According to sales in the first two months of 2022, Volvo is currently struggling in the market.
(Text/Pan Yuchen Editor/Lou Bing) A few days ago, Volvo Cars announced the sales of cars in February this year. According to the data, Volvo's global sales in February were 42,100 units, down 17.2% year-on-year. From January to February this year, Volvo sold a total of 89,600 vehicles worldwide, down 18.8% year-on-year.
In terms of models, only the XC40 and XC60 models sold more than 10,000 yuan per month in February, and except for the C40, which was listed annually, the rest of the models declined to varying degrees. Even counting January this year, only the cumulative sales of XC40, XC60 and XC90 models exceeded 10,000.
Despite the overall decline in performance, Volvo still said that consumer demand for new cars is stronger.
Another piece of news that comforts Volvo is that the "Recharge" series of models representing new energy products has sold 13,900 units, accounting for one-third of global sales. Among them, the sales volume of pure electric vehicles reached 3338 units in February, an increase of 229.5% over the same period last year, accounting for 7.9% of total sales.
Specific to the regional markets, in Europe, Volvo sold 19,500 units in February, down 18.6% year-on-year. However, Volvo's new energy models account for nearly half of sales in Europe. In addition, although the total sales of new energy vehicles fell by 6% compared with the same period last year, pure electric vehicle models have accounted for more than one-fifth of new energy sales, an increase of 159.1% year-on-year, and the electrification transformation has begun to show results.
In the first two months of this year, Volvo sold 38,200 units in Europe, down 21.8% year-on-year. Sales of new energy vehicles are close to 20,000 units, more than half of the total.
In the U.S., Volvo sold 6,219 units in February, down 32.1 percent year-over-year. Cumulative sales this year were 13,300 units, down 23% year-on-year. New energy vehicles sold 1,680 units in February, up 61.8% year-on-year.
In China, the world's largest auto market, Volvo sold 8,691 vehicles in February, down 13.8% year-on-year, but sales of new energy vehicles reached 682 units, up 121.4% year-on-year, of which 64 were pure electric models sold, an increase of 88.2% over the same period last year.
From January to February this year, Volvo China sold a total of 23,300 vehicles, down 20.3% year-on-year, and sold 1,829 new energy models, an increase of 54.1% year-on-year.
In addition, Volvo has set a sales target of 200,000 vehicles in China in 2022, but the current completion rate is less than 12%.
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In the past 2021, volvo Group's annual revenue reached SEK 282 billion ( about 216.5 billion yuan ), an increase of 7% year-on-year. Operating profit reached SEK 20.3 billion (about 15.5 billion yuan), an increase of 138.8% year-on-year, a profit margin of 7.2%, and a gross profit margin of 21.4%, setting many records, which is particularly difficult in the context of chip supply shortage. This was mainly due to nearly 700,000 vehicle sales in the whole of last year, an increase of 5.6% year-on-year.
According to the new product plan in 2022, Volvo will launch seven new models mainly based on new energy vehicles, including the new S90, the new plug-in hybrid XC90 and XC90 EV. Among them, the XC90 EV will be the first model of the Volvo brand based on the SPA2 platform.
Electrification is one of Volvo Cars' important strategic approaches. Volvo CEO (CEO) Hakan Samuelson has said that from 2020, Volvo's official website will first prompt users whether to buy the Recharge series of new energy vehicles. For the next five years, Volvo will launch a pure electric vehicle every year, and strive to account for 50% of global sales by 2025, with the rest being hybrid models. By 2030, Volvo will be fully electrified.
However, from the current market performance, new energy vehicles as a whole account for only one-third of Volvo's total sales, and pure electric vehicles account for only about 7%. Volvo still has a long way to go to achieve its goals within the scheduled timeframe.
Especially in China, the world's largest new energy vehicle market, Volvo's action is slightly inferior to that of the world. Volvo sold 172,000 units in China last year, up 3% year-on-year. However, considering that Volvo has basically completed the layout of major fuel vehicle products in China, the growth rate is more weak than in the past, and only through the new energy market can it achieve a breakthrough.
However, at present, Volvo only sells three new energy models in China, namely plug-in hybrid XC60, XC90 and pure electric XC40, and the market feedback is relatively general. The latest electric sedan C40 has just been pre-sold in China in February and has not yet been officially listed. In addition, due to the large number of brands available to consumers in China's new energy market, independent car companies and Tesla occupy an absolute advantage, as a second-tier luxury brand, Volvo's current competitiveness has no advantage over traditional joint venture car companies, let alone head enterprises.
In addition, although supply chain crises such as chip shortages have just begun to ease, the escalation of the Conflict between Russia and Ukraine still poses a major threat to a range of factors closely related to automobiles, such as supply chains and oil prices. Previously, on February 28, Volvo had announced its withdrawal from its local business in Russia and would no longer ship cars to Russian dealers, but the impact of the situation in Russia and Ukraine on the global auto industry, including Volvo, may have just begun.
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