Producer: Observer Network Car Channel [Official Number: Engine Sight]
Author: Pan Yuchen
Edit: Lou Bing
For luxury brands that once had strong demand, the supply chain crisis led by chips is the most important factor affecting the growth of production and sales in 2021. In the common context, many luxury brands still show significant differences. 】
In the development rhythm of China's auto market, luxury cars always seem to be mavericks.
Since 2018, the long-term high-growth Long China auto market has begun to enter the downturn. In contrast, the demand for luxury cars has been stable. In 2021, as China's auto market ended three years of negative growth, the luxury car market once again went against the market.
According to the data of the Association, the cumulative sales of luxury brand cars in the Chinese market in 2021 reached 2.6521 million units, an increase of 4.9% year-on-year. However, it is worth mentioning that Tesla is included in the above statistics, and if the brand's sales of more than 480,000 vehicles last year are not included, the annual sales of traditional luxury brands are 2.168 million vehicles, down 9.08% year-on-year.
For luxury brands that were once in high demand, the supply chain crisis led by chips was the most important factor affecting their production and sales growth last year. However, from another point of view, the lack of core is a common phenomenon in the industry, which can be described as equal to many car companies. In the common context, many luxury brands still show significant differences, which are undoubtedly closely related to their different response methods and market demand.
01
BMW thrilling defensively
For luxury brands that once had strong demand, the supply chain crisis led by chips is the most important factor affecting the growth of production and sales in 2021. In the common context, many luxury brands still show significant differences.
Among the first-line luxury brands, BMW is once again the winner. Last year, a total of 846,200 units were delivered, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year, and BMW Brilliance alone sold 652,000 units, an increase of 7.8% year-on-year.
Among them, bmw 3 series won the first luxury model sales championship with 170,000 vehicles in the whole year, 5 series, X3 also has an increase of more than 10%, in last year's sales of the top five luxury models, BMW occupied three seats, and all of them are 150,000 or more.
Under the influence of chips faced by car companies, BMW has been able to overcome difficulties to maintain its leading position, thanks to the product lineup that is currently in the ascending stage. In contrast, all the major competitor models have entered the final stage or replacement cycle, ensuring BMW's advantage in the Chinese market in the past two years with new and old.
For BMW, in the past 2021 and the just opened 2022, whether BMW, which faces the Chinese market with a new attitude, can give more surprises has also received widespread attention from the outside world.
As the earliest luxury brand in the domestic layout, Audi has experienced an embarrassing transformation from "ABB" to "BBA" in recent years, and has had to rely on higher offers to keep up with the pace of the head camp. Even so, Audi, which was trapped in chip supply, still failed to maintain its growth momentum throughout the year, with annual sales of 700,000 units, of which FAW-Volkswagen Audi sold 643,500 units, down 1.9% year-on-year.
But since entering the fourth quarter, as the chip problem has gradually eased, Audi, which had performed sluggishly in the previous quarter, has begun to fight back, with sales reaching 65,800 units in December, an increase of 30% year-on-year. Instead, BMW's growth stalled, selling fewer than 50,000 units in December, down 8.2% year-on-year. In the end, the gap between FAW-Volkswagen Audi and BMW Brilliance narrowed to less than 10,000 vehicles, and successfully surpassed Mercedes-Benz to regain the second place.
Audi can bite BMW and not fall behind, mainly relying on the power of SUV products. Benefiting from the launch of the redesigned model in the middle of last year, the annual sales of the Q5L approached 150,000 units; through considerable concessions, the Q3 sales exceeded 95,000 units, an increase of nearly 30% year-on-year; and the Q2L also contributed to the sales of more than 50,000 units. The A3, A4L, A6L and other cars have declined to varying degrees due to the replacement.
For Audi, the launch of the SAIC Audi A7L is one of the few positive news in the past year. In order to promote the overall sales growth to keep up with the pace of "BB", Audi has been promoting the landing of a second joint venture partner in China, but because the new car has just entered the early stage of delivery, the potential power period of the A7L is still after the Spring Festival this year, and the overall impact on Audi is still unknown.
