Lead:
Through the independent article and the joint venture chapter, I think everyone has a deeper understanding of the difficulties encountered by the Chinese auto market in 2021. As a luxury brand representing a high level of the industry in the past year has also undergone a lot of interesting news; at the same time, the situation of the entire luxury brand market has also undergone a lot of interesting changes, after the analysis of the sales volume and overall trend of luxury brands in the past year, we summarized the five keywords of allocation reduction, electrification, China centralization, independent spoiling, and shock, and then we will use these five dimensions to deeply understand and analyze the trend and situation of luxury brands in 2021.
Keyword 01: De-allocation
Throughout 2021, which can be regarded as a product year of the luxury camp, many car companies have released replacement models or redesigned models, but due to the shortage of chips, insufficient production capacity and many other factors, many new cars released by luxury brands have deleted the configuration of vehicles.
Last year, the B-class car sales crown BMW 3 series canceled the front seat belt preload function, requiring users to increase the price of the option; the two low-end versions of the 320 model no longer support the optional HARMAN Carton audio, M sports night version of the model deleted the 360 ring car image, automatic parking and many other configurations and do not support the option.
The same as the luxury brand leader mercedes-benz can only be said to be more than enough, the new generation of Mercedes-Benz S-class for the Chinese market launched a 2.5T engine castrated version, castration displacement has been Mercedes-Benz's routine operation, and the new Mercedes-Benz GLE has deleted keyless start, remote start, wireless charging, gesture control, built-in driving recorder and other comfort features.
The above mentioned models are only a microcosm of the reduction of luxury brands, and in 2021, the replacement or modification models launched by major luxury brands have more or less deleted the configuration. This wave of "reduced allocation tide" is mainly caused by the shortage of chips, but the major luxury brands have slightly lowered the price of vehicles while deleting the configuration, but here I want to help you local tycoons to say that they really do not lack this bit of money for the purchase of configuration, so in 2022 or do not reduce the allocation as well.
Keyword 02: electrification
Electrification, as the theme of today's development, has penetrated into all walks of life, as has the automotive industry. In the field of electrification, the aforementioned independent brands have taken the lead in attacking the city and seized a lot of market share, and major luxury brands have finally accelerated the pace of transformation in 2021 and begun a new strategic layout.
BMW opened the BMW i Smart Space National Tour exhibition in the second half of 2021, and released its new pure electric flagship products BMW iX and BMW i4, opening a new era of BMW in the field of new energy, its brand new energy vehicles sold in China in 2021, an increase of 69.6% year-on-year, ranking first in the BBA; Audi also announced that it will accelerate the electrification transformation with the strategic layout of "all in e-tron". The e-tron series models it launched in 2021 also successfully achieved a year-on-year increase of 68.7% in domestic sales, closely following BMW; Mercedes-Benz also launched luxury pure electric models such as EQS and EQC in 2021, and Mercedes-Benz officials also said that they will launch at least eight pure electric or hybrid models this year.
In addition to the big three, The Japanese luxury brand Lexus, which claims not to build trams, also released an electrification strategy at the end of 2021 and spent $70 billion to accelerate the electrification transformation; Jaguar, Land Rover, Volvo, Cadillac and other brands also continued to exert efforts. In general, the luxury brand camp led by the BBA has begun to enter the field of electrification in a big way, and more luxury brands will surely enter the new energy track in the coming days, as for how their entry will affect the entire new energy vehicle market, it is only up to time to write the answer.
Keyword 03: Centralization of China
In recent years, China's auto market has continued to be hot, in the context of global auto sales continue to decline, China's auto sales are still maintained at a high level, the share of the global auto market has accounted for nearly 30%, and because of this, many car companies in China's profits have reached 50% or more of their brand's total profits.
Based on this background, more and more luxury car companies have begun to focus on the Chinese consumer market, not only developing cars for the needs of Chinese consumers, but also actively localizing, which we will call China's centralization for the time being.
Or take the 2021 luxury car sales crown BMW as an example, presumably everyone has heard the news that BMW X5 has been domestically produced, the deep reason is that since 2018, the United States has provoked trade disputes many times, resulting in the mainland having to take corresponding measures for imported products, and the BMW X5 production line happens to be located in the United States, which led to a sharp decline in bmw X5 profit margins in China, so in order to maintain relatively high earnings, BMW began to introduce the X5 production line into The country. According to the needs of the Chinese people, the extended X5L has been launched, which shows how important the Chinese market is to BMW.
This kind of "China-centralized" behavior not only improves the profit margin of some luxury brands, but also gives second-tier luxury brands a second life, the most representative of which is Lincoln, the representative of the United States, who has shown a recovery trend in the past two years. Lincoln has been depressed for a long time in the past, once reduced to only the United States to leave residual temperature, and after Lincoln deeply studied China's automobile consumer market and cooperated with Changan Automobile to achieve localization, Lincoln also successfully ushered in the rebirth of the brand.
