In 2022, the automotive market has opened up a new round of competition. For China's auto industry, it may or will become an extremely important year. Since joining the WTO in this century, there have been endless discussions around "market for technology" and "when can Chinese brands really become bigger and stronger." If you count from the establishment of Sino-foreign joint venture automobile enterprises in the 1980s, the market exchange technology has won 40 years of development time for China's automobile industry, and it is time to cash in.
On January 12, at a press conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the relevant person in charge not only reported that China's automobile industry has ranked first in the world for 13 consecutive years. It also released a series of data that made the Chinese auto industry and even the Chinese people excited and optimistic about Chinese brands.
In 2021, the cumulative sales of Chinese brand passenger cars were 9.543 million units, accounting for 44.4% of the passenger car market share, an increase of 6 percentage points over the previous year, and it is close to the best level in the calendar year. In particular, Chinese brands sold 2.476 million new energy passenger cars, accounting for 74.3% of the new energy passenger car market share.
The author believes that behind the continuous upward climbing of Chinese brands is a profound portrayal of the new and old potential energy of China's automobile industry and the transformation of Chinese and foreign forces.
01
The post-joint venture era has begun Multinational companies are still excellent but no longer lead the way
In the context of China's auto industry has entered a micro-growth or even zero-growth situation, some people are progressing, and naturally some people are regressing. After 30 or 40 years of traveling in China, many multinational auto companies are having to usher in increasingly difficult strategic transformations to adapt to the rapid changes in the Chinese market.
In 2021, if the continued decline of weak brands such as the French and Korean brands does not represent the overall decline direction of the entire multinational automobile company, then the traditional powerful state of Ashkenazi and Japanese represented by Volkswagen shows that things are far from being as simple as in the past.
The Volkswagen brand, which is undergoing a deep transformation, bears the brunt of the strong performance of the North and South Volkswagens approaching 2 million yuan, and has long gone. FAW-Volkswagen sold 1.8 million yuan in the whole year, down 13% year-on-year. As China's first passenger car joint venture, SAIC Volkswagen's annual sales fell by 17.5%, with sales of 1.2 million units, which was surpassed by Chinese brands in annual sales.
Volkswagen's determination to transform and action is naturally undiminished, and the ID series is still unyieldingly launching an impact on Tesla, Wei Xiaoli, and BYD, but its performance can only be said to be decent.
It cannot be concluded that the joint venture represented by Volkswagen has all fallen, but it is clear that the era of joint venture leadership has quietly ended.
02
The entire series of independent brands is intelligent, electrified, and the brand is up
It is true that in terms of responding to the chip crisis and flexible supply chain capabilities, Chinese brands that are fighting locally have obvious advantages. But if the reasons for the collective upward movement of Chinese brands are all attributed to this, it is obviously inappropriate and even unfair.
According to the data of the Federation of Passenger Vehicles, in the top ten passenger car sales in 2021, independent brands occupy five seats, and in the top fifteen seats of independent brands increase to 7 seats. The overall market share of 44% of Chinese brand passenger cars corresponds to the overall performance of 44%.
The performance of the autonomous top three is as strong as ever. Through the comprehensive development of intelligence, electrification and brand upwards, the three head car companies have achieved excellent results.
Geely Automobile once again sat in the top spot in domestic passenger car sales, with batch sales reaching 1.328 million units in 2021, surpassing SAIC Volkswagen and ranking among the top three sales.
With the help of classic products such as CS75 large-scale SUV sales of 280,000, annual sales of the UNI series exceeding 120,000, and annual sales of Auchan brand of 228,000 units, Changan's own brand passenger cars have sold more than 1.2 million units.
Great Wall Motors' sales of pickup trucks reached 1.28 million units, a record high.
The second camp represented by BYD is also remarkable, with the rapid development of the new energy track, BYD passenger car sales in 2021 reached 735,000 units, an increase of 74.8% year-on-year, is the fastest growing enterprise among all domestic traditional car companies. Chery Automobile's annual sales of overseas exports also approached one million units.
It can be said that after years of cultivation and development, Chinese brands have entered a stage of benign development of sustainable development, and the upward momentum is unstoppable.
03
The sustainable future of Chinese brands depends on the transformation and reshaping of technology as the core
The past is over, and the future is the key. As many industry experts rationally view, the clear performance of independent joint ventures in the past year. It is largely due to the rigid system of joint venture car companies.
For example, in response to the chip crisis, many traditional joint venture car companies rely on first-tier suppliers, while Chinese brands are more flexible and find resources through various means, including direct contact with chip manufacturers to buy, so they can get more resources.
Obviously, Chinese brands cannot be comfortable with this, and once the epidemic eases and the global supply chain capabilities are improved, they will face the challenges of competition from multinational car companies with comprehensive advantages in capital, profit and technology.
On January 28, Toyota Motor Corporation announced that its global sales in 2021, including its subsidiaries Daihatsu Motors and Hino Motors, will continue to rank first in global sales in 2021 from 10% y/y to 10.5 million units. In order to fully cope with the deep transformation of intelligence and electrification, Toyota is relying on its own huge profits, comprehensively increasing investment, only in the field of batteries, in the next decade, Toyota will invest $13.6 billion in the development of batteries and battery power systems for electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, in order to achieve a leading position in key automotive technologies in the next decade.
As Toyota's main competitor, Volkswagen is more ambitious, and in the Volkswagen Group's officially released 2030 NEW AUTO strategy, Volkswagen will gradually invest more than 73 billion euros to develop the next generation of super platforms.
Where is the path for Chinese brands to continue to rise? Under the fierce industrial competition and the transformation of the intelligent and electrification industry, Chinese brands still have to focus on the improvement of scientific and technological strength, and comprehensively build and enhance the core competitiveness of the future.
As Zhu Huarong, rotating president of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said at a press conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology on January 12 that world-class Chinese brands will be born in the next decade. But first of all, Chinese brands should enhance their strategic transformation capabilities in an all-round way. First of all, from the direction, to accelerate the transformation to the characteristics of intelligent, new energy, low carbon, travel services, and technology companies, this is a new trend in the development of the industry, and it is a strategic transformation opportunity that China must seize.
At the same time, around the classic products, we must accelerate the development of intelligence, electrification, networking, and lightweight, and at the same time, we should also develop in the direction of "health". Globally, the new crown epidemic has not been effectively alleviated, and more and more people are beginning to choose a safer way of traveling in private cars, and health problems in the car will undoubtedly receive more attention and attention.
Third, for Chinese brands that are fighting locally, it is even more necessary to accurately understand the consumer needs of the younger generation of Chinese consumers, seize new marketing changes from the brand, and march into the high-end market.
Without a doubt, this is the most pertinent and scientific transformation proposal for Chinese brands.
Written in the end: Looking at the development process of developed countries such as European and American powers, the importance of the automobile industry is incomparable, and the economic power must be an automobile power. The foothold of the automobile power must be to have the world's first-class local brands. For Chinese brands that have been cultivated for 30 or 40 years, facing industrial changes and rising opportunities that have not been seen in a hundred years, we really can't miss this historic opportunity. Of course, with the efforts of Chinese brands, I believe that this historical opportunity will not be missed.