In contrast, Mercedes-Benz delivered a total of 75.89 new vehicles in China last year, of which Beijing Benz sold only 561,000 units in the whole year, down 8.2% year-on-year.
In addition to GLA, Mercedes-Benz's main sales products almost all-round decline, the highest sales of E-class fell by 5% year-on-year, while A-class, C-class, GLB, GLC and other models fell by 10% or higher, but GLE, GLS, G-class, Maybach, AMG and other imported models achieved double-digit growth.
In addition to chip factors, Mercedes-Benz's existing domestic models have generally entered the late stage of their careers, and the competition with BMW and Audi's new products is relatively weak. For example, the last major overhaul of the E-class was in 2019, and it was only a change in power; the new C-class was only listed in August last year, and it still takes time for production and marketing to climb.
Relatively speaking, Mercedes-Benz's market performance in commercial vehicles is relatively considerable. Fujian Benz sold 37,200 new cars last year, an increase of 24.3% year-on-year.
02
The second-tier pattern changes
Although the number of seats has changed compared with previous years, the status of the top three Ashkenazi as a first-line brand is still unstoppable. In contrast, second-tier luxury brands have undergone significant changes in the pattern in recent years with the intensification of market competition.
During the overall growth of the luxury car market, FAW Hongqi, the representative of China's luxury brands, was the biggest beneficiary. In 2021, Hongqi has sold more than 300,000 vehicles, and although it has failed to achieve the expected goal of doubling sales, it has continued to grow by as much as 50% on the basis of last year's high base.
However, it is worth mentioning that the current Hongqi brand still mainly relies on the sales of H5 and HS5 compact cars, and these two models with an average price of about 200,000 yuan actually fail to reach the positioning of traditional luxury models, and more are based on cost performance to participate in the competition of mainstream joint venture brands at the same price.
As a true flagship car, the Hongqi H9, which is highly expected by Hongqi, although the annual sales volume exceeded 40,000 vehicles, an increase of 173.4% year-on-year, and once surpassed the traditional giants such as Audi A6 in the third quarter, but objectively speaking, the latter is mainly affected by chip problems. After entering the traditional peak sales season at the end of the year, the sales of Hongqi H9 have declined, once again lagging behind the gradual recovery of "E56".
At the same time, although Hongqi has focused on destocking since the second half of the year, there is still a backlog of 32,800 vehicles by the end of 2021, of which the Hongqi H9 alone has reached 8,500 vehicles. It can be seen that in order to truly rank among the first-line luxury brands, hongqi as a representative of independent brands still has a long way to go.
Even so, being able to further widen the gap with the joint venture brand behind it is still a big achievement made by Hongqi last year. In contrast, Cadillac sold 233,000 units a year last year, and although it still maintained a slight year-on-year growth, it has declined significantly since the second half of the year.
In recent years, thanks to the comprehensive product layout, Cadillac's market performance is generally good, but as the existing products enter the late cycle, the American luxury brands are still inevitably stuck in the bottleneck. In 2021, Cadillac's XT6, which only sedan CT5 and SUV, maintained positive sales growth, while models such as the XT5, which were originally the main force, declined significantly, while the original niche models such as CT4, CT6, and XT4 became more and more sluggish.
Similar to cadillac's situation is Volvo. In 2021, Volvo sold only 140,200 vehicles for the whole year, down 5.1% year-on-year, ending a seven-year period of domestic growth. Among them, XC60, as the absolute main force, sold 62,400 yuan in annual sales, down 0.5% year-on-year, and XC40 was nearly 40% of the decline. Although the sales of S60, S90 and other cars have increased, it is not enough to fill the holes caused by SUVs.
Jaguar Land Rover sold 54,600 units last year, down 5.5% year-on-year. Among them, Land Rover offset the decline caused by the discovery movement with the listing of the Range Rover Evoque L in July last year, controlling the brand's annual decline within 4%, while the Jaguar brand still only relies on the XEL and XFL two old models to fight the world, and is in a relatively awkward situation.
