I. Review of the automotive market in 2021
2021 is an extraordinary year for the automotive industry, the two words "lack of core" basically run through the whole year, while superimposing the impact of commodity price increases, automobile production capacity has not been well released, and the overall production and marketing performance is weaker than market expectations at the beginning of the year. However, the annual automobile sales still showed growth year-on-year, ending the decline in growth rate for three consecutive years since 2018.
According to the statistics of the China Automobile Association, in 2021, the production and sales of automobiles in the mainland reached 26.082 million units and 26.275 million units, respectively, an increase of 3.4% and 3.8% year-on-year. Production and sales of passenger cars were 21.408 million units and 21.482 million units, up 7.1% and 6.5% year-on-year, respectively. Among them, the performance of new energy vehicles was particularly excellent, significantly exceeding the expectations at the beginning of the year, and the annual sales of new energy vehicles in China reached 3.521 million units, an increase of 157.5% year-on-year.
According to the Ministry of Public Security, the number of motor vehicles in the country will reach 395 million in 2021, of which 302 million are cars. The number of new energy vehicles reached 7.84 million, accounting for 2.60% of the total number of vehicles, and the number of scrap cancellations increased by 2.92 million units compared with 2020, an increase of 59.25%. Among them, there are 6.4 million pure electric vehicles, accounting for 81.63% of the total number of new energy vehicles.
Second, the 2022 automotive market outlook
With the end of 2021, the problem of chip tension is gradually alleviated. Looking forward to the automotive market in 2022, if it is no longer affected by the "lack of cores", the automotive production capacity can be well released. From the perspective of the automobile sales market, in the case of improved supply, this year's automobile sales will still maintain a high growth, including making up for the lack of sales last year due to insufficient production. We learned from public information on the Internet that major car companies have maintained a steady growth trend when formulating sales targets for this year. Here's a quick finish:
In addition to the above car companies, public information on the Internet also learned that GAC Group's production and sales targets for 2022 increased by 15% year-on-year, Great Wall Motors' sales targets of 1.9 million vehicles, "Wei Xiaoli" sales targets exceeded 200,000 vehicles, and Huawei's sales targets exceeded 300,000 vehicles. Judging from the sales targets of the above car companies, most car companies have high hopes for this year's auto market.
On December 10, 2021, the Central Economic Work Conference came to an end. The meeting made it clear that "economic work should be steady and steady", which will also lay a solid foundation for the steady recovery of China's automobile market. It can be seen from the key project investment in various regions in China in January this year that infrastructure and other projects were released ahead of schedule. These engineering projects have a high correlation with the use of commercial vehicles, which will create good external conditions for the recovery of the commercial vehicle market, and it is expected that the growth rate of commercial vehicles this year is expected to turn negative to positive.
New energy vehicles are one of the important components of the dual-carbon target strategy. In 2021, the sales volume of new energy vehicles increased by 157% year-on-year, which marked a turning point in the new energy vehicle market entering a stage of rapid growth. In late January, the National Development and Reform Commission and seven other departments issued the "Implementation Plan for Promoting Green Consumption", which once again proposed to carry out in-depth activities for new energy vehicles to go to the countryside, encourage automobile enterprises to develop and promote new energy vehicles that meet the travel needs of rural residents, have high quality and low price, and are advanced and applicable, and promote the improvement of the rural operation and maintenance service system.
At the same time, we found that the consumption pattern of new energy vehicles has changed, in recent years, the subsidy policy for new energy vehicles has been lowered year by year, but the sales volume has not decreased but has increased, and the new energy vehicle market has been driven by subsidy policies and transformed into a good situation driven by market consumption. From the public information on the Internet, it is understood that many car companies have expanded the sales share of new energy vehicles in the sales target of 2022. This also means that car companies will inject greater resources into the new energy vehicle market in 2022.
According to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, according to the export statistics of vehicle enterprises, in 2021, the export of automobiles was 2.015 million units, an increase of 1 times year-on-year, accounting for 7.7% of total automobile sales, an increase of 3.7 percentage points over the previous year. With the recovery of the overseas auto market, as well as the recognition of the quality and brand of mainland cars in the overseas auto market. It can be seen that the overseas auto market is still an important sales growth point in 2022.
We also pay attention to the survey statistics of member enterprises of the China Automobile Dealers Association, the penetration rate of auto retail finance in 2019 is about 45%, and the penetration rate of auto finance in mainland China is more than 50% in 2020. Through the investigation of auto 4S stores, it is understood that in recent years, consumers have become more and more convenient and fast to handle retail finance, and young consumers have become more and more receptive to financial consumption. We can foresee this year's auto market, with the increase in the proportion of consumer credit, marking the auto retail market in the auto finance stimulus, driving the overall auto market consumption capacity.
Looking forward to the auto market in 2022, driven by the consumer market and policies, the auto market is still developing healthily. The sales market is expected to increase by more than 7% year-on-year in 2022.