Text | Warm breeze
It's time for the year-end inventory again, when you see the word "SAIC" in the title, I don't know how you will feel?
In 2021, SAIC Motor sold 5.46 million vehicles for the whole year, which was still affected by the epidemic and "slightly fell" by 2.45% year-on-year. If calculated by the sales achievement rate, SAIC Motor is still 710,000 away from the target of 6.17 million in 2021, that is, there is a gap of more than 11%.
Public opinion's evaluation of SAIC often shows a sharp or supportive trend, such as "the market value is only one-third of BYD", "the king of joint ventures", or "the top pillar of China's automobile industry", "strong family foundation"...
It is undeniable that SAIC Motor is the first Chinese car company in the world's top 500 list, and it has won the chinese automobile sales championship for 16 consecutive years, accounting for more than a quarter of China's passenger car sales. Any one-sided generalization or summary of this giant ship is inappropriate.
So today, when we take stock of SAIC's overall performance in 2021, I think it is still around some objective figures to explore some deeper reasons behind it.
Joint venture brand sales down 11.43%
If the lost sales in 2020 can be attributed to the impact of the epidemic, then on the basis of 2020, there has still been a double-digit percentage decline in sales, which can be regarded as a warning for SAIC's joint venture car companies.
Last year, the reason for the lack of sales in the entire industry was the lack of cores. This is an objective fact, but the two trends behind the word "lack of core" can better restore the current market appearance of these two car companies.
The first is the relationship between the batch of retail figures, especially SAIC Volkswagen, which digested more than 231,000 inventories last year, so from the current news, the decline in the number of insurance on the retail side is about 3.2%. The sales volume of SAIC-GM's terminal last year was basically controlled by about 6.8% compared with the previous year, which was not as shocking as the wholesale digital decline. However, compared with last year's 6.5% sales growth of passenger cars, the market share of SAIC's joint venture brands has declined to a certain extent.
Secondly, the same is the lack of core, some car companies lack of core can generously increase prices, and these phenomena have hardly happened to the two joint ventures of SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM.
In the middle of 2021, a friend who was engaged in dealer management in SAIC Volkswagen quietly told me that although the store is indeed "difficult to find a car" now, no user wants to cut in the queue through "mark-up", and his desire to restore the terminal price system by taking advantage of the lack of core has failed. The feedback from SAIC-GM terminals last year was also more or less the same.
This shows that for SAIC's joint venture car companies, the user's own base plate has been locked, and the user's expectation of the brand premium is not very strong. Consuming users in the stock market is like exhausting fish.
Therefore, the topic that this set of figures wants to talk about is, why the advantages of SAIC's two major joint venture profit pillars in today's market environment are not so obvious?
This matter can be talked about in three dimensions.
First of all, the car is not good to sell.
Although passenger car sales stopped falling for the first time last year, and even recovered to more sales than in 2019, the growth of new energy vehicles has whitewashed the decline of fuel vehicles. There are huge differences between the two types of models in terms of regional distribution of sales and distribution of price ranges. If you remove the "lack of core" factor, you will find that the new fuel car itself is not easy to sell.
Why are fuel vehicles becoming harder to sell? If you use the number of thousands of cars in developed countries to push back the space of the Chinese market, it is tantamount to "carving a boat and seeking a sword". China's unique degree of urbanization and population density are destined to give more to public transportation.
In 2021, the number of cars per thousand in China is about 213.8, and according to EY Consulting's previous internal estimates, the upper limit of car ownership in China is about 290. Superimposed on the gradual disappearance of the demographic dividend, China's automobile industry has crossed the mountain, if you do not consider the advantages of new energy vehicles in the license policy, the actual sales of new cars have entered a bottleneck period.
In the past, the "mainstay" of SAIC's sales, the "competitive products" faced by it may be the "invisible force" that has never been considered before, it may be the car demand that does not exist for single people, the longer and longer replacement cycle of car users who have purchased cars, or it may be a more cost-effective boutique second-hand car found from the massive inventory, and it may even be an increasingly crowded parking space in the community, or even a subway that has just opened to traffic.
The "lack of core" is only temporary, but the general environment of automobile consumption is also changing, and it is necessary to observe car companies of saic.
Secondly, the joint venture car is not easy to sell.
In 2021, the "up and down attack" of independent brands and luxury brands has made the survival of joint venture car companies worrying.
According to the China Automobile Association, a total of 9.543 million Chinese brand passenger cars were sold in 2021, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year. Independent brands accounted for 44.4% of total passenger car sales, and their market share increased by 6% compared with 2020. In December, the market share of independent brands in a single month was as high as 46.9%.
