22/02/14
Lead
BMW Brilliance, which averaged 54,000 units per month in 2021, soared to 89,000 units in January and ranked among the top 10 car companies for the first time.
Author 丨 KangQin
Responsible editor 丨 Yang Jing
Edit 丨 Chic
Thanks to the continuous improvement of chip supply, dealer inventories continue to rise, some local governments have also introduced policies to encourage car sales, coupled with the arrival of the car purchase season before the Spring Festival and the impulse of some dealers, the domestic automobile market sales are hot in mid-to-early January this year.
But unfortunately, affected by the Spring Festival holiday, the last few days of January automobile production and sales were basically in a state of stagnation, and the outbreak of the epidemic in many places made many cities advocate the local New Year, which reduced the demand for car purchases, so in the end, the domestic automobile retail market did not usher in a "opening red".
According to data released by the Association of Passenger Vehicles on February 14, 2022, the retail sales of narrowly produced passenger cars in january 2022 fell by 4.4% year-on-year to 2.092 million units. Although the year-on-year decline continues, it must be admitted that the decline has narrowed significantly compared to previous months. In terms of sales volume, this figure is the high level of the retail market after the outbreak of the epidemic, which has opened a good prelude to the new year.
At the same time, wholesale sales in January this year rose 6.8% y/y to 2.172 million units, a new high since 2019, due to relatively low January 2021 data and a sharp increase in exports of 91% to 169,000 units.
Overall, the performance of the car market in January is still remarkable, and perhaps February is more worth looking forward to. Even if February sales will be more widely affected by the Spring Festival holiday, due to the epidemic, retail and wholesale sales in February 2021 will be only 1.180 million units and 1.138 million units, respectively, which are at the low level of the same period in recent years, so both may have positive growth at that time.
1
New energy sales reached a new high
From the perspective of market segmentation, new energy is still the biggest bright spot in the passenger car market.
In January, retail sales of new energy passenger cars increased by 1.320 million to 347,000 units, and wholesale sales also increased by 141.4% y/y to 412,000 units, both of which reached a new high in the same period.
After the retail and wholesale reached the 3 million vehicle mark in 2021, the new energy market in 2022 is more worth looking forward to, and the estimate of the association is that it will reach about 5.5 million vehicles in the whole year.
Indeed, although the decline of new energy subsidies on January 1 and the recent rise in the price of raw materials such as lithium ore have made new energy vehicle companies face certain cost pressures, and the prices of a large number of new energy models have been raised, but from the data of January, the slight price increase has not caused much impact on the new energy market.
Obviously, domestic consumers have a certain degree of consensus and expectations about the price changes after the decline of new energy subsidies, and the A00/A0 class electric vehicles that currently occupy the largest share of the new energy market will not enjoy subsidies, so the car purchase behavior of this part of consumers will not be affected. In terms of car companies, in the future, as the new energy market reaches a certain scale, the bicycle cost of the head car companies will certainly continue to decline, and the pressure will be alleviated.
And not only domestic, but also overseas in 2022 will also become a new direction for domestic car companies to attack vigorously. According to the data, the export of new energy passenger cars in January was 52,000 units, accounting for 30.8% of the total exports, which means that the overseas new energy market will also be a new growth point for domestic car companies, especially new energy vehicle companies. However, 40,000 of these belong to Tesla China, and independent car companies need to strengthen the promotion of overseas markets.
From the perspective of the traditional three major market segments, after reaching the high point before the decline of new energy subsidies in December 2021, new energy sales fell slightly, so that its structural pull effect on cars has weakened, so the year-on-year comparison of cars in January is again worse than the overall car market. Thanks to the upgrading of consumption and the strong demand in the Midwest market, the performance of the SUV market is still relatively strong, and wholesale sales are 32,000 ahead of the car.
The weak market segment of MPV, although there is the arrival of heavy models such as Kia Kahua, Hyundai Kustur and Toyota Xena, but the cheap means of production MPV still occupies a large share, which is almost contrary to the general trend of consumption upgrading, so it continues to lead the passenger car market. Perhaps, the launch of electric MPV models in the future can improve its decline.
2
BMW Brilliance entered the top ten of car companies for the first time
As for the most obvious feature of the top ten rankings of car companies in January, it is seriously differentiated, which has made a major change in the pattern between head car companies.
As we all know, due to the shortage of chips leading to the shortage of new cars and other factors, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM, which have occupied the top three lists of domestic car companies in retail and wholesale for several consecutive years, have suffered Waterloo, especially in the second half of 2021, which has caused the former's wholesale ranking to fall to 6th in the whole year, and the latter's retail sales have slipped to 8th.
Unexpectedly, the tragic situation of these two in 2022 continued, SAIC Volkswagen barely held the third place in wholesale, retail was squeezed to 4th, and SAIC-GM ranked only 5th and 6th in retail and wholesale, respectively.
While the two joint venture giants continue to slump, Changan Automobile, which comes from the autonomous camp, has become the runner-up in both the retail and wholesale markets for the first time. Previously, Changan Automobile's best ranking in retail was February 3, 2021, when its wholesale was the runner-up with 104,000 units. The 156,000 units were changan automobile's record for single-month wholesale in history, while the retail sales of 144,000 units were the second best in recent years after 148,000 units in the same period last year.
Of course, not only Changan, geely automobile, BYD automobile and Chery automobile performance is also very eye-catching. With 146,000 vehicles surpassing SAIC Volkswagen, Geely Automobile once again ranked among the top three wholesale sales, BYD also appeared again in both retail and wholesale head car companies, and Chery Automobile also appeared in the top ten wholesale list again.
The good performance of these three companies is related to its new energy sales, leaving aside by BYD, which accounts for more than 90% of its total sales, due to the geometric sales of its new energy brands exceeding 10,000 vehicles for the first time, coupled with the sales of geely brand plugs and pure electricity, Lynk & Co brand plugs and mixes and extreme krypton vehicles, Geely Automobile's new energy wholesale sales reached a new high of 17,036 units in January. With the blessing of QQ ice cream, Chery Automobile's new energy sales also set a new record of 21,179 units.
It is also worth mentioning that bmw Brilliance appeared in the top ten retail sales in January, which is the first time in recent years, and it is also the first time that luxury car companies have entered the list. Although retail sales of domestic luxury cars fell 5% year-on-year in January, BMW Brilliance rose 20.4% year-on-year to 89,000 units in January, up 74,000 units in the same period last year, and even surpassed GAC Toyota's 88,000 units.
But this good result is most likely that BMW Brilliance diverted some of last year's sales. Due to the shortage of chips affecting production, the sales of Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW in the second half of 2021 have continued to decline, of which the first two have suffered more serious losses, and finally only BMW has achieved positive annual growth and become the champion of domestic luxury brands with 651,000 vehicles. When Mercedes-Benz and Audi and the whole recovered in December 2021, BMW suddenly fell 25.4% year-on-year to 39,000 units, which is the lowest sales volume in 2021, which has to be doubted.
Conchen
Just want to cross the mountains and the sea