Source of this article: Times Finance Author: Yang Delin
Recently, Chery Holdings released the latest sales data, in January this year, Chery Group sold 20,635 new energy vehicle products, an increase of 1.7 times year-on-year. Among them, the new energy passenger car sector sold 19,431 units in the month, a substantial increase of 189.8% year-on-year.
According to the January retail sales ranking of new energy manufacturers released by the Association of Automobile Associations, Chery Automobile squeezed into the top three, second only to BYD and SAIC-GM-Wuling, and 105 more than Tesla China (excluding exports). For reference, Chery only ranked 8th in the retail sales ranking of new energy manufacturers in 2021, with a cumulative sales volume of less than 100,000 vehicles in the whole year.
Chery QQ Ice Cream Image Source/Network
It is reported that the official attributes the eye-catching performance of Chery New Energy passenger cars to the small ants, QQ ice cream and other models. Official data shows that Chery QQ Ice Cream, which was officially launched in December last year, achieved sales of 9,984 units in January this year, an increase of 19% month-on-month. In other words, the sales volume of the car accounted for 51.38% of Chery New Energy passenger cars in the same month.
On February 17, a senior automotive industry analyst told Times Finance that the just-listed QQ ice cream accounted for more than half of Chery's new energy passenger car sales, on the one hand, benefiting from the classic IP of QQ, on the other hand, due to the current popularity of the micro-electric vehicle market, but relatively speaking, this market competition is also fierce, so relying on a car of less than 50,000 yuan to boost Chery's entire new energy passenger car sector May still be limited.
Data source: The "electrocution" of the generation of the Association of Automobiles eats the market cake
As one of the earliest traditional car companies to lay out the micro pure electric vehicle market, SAIC-GM-Wuling ate a wave of market dividends after completely bringing this market to fire. Last year, its Wuling Hongguang MINI EV won the annual sales of new energy single models with a sales performance of 426452 vehicles.
According to relevant statistics, the wholesale sales of A00-class electric vehicles reached 890,000 units last year, an increase of 189% over 2020, accounting for 26.88% of the total wholesale sales of new energy passenger cars in 2021 and 33% of the pure electric passenger car market share.
The popularity of the market has also spawned many entrants. On December 28 last year, Chery QQ Ice Cream was officially launched, which provides two endurance versions of NEDC comprehensive working conditions 120km and 170km, and launched pudding, cone and sundae models, with a price range of 29,900 yuan to 43,900 yuan.
In order to quickly win market attention, Chery even re-enabled the classic IP of "Chery QQ". As early as the eve of the qq ice cream listing, Chery iCar ecology official Weibo released a message warm-up: the first model of the iCar platform "QQ ice cream" debuted, and was accompanied by topic terms such as "Chery QQ return" and "Chery QQ".
Public information shows that as a former generation of divine cars, Chery QQ was listed in 2003, and in the following 10 years, Chery QQ sales exceeded 1 million vehicles, and were exported to five continents, nearly 100 countries and regions around the world, and even won the championship of mini cars for 7 consecutive years, with the reputation of "king of cars".
Qq's hot sales also further brought fire to Chery at that time. Relevant data show that before 2011, Chery Automobile won the sales championship of its own brand for 9 consecutive years; at the same time, according to the official, it is also the first Chinese car brand in China to exceed 7.5 million units in passenger car sales. However, later, with the development of society and consumption upgrades, SUV, sedan and other models were popular, including mini cars such as Chery QQ, which gradually declined or even stopped production.
Driven by the hot micro-electric vehicle market and the effect of superimposing the "sentiment card" effect of the god car, the car does have the potential to explode. According to the data released by Chery, qq ice cream has exceeded 15,624 orders 24 hours after the release of pre-sale, and at the end of last year, Chery officially announced that the order volume of QQ ice cream has exceeded 70,000 units.
Under the hot order, the car is also facing certain production capacity pressure. On February 15, Times Finance learned from a Chery 4s store in Beijing that chery QQ ice cream currently has a small number of high-end models of existing cars, and the store sales said, "If you have a car, you can mention it immediately, but there is no way to choose the color and configuration, and at present, as long as a car with a range of 120km and 170km can be mentioned." If you book, you may have to wait 2 or 3 months to pick up the car. As for the price of the car, the sale said that there are no relevant offers at present, and they are all sold according to the guidance price.
On February 17, Chery told Times Finance, "(Production capacity) is under pressure, and the rise in materials, the epidemic, and chips have an impact, but we are much more stable than small factories." As for whether the rise in raw materials will affect the subsequent price of the car, the person said that the current price system is still maintained.
Qq ice cream to move Chery new energy?
It is worth noting that with the increase of entrants, the competition in the micro-electric vehicle market is becoming more intense, and how much market cake Chery QQ ice cream can eat is still unknown.
It is reported that at present, in addition to Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, Chang'an, Dongfeng, Great Wall and other independent brands are also competing for this market. According to the data of the Association, in December last year, The Hongguang MINI EV sales were 55742 vehicles, ranking first; Changan Benben E-Star sales were 10404 vehicles, ranking second; followed by QQ Ice Cream and Euler Black Cat, with sales of 8390 and 8056 vehicles, respectively.
"It is a good thing that there is a car that sells more, especially a new car that has just been listed, as for the sales structure, it depends on the follow-up trend." Auto analyst Zhang Xiaoliang told Times Finance. As for whether the hot sales of QQ ice cream can drive the development of Chery's new energy sector, he believes that QQ ice cream and Hongguang MINI EV positioning are similar, as a latecomer to compete for the market cake challenge is not small, chery new energy sector overall boost or rely on more and more high-end models to work together.
Another industry analyst told Times Finance that as one of the car companies that laid out new energy earlier, Chery's new energy sector can be called "getting up early to catch up with a late set", not only lagging behind BYD, Great Wall and other independent brands developed in the same period, but also compared with the new domestic forces of the latecomers, there is no chance of winning, Chery New Energy currently wants to boost in addition to sales, there are brand image and other issues.
According to the data, Chery sold 97,625 new energy vehicles in 2021, while BYD's new energy passenger car sales were 593745, and Great Wall Motor's new energy sector sold 133997; in terms of "Wei Xiaoli", Weilai's sales in 2021 were 91429 vehicles, And Xiaopeng's sales were 98155, ideally 90491.
According to public information, as early as April 2010, Chery established its own new energy company, as of now, Chery New Energy has ADGE e, Tiggo 3xe, Arrizo e, eQ1 small ants, large ants and other new energy products. Among them, Chery New Energy's main sales products are mainly concentrated in the low-end eQ series. Data show that in 2021, Chery Small Ant bicycle sales of 77,003 vehicles, accounting for 79% of the total sales. After the QQ ice cream priced at less than 50,000 yuan was listed, January sales accounted for 51.38% of Chery's total sales of new energy passenger cars in that month.
Some industry insiders told Times Finance that with the rapid development of the new energy vehicle market and the continuous upgrading of the domestic automobile consumption market, "new energy + high-end" has become a major trend in China's automotive industry. At present, Chery has a good performance in the micro-electric vehicle market, but due to chery's low positioning, it has limited the market competitiveness of Chery models to a certain extent. In addition, the richer the product matrix of the new energy brand, the wider the road of this brand. However, at present, Chery's product matrix is relatively single, and relying only on A00-level micro-electric vehicles is not conducive to Chery's long-term development in the new energy market.
"Today's mainstream track of new energy is focused on the mid-to-high-end market, and for Chery New Energy, how to further enhance its competitiveness on the basis of inherent performance is still an unavoidable development problem." The industry analyst said.