At the same time, China's high-end brand passenger car sales in 2021 were 3.472 million units, up 20.7% year-on-year, accounting for 16.2% of total passenger car sales, up 1.9% from 2020. In the end, the cake left to the joint venture brand will actually be less than 40%. This is also consistent with the downward trend of the insurance number on the terminal, and in 2022, the insurance number of the joint venture brand on the terminal is also very likely to fall below the 40% mark.
Third, perhaps the most "precision strike" - SAIC's joint venture car is difficult to sell.
Why are the most difficult to sell are SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM? If the pressure of independent brands to "attack" is the same for joint venture car companies, then the "dimensionality reduction blow" of luxury brands dominated by European and American brands "accurately hits" SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM. When the price ranges of the two overlap significantly, it is difficult for most consumers to convince themselves to give up the "temptation of logo".
At present, SAIC has three "luxury cards" to play - SAIC Audi and Cadillac, and Buick GL8, a "hidden luxury car". Although one is the leader of the head luxury brand, one is the leader of the second-line luxury, and the other is the "godfather" of the MPV market, the "three 2s" that can be produced in the poker game are not considered to be the existence of the "king fried" level.
In the past few years, SAIC has laid out this in advance, hoping to land the SAIC Audi project earlier, and even rumors of "SAIC Porsche", which can not be described as not working hard, but there is still a little gap from our expectations.
Excluding Cadillac's 1.4% growth and glottling 8.4% growth in the GL8 car series, the actual decline in both SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM in the mainstream joint venture range has exceeded the 10% red line.
If you compare horizontally, north and south Toyota's sales in 2021 increased by 11% and 8% year-on-year, respectively, outperforming the overall market. The relative weakness of Japanese and Korean luxury brands has left more upward breakthroughs and breathing space for Japanese joint venture car companies, whether it is GAC Toyota's Xena, new Highlander, or FAW Toyota's Lingfang and Crown Land, they have more confidence to set a high price.
Compared with FAW-Volkswagen as a "mirror", in 2021, the sales volume of FAW-Volkswagen's Volkswagen brands has also declined to a certain extent, and it seems that behind the overall sales exceeding SAIC Volkswagen, the pressure on the mainstream joint venture range of FAW-Volkswagen is also very heavy.
The stall of the joint venture is not a problem for SAIC itself, but it is a "big trouble" for SAIC.
New energy vehicles increased by 128.9% year-on-year
What this number wants to explore is, behind the substantial growth, is SAIC's new energy transformation smooth enough?
It is advisable to divide the examination paper of new energy transformation into three "big questions" - mini cars, mainstream markets, and high-end products.
The mini car is a big problem, and SAIC's score of full score is not excessive. As early as the launch of Hongguang MINIEV in 2020, both inside and outside the circle agreed that this was an undisputed absolute hit.
Sure enough, in the first complete sales year of 2021, it topped the new energy sales list with sales of 426,000, and even locked in the third place in passenger car sales, and the family sales of the entire GSEV micro pure electric vehicle exceeded 750,000 units. At the same time, products like Roewe Kelaiwei also sold more than 46,000 units in a low-key manner in 2021.
In the pure electric market, these small-size models perfectly match the user's additional purchase demands, and the overall market share has reached more than 50%. SAIC motor is the most successful practitioner of this product concept, which can gain insight into the needs of users and bring products to customers at the most competitive prices with the help of a strong supply chain. If you want to say the only drawback, it may be the lack of profit contribution of such products.
The second is the other end of the dumbbell sales structure of new energy vehicles - the high-end market. Although SAIC has not yet achieved large-scale deliveries in 2021, its high-end potential is worth looking forward to.
The cadillac LYRIQ, the first model landed on the GM Aoteneng platform, received extremely high attention during the Guangzhou Auto Show, receiving more than 5,000 reservation orders in 30 days. Whether it is the creation of a luxurious atmosphere or the "technical gold content" of the pure electric platform, Cadillac LYRIQ is expected to snipe the target group of BBA pure electric products and achieve the "curve overtaking" within the luxury brand.
In terms of its own brand, as the "No. 1 project" within SAIC, the Zhiji L7 unveiled at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show also has outstanding performance - the order for 3,000 angel wheels is sold out in an average of about 2 minutes per day. In addition to encountering some challenges in the propagation node, the current market feedback on zhiji is still good.
However, due to the lack of cores and other reasons, the intentional users accumulated at this time will experience a long waiting cycle before delivery, breeding some anxious emotions. In this regard, Zhiji has also made certain adjustments to the operation of the enterprise, and has adjusted the interior design, quality assurance and service policies in a timely manner for the delivery of the internal guarantee car before the end of 2021, effectively responding to user demands, and winning the recognition of most of the under-ordered car owners.
Putting aside the "operation" level of "communication rhythm", and looking at the products and brands, zhiji L7 and zhiji brands have many remarkable points.