In 2021, Lincoln sold a total of 91,621 vehicles in China, achieving a 48% year-on-year increase, and surpassed the North American market for the first time in Sales in China. Therefore, the Lincoln China team took advantage of the opportunity to launch the Chinese exclusive model Lincoln Z, and the new car will be officially launched in China this year, announcing that Lincoln will start a new chapter in China.
In addition, luxury brands such as Cadillac and Infiniti have also shown the same trend of "China-centeredness" as the former two in recent years, and have also achieved certain results. The strategic layout of luxury brands centered on the Chinese market is objectively good news for consumers, which means that Chinese people can spend less money to buy luxury models with better quality and more in line with our consumer needs, which is a big good news worth celebrating.
Keyword 04: Autonomous spoiler
The competition of luxury car brands has always been very fierce, but even if the competition is fierce, the pattern between luxury brands has not changed much, and it has always been based on the BBA, and the second-tier Lexus, Cadillac, Volvo and so on are catching up behind. However, in the same situation as the joint venture camp, this year's luxury car market has also come to an independent luxury brand that kicks the restaurant, which is the pride of our people - Hongqi.
As the most rooted and red independent luxury brand, Hongqi's status in the minds of the Chinese people has always been very high, but as a luxury brand, Hongqi's sales have not been able to enter the top of the luxury list as desired. However, in 2021, Hongqi's annual sales exceeded the 300,000 mark, nearly ten times more than in 2018, jumping to the first place of second-tier luxury brands in one fell swoop, and successfully disrupting the long-established second-tier luxury situation with its own strength.
Relying on the complete product line composed of H9, H7, H5, HS5, HS7 and other models, the Hongqi brand achieved the "flag" victory in January 2021, successfully sold 33,000 units, and since then, it has basically maintained sales of about 20,000 units per month, and ended perfectly with more than 39,000 units in December. Under the influence of lack of cores, epidemic situations, etc., Hongqi still resisted the pressure, and achieved a double growth in brand sales, which not only made our people raise their eyebrows, but also sounded the alarm for many luxury brands.
Keyword 05: Shock
It is most appropriate to summarize the luxury car market in 2021 with shocks, so why say this? According to our sales volume, the first is the first-line camp, BMW won the championship seat with a record of 821,000 units, achieving a year-on-year growth of 8.3%, successfully ending Mercedes-Benz's five-year record of selling the crown. Mercedes-Benz sold 739,000 units in the year, down 3.6% year-on-year, ranking second, while Audi ranked third with 691,000 units, down 5.5% year-on-year.
The pattern of Mercedes-Benz first, BMW second and Audi third, which has been maintained for many years, was broken in 2021, and BMW has achieved remarkable results, and is the only brand with positive sales growth in the three companies. With the shortage of chips alleviated, in the next period of time, the first-line luxury brand position may regenerate.
The second echelon of luxury brands ushered in a greater shock, the domestic luxury brand Hongqi squeezed into the second-tier luxury echelon with sales of 300,000 and won the crown; the American luxury Cadillac ranked second with a score of 233,000 vehicles, which is also a "China-centered" player, under the unremitting efforts, it has also successfully achieved a year-on-year increase in sales of 1.4%, carrying the "missing core" winter, setting a new annual sales record.
Lexus, once the leading big brother, ushered in major changes, before 2021, the cumulative sales of 219,000 vehicles, down 6.8% year-on-year, the second few months of sales once reached the level of year-on-year waist, ranking third in the second line of luxury, lamentable; the fourth place is the "land tank" Volvo, the annual cumulative sales of 171,000 vehicles, although sales increased by 3.1% year-on-year, but its status is in a continuous decline; the fifth place is the reborn American luxury brand Lincoln, Under the support of the localization strategy, a total of 91,000 vehicles were sold in the whole year, achieving a year-on-year increase of 48%, with a gratifying rise.
Write at the end
Through the five keywords of allocation reduction, electrification, China centralization, independent turmoil, and shock, we can clearly understand the situation and specific conditions of luxury brands in 2021, and in the case of the entire auto market shrouded in the haze of "lack of core" and epidemic, major luxury brands have basically withstood the pressure, and most of them have also achieved contrarian growth.
With the gradual recovery of chip supply, and the gradual recovery of automobile production capacity, the competition between luxury brands will only become more intense in the next year, when the first "B" in the BBA will be BMW or Mercedes-Benz, which we can not judge for the time being, or perhaps "A" Audi can take back the chinese luxury car sales crown through electrification transformation.