubtedly adds more uncertainty to the future of the Avita brand.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer Network and may not be reproduced without authorization.