First of all, Zhiji L7 showed excellent design standards, precipitating SAIC's long-term accumulation of independent modeling design capabilities. Product strength has a certain emphasis and trade-offs, especially in the chassis performance, intelligent driving strength, there is a significant long board, positioning accurate.
At the brand level, Zhiji brought innovative "rough" gameplay, for the first time openly "confirmed the right" of the value of user data, and rejected the behavior of "bad currency expelling good money" while using user data to quickly iterate products. "Rough" also gives the product the ability to upgrade hardware, brings higher practical benefits to users who buy zhiji in the early stage, and solves the typical problem of "exponential depreciation" of electric vehicle product strength, which can be described as "killing two birds with one stone".
In 2021, R Auto changed its name to "Feifan" and operated independently of SAIC Passenger Vehicle, effectively filling the gap of 200,000-300,000 product lines between Zhiji and Roewe. Previously, the product line of R cars only had ER6 and Marvel R, two older models, which also restricted the sales performance of R cars to a certain extent. With the gradual unveiling of projects such as Feifan R7, Feifan will pass through the most difficult period of "green and yellow", and use the sales model of more "new forces" to enter the fight and face more mainstream competitors.
It is undeniable that between Zhiji and Feifan, it seems that there is pressure of internal friction as rumored outside, but internal competition means that the two companies must come up with more sincere products and services for users, to PK with external competitors, and at the same time, at the supply chain end and the energy supply side, competition helps to form a better scale effect, and ultimately enhances the overall competitiveness of SAIC Motor in the high-end new energy market.
Behind the exploration of high-end, SAIC Has laid a solid technical foundation.
When users are superstitious about the aura of "full-stack self-research", SAIC has led the investment in a series of star enterprises such as United Electronics, Horizon, Sagitar Juchuang, Momenta, Zero Beam, covering a series of tracks such as basic electronic architecture, Internet of Vehicles, autonomous driving software and hardware, and even invested in upstream companies such as High-precision map supplier Zhonghaiting.
As a veteran state-owned enterprise, SAIC Motor has imported a large number of competitive fresh blood, and some of these companies have become high-quality suppliers of localized software and hardware, and have married enterprises outside the SAIC system.
Therefore, when SAIC is caught up in the controversy of "whether to hand over the soul to Huawei", in fact, the critics ignore the "strategic depth" of SAIC itself - SAIC's investment in the innovation field has exceeded 60 billion yuan, coupled with its own Knowledge-How accumulation of the vehicle business, this seemingly controversial statement is not blind "arrogant".
There are high scores and potential, but in the mainstream market, the performance of SAIC's new energy vehicles has not yet reached our expectations.
Volkswagen ID family currently takes the sum of north and south Volkswagen sales as the main statistics and communication caliber, in fact, the feedback of the outside world for the ID. series is not bad, but the factors that users consider when actually placing orders will still be very specific, so it is not sharp in the presentation of sales. Saic Motor Passenger Vehicles' sales of new energy models other than Kelaiwei are still dominated by the B-side large customer market. SAIC-GM Buick and Chevrolet brand new energy vehicles are also not very loud in the market.
It can be said that in the new energy vehicle market in the mainstream price range of 100,000-200,000, SAIC's real C-end user sales have a long climbing period.
Although the overall penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the mainstream price range is low, SAIC Motor's performance is also tepid. However, the trend that cannot be observed in 2021 is the development of the market share of new energy vehicles at mainstream prices by car companies represented by BYD. With the help of DM-i technology, BYD has re-enlivened the plug-in hybrid market and driven geely, Great Wall, GAC, Chery and other independent brands to enter.
This may also be the market segment with the most potential for "sustained outbreak" in the entire new energy market in 2022. However, within SAIC Motor, whether it is a joint venture or an independent brand, if it wants to come up with a product with both sound volume and technical strength potential, it still needs to make a certain effort.
Sales of independent brands accounted for 52.3%
In 2021, SAIC's own brand sales reached 2.857 million, which is the first time that the proportion of SAIC's own brand sales exceeded 50%.
It is particularly worth mentioning that the overall volume of SAIC Passenger Vehicles + SAIC Maxus has also reached the level of 1.033 million. In other words, SAIC already holds Wuling + Baojun, as well as passenger cars + Chase two "million vehicles" level independent brand "combination card".
The increase in sales volume was mainly due to the outbreak of overseas markets.
In 2021, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicles sold a total of 697,000 new vehicles overseas, an increase of 78.9% year-on-year, ranking first among domestic car companies for six consecutive years. Among them, saicel passenger car exports reached 290,000 units, an increase of 68% year-on-year; SAIC-GM-Wuling's annual overseas sales reached 146,000, an increase of 88% year-on-year. At the same time, SAIC's overseas base production and sales have also reached a scale of nearly 100,000.
