Introduction: The flag should be erected, even if the 2021 goal is not achieved, the flag for 2022 must be erected high and far. The market size of 27.5 million vehicles in 2022 should be a little more.
Recently, with the dust settling on Tianjin's 2022 economic growth targets, the 2022 GDP growth targets of 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities in China have all been released. From the statistical point of view, the growth target of many places has been lowered compared with 2021. Under the background of the triple pressure of "demand contraction, supply shock and weak expectations" proposed by the Central Economic Work Conference, confidence is more valuable than gold in 2022.
As a strategic pillar industry of the national economy, the output value created by the automobile industry, the linkage of upstream and downstream supply chains, and the improvement of residents' living standards and happiness indexes are probably unparalleled in the manufacturing industry. So in 2022, what kind of goals have China's mainstream auto companies set for themselves?
SAIC Motor, the largest producer and marketing group: do not announce the target, pragmatic or weak-minded?
SAIC Motor, the largest producer and sales group in China, has not yet announced its sales target for 2022. In 2021, SAIC motor sold a total of 5.4635 million vehicles, a decline for the third consecutive year, and failed to achieve the sales target of 6.17 million vehicles. Faced with last year's expectation of a 10% year-on-year increase and a 2.45% year-on-year decline, SAIC May need to evaluate its own 2022 more cautiously.
Although the scale of 5 million vehicles is currently the enemy in China, the weak market performance of its two joint ventures SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM, how SAIC-GM-Wuling breaks through the "Hongguang MINI EV" theory, and the shortcomings of SAIC's autonomous sector, especially the new energy business, are all topics to be solved by SAIC.
However, SAIC's car exports are a bright spot, so it also has the confidence to release sales targets. After breaking through 697,000 units in 2021, an increase of nearly 80% year-on-year, SAIC motor has put forward a higher goal: to exceed 800,000 vehicles, of which 120,000 vehicles are in the European market; if the trip is completed, the European market will become the first overseas market for SAIC to achieve 100,000 vehicles.
FAW Group with "red flag flying": 4.1 million, 17%
In the context of cumulative sales of 3.5 million vehicles in 2021, down 5% year-on-year and not reaching the sales target of 4 million vehicles, FAW Group, the "eldest son of the Republic", plans to sell 4.1 million vehicles in 2022, an increase of 17.1% year-on-year.
Among them, FAW-Volkswagen sales in 2022 will return to 2 million vehicles, while FAW Toyota will increase from 860,000 vehicles last year to 1 million vehicles; in terms of independent brands, the sales target of the Hongqi brand in 2022 is 450,000-500,000 vehicles, an increase of more than 50% year-on-year; and the Besturn brand target is 100,000 vehicles.
In January this year, FAW Group sold 311,500 vehicles, of which FAW-Volkswagen sold 183,000 vehicles, FAW Toyota sold only 51,700 vehicles, far less than another Toyota joint venture; hongqi, jiefang and besturn sold 42,000 units, 28,000 units and 5,466 units respectively.
It is worth mentioning that the Hongqi brand hit a record high in single-month sales. From 2018 to 2021, Hongqi's sales of 33,000 vehicles, 100,000 vehicles, 200,000 vehicles and 300,000 vehicles respectively achieved leapfrog high growth; however, the Hongqi brand did not achieve its expectation of 400,000 vehicles in 2021.
FAW Group is currently the only one of the six state-owned automobile groups that has not been listed as a whole, and its FAW Jiefang has performed poorly in the capital market.
Dongfeng Motor catching up with FAW: 4 million, 22%
Dongfeng Motor Group is similar to FAW Group, whether it is from the scale of production and sales, or the growth rate, it is in an order of magnitude.
In 2021, Dongfeng Motor sold 3.2753 million units, down 5% year-on-year, and also failed to meet the sales target of 3.85 million units. Looking ahead to 2022, the automotive group has set a target of 4 million vehicles, an increase of 22% over 2021.
In 2021, the sales difference between it and its big brother FAW Group is 220,000 vehicles; in 2022, Dongfeng Group will narrow this gap to 100,000 vehicles.
At the same time, Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. (Dongfeng Group Shares: HK.00489) has taken the lead in announcing a sales target of 3.471 million units in 2022, an increase of 25% year-on-year, before disclosing the annual sales volume of 2021, of which the target sales of passenger cars are 2.894 million units, an increase of 28% year-on-year, and the target sales of commercial vehicles are 577,000 units, an increase of 10% year-on-year.
