The 2021 edition of the "China Pickup Truck Industry Development Report" and the China Pickup Truck Blue Book, compiled by the Independent Automobile Industry Branch of the China European Economic and Technical Cooperation Association and the Independent Automobile Network, was officially published on December 1, 2021. A detailed description and analysis of China's pickup truck market and future development trends are made.
Commercial vehicle industry trends
China's commercial vehicle market is stabilizing, and the global commercial vehicle market is developing steadily. The size of China's commercial vehicle market will remain at 4 million to 4.5 million units in the next decade. With the rapid development of the logistics industry in the world and the promotion of infrastructure construction in developing countries, global commercial vehicle sales have continued to grow, with global commercial vehicle sales of 20.516 million units in 2005 and global commercial vehicle sales of 26.955 million units in 2019, with an average annual compound growth rate of 2.0%, and the market size is expected to reach 3 million units in the next decade.
(1) The concentration of the commercial vehicle market is increasing
Industry competition has intensified, and industrial concentration has continued to increase. The high-speed growth trend of the mainland commercial vehicle market has ended, there are many existing manufacturers, the production capacity is far greater than the market demand, the enterprises without scale and technical advantages will be gradually eliminated, coupled with the intensification of international competition and other factors, the industrial concentration will continue to increase, and it is expected that about 10 international commercial vehicle groups will eventually be formed. Competition in the medium and heavy-duty truck market has further intensified, and the integration of the industry has accelerated. With the government's efforts to strengthen ex post facto supervision and the continuous upgrading of emissions, safety and fuel-saving regulations and standards, the threshold of the medium and heavy-duty truck industry has been greatly increased, the phenomenon of domestic product oversupply has become more prominent, and enterprises with technological and scale advantages have become more and more leading, resulting in an increase in industrial concentration, and it is expected that by 2030, China's medium- and heavy-duty truck market will form 3-5 head enterprise groups, and the industrial concentration will reach more than 95%.
The competition in the light truck market has gradually returned to rationality, and the transformation of various types of products is obvious. In the third to fourth stages of China, due to the impact of new energy subsidies and low entry thresholds, many emerging brands and enterprises have successively entered the field of light trucks, but with the increase of National V and China VI emission regulations, the gradual decline of new energy subsidies, and the continuous deepening of the industry authorities' governance of "large tons and small standards" and "overload and overrun", weak brands and long-term poorly managed car companies have gradually been unable to keep up with the rhythm of competition and upgrading, and the concentration of the top ten brands in the industry has gradually increased.
The competition pattern of the special vehicle market has been adjusted, and enterprises have accelerated product transformation and upgrading. In the overall domestic special vehicle market, enterprises are increasingly affected by local protectionism, the trend of production pattern adjustment will be inevitable, some enterprises will be gradually eliminated in market competition, and another part of the enterprises will take the form of merger and reorganization to form a new competitive pattern. Competition brings about the introduction and application of new products and new technologies, and enterprises accelerate the adjustment of product layout and accelerate product transformation and upgrading.
The concentration of the new energy commercial vehicle market has declined in the short term, and in the long run, traditional car companies still have a competitive advantage. Based on the double integration policy, new energy subsidy policy, the upgrading of National VI emission regulations and more stringent and transparent law enforcement, the competition in the automobile industry has intensified, and the new energy logistics vehicles have also ushered in unprecedented development opportunities, which is reflected in the decline in industry concentration, the lower threshold for industry entry, and many emerging enterprises enter the automotive industry with their advantages in intelligent and electric technology. However, in the future, with the completion of the strategic adjustment of traditional car enterprises, the release of technical reserves, especially in the development system, verification, market channels, brands, core components and other aspects of the advantages, will enable them to regain their competitive advantage in the new energy vehicle market, and then eliminate the new emerging car companies that have entered and have not seized the opportunity to develop, and further enhance the industry concentration.
(2) Commercial vehicle products are upgraded from low-end to high-end
The government has tightened supervision in safety, fuel saving, emissions, consistency, etc., while upgrading consumer demand, jointly promoting product power improvement, product reliability improvement, product safety components improvement, etc., resulting in continuous improvement of product unit prices, such as the unit price of China's main sales heavy tractors in ten years from about 250,000 yuan to about 380,000 yuan, the next ten years or will increase to about 500,000 yuan.
Environmental protection supervision has been tightened, and multiple technical routes coexist. The commercial vehicle industry practices green development and continuously improves emission standards. The government launched a blue sky defense war and diesel vehicle pollution control battle, while vigorously promoting new energy vehicles, in view of the diversity of commercial vehicle conditions, the characteristics of multi-technical routes coexist, the policy guides users to choose pure electric, hybrid and fuel cell and other technical routes of products.
(3) Professional and diversified development of commercial vehicles
The main body of light truck purchase will gradually change from a first-party and second-party self-owned logistics enterprise to a third-party logistics company and a vehicle-cargo matching platform. In the same way as the trend of user organization, the form of user car purchase will also change, and decentralized funding and centralized purchase will become the development trend. By joining the fleet and platform of logistics companies, the organization and scale of the use link has become a trend. As the national encouragement policies have been introduced and improved, and preferential treatment has been given in terms of right of way and passes, the efficiency of the use of logistics vehicles for common distribution will become higher and higher, the intensity of vehicle use will become larger and larger, and the trend of specialization of products will become more and more obvious.
The application of pickup trucks in new technology areas is accelerating. The rapid change of consumer demand in the market has promoted the diversification of pickup truck products such as passengerization and off-road and modification. After 2019, pickup trucks enter the era of passenger pickup trucks, and pickup truck products are gradually upgraded to intelligence, networking, and electrification. Enterprises have accelerated the layout of high-end brands, new materials, new technologies and new concepts have been continuously applied, and the development trend of brand culture is obvious. The increased investment of mainstream pickup truck companies in terms of passenger, high-end, intelligence, new technologies and new materials has gradually proved that enterprises are adapting to changes in the market, and are also leading the pickup truck market and promoting the diversified development of the pickup truck industry.
In the field of special vehicles, along with the continuous segmentation of the market, the user characteristics have also appeared across the field segmentation. In the field of transportation, the Group's customers have gradually increased, in the field of urban and regional logistics, giving birth to regional logistics companies featuring localities; in the field of caravans, professional tourism companies, caravan camps and some hotel operation and management enterprises have intervened to diversify the demand for the caravan market; in the field of sanitation vehicles, the demand for sanitation vehicles by sanitation contracting companies has shown more professional and refined characteristics; in the field of special operation vehicles, individual consumers have invested in special operation vehicles and attached service companies. There are two ways in the market: individual procurement and group procurement.