At present, SAIC Motor has entered more than 70 countries and regions around the world, and has formed a phenomenon-level existence in some model segments in some regions. In particular, the MG brand, overseas wholesale sales in 2021 reached 360,000, such as MG EZS and other domestic marginalized models, all have a certain voice in the developed market such as Europe.
Behind SAIC's achievements in going overseas is a microcosm of the competitiveness of China's automotive industry system - providing overseas users with the same functional configuration and even a more intelligent experience at a more competitive price. Saic Motor Itself, on the other hand, has adopted a brand strategy that is more adapted to overseas markets and more localized, further accelerating the penetration of Chinese car companies in overseas markets.
Overseas sales are quite brilliant, and back to the local battle, SAIC Motor is somewhat "unsatisfied".
Looking closely at the upward movement of other independent brands, the logic behind it lies in "finding a long board", such as -
The "energy long board" represented by BYD has actually achieved the brand upward goal through the switching of energy and drive forms, and has killed the joint venture car "by surprise"
The "positioning long board" represented by the Great Wall creates a series of "straight male happy cars" such as tank 500, cyber tanks, And Great Wall guns, and harvests blue ocean users who are ignored (or traditional car companies think that the market capacity is small).
The "endorsement long board" represented by Geely, 300,000 users can buy the same chassis and powertrain of volvo XC90, which will instantly transform the weak contrast against the joint venture brand into a strong "dimensionality reduction blow"
Carefully seated, SAIC's own brand in the domestic market in 2021 seems to lack a very significant "long board effect".
However, the market capacity of the MPV itself is limited after all, and in this round of increase and exchange, there are actually more market growth opportunities.
At the same time, in terms of energy and drive form switching, SAIC's independent brand is also one of the few mainstream Chinese car companies that has not released a full hybrid technology brand (if the essence is the "3.0T green surging power" of new bottles of old wine is not counted).
As mentioned earlier, BYD DM-i has revitalized the plug-and-mix market. In the next stage, hybrid models will become the best equal replacement choice for fuel vehicles in the mainstream market, and the technical boundary between full hybrid and plug-and-mix will be further blurred. Independent brand car companies began to master the full hybrid technology with the same level of power loss and fuel consumption as the Japanese hybrid, and on this basis, they extended the corresponding plug-in hybrid models, the essence behind which is to give the choice of whether a larger battery and external charging function is required to the user.
SAIC Roewe once quietly declared a full hybrid model "Totoro" created by the RX3 platform, and the size data is relatively close to the current Roewe RX3, which belongs to a small SUV, but it has not seen any high-profile publicity of technical details, and has not yet been further announced.
In a sense, the domestic market is more "volume" than the overseas market, but under the trend of replacement and upgrading, the "volume" is not the price itself, but the idea of technical strength and product positioning. SAIC's own brand needs to usher in a large update iteration.
In 2022, what does SAIC see?
After talking so much, in 2022, where is the opportunity point for SAIC?
First of all, can the sales volume in overseas markets exceed 1 million? Although there is still uncertainty about the new crown epidemic, saic oil's fundamentals for overseas growth are still good, and the threshold of 1 million yuan may mean that SAIC's products have formed channel advantages and brand mentality advantages in some regional markets, which will also be a milestone event for China's automobile industry to gradually "bid farewell to internal rolls".
It is particularly noteworthy that the Marvel R has hung up the MG logo and gone to the European market. Including Zhiji L7 on the overseas Internet, there is also a certain degree of attention. In 2022, SAIC may still have the opportunity to enter the higher-end overseas market.
Secondly, can SAIC's high-end achieve better results and bring more profits to the company? The speed of product introduction and channel expansion may become the key winner or loser. We look forward to seeing SAIC Audi import more oil vehicle products to meet the mainstream market demand, looking forward to hearing more information about Audi Q4 e-tron, Cadillac LYRIQ, Zhiji L7 & LS7, Feifan R7 and other products, and also look forward to seeing the landing of more sales channels of these car companies, so that users can get closer to these high-end product lines.
Third, in the mainstream oil car market, can SAIC Effectively reverse the situation? For joint venture car companies, China's insight into market changes needs to be more input to joint venture partners to create relatively differentiated products. Saic-Volkswagen Lingdu L, which debuted at the beginning of the year, is a case specimen with reference significance.
Write at the end
SAIC is too big, too big to be clear in three or two sentences, so big that it can reflect the wind direction of the entire industry. From SAIC, every practitioner in the automotive industry can see the pain, wandering and struggle faced by the entire industry during the transition period of new and old kinetic energy.
And I am still full of optimism about SAIC's performance in 2022. Looking at saic's layout and transformation, it is just like seeing the entire Chinese automobile industry accumulate precipitation, actively embrace change, sharpen internal strength, and gradually stand on a bigger stage.
Luckily, you and I are witnesses.