Dongfeng Group co., Ltd. sold a total of 2.775 million units in 2021, but also failed to achieve the target of 3.292 million units, and the sales volume difference was more than 500,000 units, of which the difference between passenger cars was about 400,000 units and the difference between commercial vehicles was about 100,000 units.
However, this does not seem to have stopped Dongfeng Group's positive expectations for 2022, and the target is still raised to 3.471 million units, which will be its best performance since 2017.
GAC Group: 2.466 million, 15%
In 2021, GAC Group sold 2.144 million units, up 4.92% year-on-year, but it also fell short of its target. Looking ahead to 2022, GAC Group plans to increase production and sales by 15% year-on-year, of which sales will be approximately 2.466 million units. This increase is relatively conservative among state-owned automobile groups that have announced sales plans, with an increase of only 320,000 units.
Last year, GAC Honda and GAC Toyota completed 780,000 units and 828,000 units respectively, with "two fields" sales accounting for 75% of the group's total sales. In 2022, the two joint ventures will undoubtedly continue to be the two carriages that drive gazing group sales.
In addition, it is worth mentioning that the self-owned brands of GAC Group, Trumpchi and Eian, may have a performance worth looking forward to in 2022. In 2021, the sales of these two brands were 324,000 units and 120,000 units, respectively, which not only achieved positive year-on-year growth, but also accounted for 20.7% of the group's total sales.
Under the shroud of the strong Japanese joint venture brand "Halo", the autonomous sector of GAC Group has achieved relatively difficult results. However, GAC FCA and GAC Mitsubishi may still be short boards in the new year.
In addition, Changan Automobile and BAIC Group also did not announce sales targets for 2022, of which the former completed 2.3 million units in 2021, an increase of 14.82% year-on-year, and the year-on-year data was the best among the six state-owned automobile collectives; however, BAIC Group only completed 1.723 million units, a year-on-year decrease of 9.5%.
Private Car Top Three & New Forces: My life is up to me
In addition to the above six state-owned automobile groups, let's look at the top three private enterprises. Among them, Geely Automobile aims to increase by 24% to 1.65 million units in 2022, Great Wall Motor to increase by 48% to 1.9 million units, and BYD to increase by 62% to 1.2 million units.
In this way, the three private car companies have more aggressive sales expectations than the state-owned automobile group; and Chery Automobile is no exception, with sales growth expected to increase by as much as 56% in 2022, that is, from less than 1 million in 2021 to 1.5 million!
At the same time, in today's automobile market, new car-making forces have become indispensable. At present, the companies that have announced sales targets for 2022 are Xiaopeng Automobile and Nezha Automobile, of which the former targets 250,000-300,000 units, and the latter is 150,000 units, with an increase of 154.7% and 115.3% respectively.
With this as a representative, the ambition of the new car-making forces can be seen, of course, it is also necessary to take into account that their scale is still small, and the traditional automobile giants with millions of vehicles are not the same day; but it is undeniable that in the process of the transformation of the automotive industry to new energy and intelligence, these new car-making forces are lightly armed, do not involve the heavy burden of enterprise transformation, and also occupy the first-mover advantage, in the capital market is more like a fish, the market value is not inferior to traditional car companies, so their strength should not be underestimated.
Write at the back:
If there is a goal, this year will surely be closely focused on how much the goal has been completed; without a goal, there may not be these troubles, but it will not be easily let go, after all, sales volume is the key dimension to measure the competitiveness of a company.
According to the China Automobile Association, the total sales of mainland vehicles in 2022 are expected to reach 27.5 million units, an increase of about 5% year-on-year; while new energy vehicles will reach 5 million units, an increase of 42% year-on-year, and the market share is expected to exceed 18%.
It is worth noting that the announced target sales of enterprises, coupled with the sales targets that have not been announced (calculated according to the sales volume of 2021), the current sales of these companies have exceeded 26 million, which means that many companies can only compete for more than 1 million vehicles, which is really unrealistic.
There is no doubt that the competition in the automotive industry will be extremely fierce in 2022, and it will be watched! There is also the FLAG established at the beginning of the year, which always reminds everyone of KPIs.