While many auto brands are celebrating the opening of sales in the first month of 2022, some joint venture brands have eaten behind closed doors. Among them is the figure of Dongfeng Honda, which harvested a total of 66668 vehicles in January, down 26% from the same period last year, lagging behind Guangqi Honda's 79973 vehicles.
The short-term lag is not terrible, but from the sales performance of the whole year last year, Dongfeng Honda achieved a sales performance of 793272 vehicles in 2021, which has a slight decline compared with 2020, although there are many objective factors such as the epidemic and chip shortage. However, being surpassed by FAW Toyota and GAC Toyota, Dongfeng Honda may find its own reasons.
The sales of major models lack new growth points
Friends who know a little about Dongfeng Honda know that cr-V and XR-V SUVs are the two most outstanding sales performance models of Dongfeng Honda, with cumulative sales of more than 400,000 vehicles last year, which is the veritable sales responsibility of Dongfeng Honda. But in 2021, the two cars face completely different situations, XR-V rose significantly, CR-V has a slight decline, the compact SUV market is becoming more and more crowded, and many models are equipped with serious internal rolls, making the CR-V's aura no longer shine as it once was, and the idea of unchanging changes is not used in the automotive industry. The gap between CR-V and the same level of sales champions and runners-up Haval H6 and Changan CS75 series is gradually expanding, followed by by the BYD Song series and Toyota RAV4 Rongfang is approaching, CR-V in 2022 to face a more severe test.
The Civic is also one of the main models of Dongfeng Honda, with annual sales of more than 200,000 units in 2020, but with the follow-up HATCHBACK hatchback model suffering from "ticket jumping", sales continued to decline for a period of time in the first half of 2021, until September, the eleventh generation model launched to ease. In the end, 166,100 sales were achieved in 2021, which is still one of the mainstream compact cars in terms of ranking. At the end of 2021, GUANGC Honda launched the Sister Model of the Civic, which will surely divert some users in 2022, and the sales trend is still unknown. In addition, the sports car in the independent brand has gradually emerged, and GAC Trumpchi Shadow Leopard, MG MG6, and Changan UNI-V will become competitors of the Civic.
The product shortcomings have not been significantly improved
The mid-to-high-end market has always been one of the shortcomings of Dongfeng Honda, and although the Yingshipai is a sister model of accord, it has more advantages in price, but the sales volume has never caught up with the latter. Similar to the situation of the Yingshi school is Dongfeng Honda LIFE, and sales and fit are also far apart. The flagship SUV model, the UR-V, failed to achieve satisfactory sales results in the same class, and the reason is that the UR-V is regarded as the representative of the "greasy faction", which runs counter to the mainstream youthful route.
New energy or a new breakthrough
Hybrid technology to see the "two fields" has been circulating in the industry for a long time, is currently in the period of vigorous development of new energy, hybrid technology may become a secret weapon to help Dongfeng Honda hit millions of sales. CR-V has taken the lead in becoming a model covering fuel, hybrid, plug-in hybrid three powertrains, and the "pure electric version of CR-V" - Honda e:NS1, which will be launched in China, will also be produced and sold by Dongfeng Honda. In the new energy track, compared with the rest of the joint venture brands, Dongfeng Honda still has the opportunity to seize the opportunity. In addition to the strength of the hardware level, Honda's fuel model's high retention rate has also been well-known in the industry for a long time, which undoubtedly gives Honda a strong soft power, if this feature can be extended to new energy models, it will also be of great benefit to brand development.
Because of the sports style that Honda has always adhered to, it is more popular among young users in China. If Dongfeng Honda wants to seek long-term development in China, in addition to optimizing the existing product structure and improving the product array, in the implementation of the follow-up "dual-vehicle strategy", avoiding infighting with Guangqi Honda is also an important lesson in the future. (Text/UVIS Auto Ride)
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