Per reporter: Huang Xinxu Per editor: Sun Lei, He Xiaotao
"The goods that could have been unloaded in one day are now at least 3 to 4 days because of the epidemic. Such a long wait makes the container ship (capacity) generate an additional 17% waste. A few days ago, Wang Zemin, general manager of SAIC Anji Logistics Co., Ltd., told the "Daily Economic News" reporter that it is not difficult to ship cars under the epidemic.
According to logistics platform Freightos, freight rates for a 40-foot container shipped to the west coast of the United States have increased 16-fold at one point during the pandemic.
Despite the tight capacity across the ocean and the soaring freight rate, mainland automobile exports set a new record of "sailing to sea" in 2021. According to the latest statistics of the China Automobile Association, China's automobile export volume in 2021 will be about 2.015 million units. This is the first time that domestic automobile exports exceeded 1 million units, and jumped to 2 million units in one fell swoop.
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said: "Exports are a big growth point for China's auto market in 2021. On the one hand, it is because the supply of other brand products is tight due to the overseas epidemic; on the other hand, it is because the products exported by independent brands have increased much in grade compared with before, and the cost performance has also been further improved. ”
"One cabin is hard to find" transoceanic transport capacity
"At present, the time period of going to sea is difficult to determine. A round trip to South America is usually 70 days, but we once waited there for 30 days and couldn't dock. Xin Jianmin, deputy general manager of SAIC Anji Logistics Co., Ltd., told reporters that the epidemic has become the main reason for affecting trans-ocean transport capacity.
Image source: Courtesy of the enterprise
In addition, ensuring the safety of crew members during the epidemic is also an important task for logistics companies. "We have 6 international routes, and there are only 5 to 6 export shipping vessels. Many crew members cannot get off the ship after running at sea for 1 to 2 years, which also has a certain impact on crew management. Wang Zemin said.
According to Wang Zemin, as a subsidiary of SAIC Motor Specializing in Automotive Logistics Business, the main task of SAIC Anji Logistics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Anji Logistics) is to give priority to ensuring some of SAIC's most urgent overseas businesses, and then will also provide some services for other vehicle manufacturers.
Under the shortage of capacity, booking a space from a third-party logistics company has become the choice of many independent brands when exporting. "The whole year of 2021 is a 'one cabin is hard to find', and the space of logistics companies is very limited, and it will be booked a long time in advance." A staff member related to the export of the car told reporters.
COSCO Shipping Cosmos (601919. SH) also said in the announcement that shipping is very tense: "In 2021, under the influence of multiple factors such as repeated epidemics, demand growth, and limited supply, the global logistics supply chain continues to be challenged and impacted by complex situations such as port congestion, container shortage, and inland transportation delay, and the supply and demand relationship of container transportation continues to be tense. ”
In addition, with the lengthening of the sea cycle, the cost of logistics companies is also further increasing. According to public information, from January to December 2021, the average value of China's export container freight rate composite index (CCFI) was 2615.54 points, an increase of 165.69% year-on-year.
The Ningbo Shipping Exchange said that from the perspective of maritime demand and capacity supply, it is expected that the overall freight rate in 2022 will remain at a high level, but there is a possibility of a large year-on-year decline in the second half of 2022. Huachuang Securities also expects that the current freight price will remain high before the third quarter of 2022, and the effective supply loss in 2022 may still exceed 10%.
New energy vehicles are the highlights of independent brand exports
Despite the difficult exports, independent brands have handed over a brilliant report card in 2021.
According to the latest statistics of the China Automobile Association, China's automobile export volume in 2021 is about 2.015 million units, compared with 995,000 units in 2020, an increase of 101.1% year-on-year.
In terms of branches, SAIC Motor's overseas sales in 2021 will be about 697,000 units (including about 598,000 units exported and about 99,000 units produced and sold at overseas bases); Chery Holding Group's export sales in 2021 will be about 269,000 units, an increase of 36.3% year-on-year; Great Wall Motor's export sales in 2021 will be about 123,000 units; Xiaopeng Automobile and Weilai Automobile, which are new car-making forces, are also laying out overseas business. Among them, WEILAI said that it will provide corresponding services for more than 25 countries around the world by 2025, and by the end of 2025, the number of substations in markets outside China will reach about 1,000.
Image source: Visual China
"We believe that 2021 is the first year of the outbreak of Chinese brands going to sea, we are optimistic that China will become a global automobile manufacturing base, and it is expected that the proportion of exports in production will continue to increase, possibly exceeding 30%." CICC released a research report.
It is worth noting that new energy vehicles have begun to become the highlight of independent brand exports. According to the China Automobile Association, the mainland exported 310,000 new energy vehicles in 2021, an increase of 3 times year-on-year.
"Compared with fuel vehicle technology, China has more technical advantages in the field of new energy vehicles. Many countries in Europe have a 'ban on combustion' policy, which also provides opportunities for independent brands. The above-mentioned car export related staff said. In the view of CICC, the leading domestic electric vehicle industry chain, more mature electric vehicle product design and Chinese manufacturing advantages will also promote electric vehicles to go to sea.
The "2022 CICC Auto White Paper" predicts that the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in the global mainstream market will exceed the critical point of 10% in 2022, new energy vehicles will enter the steep stage of the S-shaped growth curve, and the export market is expected to achieve multi-fold growth.
Export growth is expected to be 20% next year
Thanks to the eye-catching export achievements of independent brands, improving the existing efficiency of going to sea and future transportation capacity will become the next important work of independent car companies and logistics companies.
"We have made adjustments to the entire overseas organization, such as in terms of crew replacement and crew arrival management, to ensure that products are delivered to overseas markets as soon as possible." Xin Jianmin said. According to the reporter's understanding, the delivery cycle of mg brands in the European market is measured in weeks, while the delivery cycle of some mainstream local brands is measured in months.
Image source: Per reporter Zhang Jian photographed (data map)
In addition, increasing the number of ships and increasing capacity has also become a trend. According to clarkson data from ship service company, the number of new shipyard orders signed in 2021 increased significantly, totaling 120 million dwt, with a contract of $107 billion. According to data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, as of the end of December 2021, the handheld order volume of the mainland shipbuilding industry was 95.839 million dwt, an increase of 34.8% over the end of 2020, of which the sea vessel was 36.099 million revised gross tons, and the export ship accounted for 88.2% of the total.
A few days ago, SAIC Motor also announced the formal signing of an agreement with China State Shipbuilding Group, CSSC Jiangnan Shipbuilding will "tailor-made" 2 LNG dual-fuel, low-carbon and environmentally friendly ocean-going vehicle carriers with 7600 parking spaces for Anji Logistics.
"The shipbuilding industry is a long-term industry, which generally takes 3 years." The above-mentioned staff related to automobile export believes that the going out of independent brands is also a process.
"In addition, the operation of ocean-going business shipping and domestic shipping operation are completely two concepts, and there is investment in established terminals in China, and the entire network is very smooth." Overseas need to face the problem of dock negotiations in different countries. Wang Zemin also talked about another challenge of going to sea.
Although there are many difficulties in going to sea, the industry believes that the increase in overseas sales of independent brands shows that the scale effect of overseas markets is emerging, and independent brands are gradually going out. Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Association, said: "The recovery of global automobile consumption, the transformation and upgrading of independent brands and other factors have jointly promoted the sustained growth of overseas development of independent brand vehicles, and it is expected that the growth rate of mainland automobile exports will be about 20% in 2022. ”
Reporter | Huang Xinxu| Sun Lei, He Xiaotao, Wang Jiaqi
Proofread | duan lian
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