Among the second-tier luxury cars, Lincoln is the only brand that has grown rapidly. A total of 88,000 vehicles were sold last year, up 124.5% year-on-year. However, in addition to benefiting from Lincoln's acceleration of the layout of domestic products in recent years, it is also related to the low base in previous years. But after entering the New Year, in the face of last year's high base Lincoln, its further growth will also be more difficult, Ford high-end brand obviously can not put the treasure on the upcoming car Lincoln Z.
As the only second-tier luxury brand to maintain full import sales, Lexus' performance in the Chinese market has also suffered certain setbacks. According to the insurance data, Lexus accumulated 219,000 vehicles last year, down 6.9% year-on-year. Infiniti and Acura, which are also Japanese luxuries, are more like a pair of difficult brothers, among which Infiniti released a new QX60 in China after 6 years, but was "tragically" robbed of the Scene by Wang Lihong; and Acura, which has not produced a new car for two years, seems to have completely "lying flat", and the French DS has become a delisting existence.
In addition, in order to stimulate sales, second-tier luxury brands generally have the phenomenon of exchanging price for market, and it is not uncommon for discounts of 50,000 yuan or even more than 100,000 yuan to be offered. However, as a double-edged sword, although the price war can increase sales in a short period of time, there is a hidden danger of drinking and quenching thirst for second-tier brands that originally have low premium capabilities.
03
Take a look:
As supply problems such as chips eased in the fourth quarter of last year, car companies gradually got rid of the impact, and sales as a whole began to recover. Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, also believes that luxury cars are expected to return to the growth track in 2022.
However, with the deepening of vehicle electrification and intelligence, the market pattern of luxury brands is also inevitable to have a new round of reshuffle, and the most fragile link of ecology will naturally bear the brunt of it.
Especially after the successive tightening of carbon emission policies in major automobile markets and the proposal of "double carbon" targets, luxury cars that have always contributed greatly to emissions have become direct "victims". Whether it is the German system led by the "BBA", or the second-tier brands such as Cadillac, Lexus, Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover and so on, their electrification transformation has been on the string.
Among them, the electrification of the German car company "BBA", which has a "dieselgate" previous record, is relatively at the forefront.
Audi has been on the market as early as the previous year, Audi e-tron, Q2L e-tron and other models, the launch of A6 e-tron, Q4 e-tron will also come in the near future; BMW in the iX3 after the official drop of 70,000, sales finally ushered in a wave of significant growth. At the Guangzhou Auto Show, three models of iX were listed successively; Mercedes-Benz successively listed two pure electric vehicle models of EQA and EQB, plus the flagship model EQS at the beginning of this year, and the "century-old store" is also trying to present a positive change to the outside world.
Compared with the BBA with stronger pressure resistance, second- and third-tier luxury brands are more susceptible to the influence of medium and large vehicles of emerging brands, such as Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, Ideal and BYD Han and other similar models. Since 2021, the sales volume of the above brand models has increased sharply, which has eaten away at the market share of some second- and third-tier luxury brands to a considerable extent.
In the face of the grim situation, Cadillac launched the LYRIQ based on the pure electric platform, Volvo's Recharge series after the Polestar is also constantly updated, jaguar Land Rover will clearly become an electric brand; even Lexus, which has always insisted on hybridization, also announced its embrace of pure electric models at the end of last year and said that it will be fully electrified in 10 years.
It is worth noting that consumers' expectations for new energy vehicles are more concentrated in the field of battery technology, endurance and automobile intelligence, but these are not the advantages of traditional luxury brands, and their transformation is more driven by policy orientation.
However, with the overall rejuvenation of automobile consumers, luxury brands that seem to stick to the rules have to abandon the business strategy of "responding to changes with no change". According to the data disclosed by the Association, compared with mainstream joint venture brands, the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in luxury vehicles in December last year was 32.7%, while the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in mainstream joint venture brands was only 3.3%. It can be seen that luxury cars seem to be difficult to transform, but compared with the new forces without baggage; compared with mainstream family cars, luxury cars attach importance to brand image, which will also accelerate the pace of driving them to "turn around". 【END】