The supply of automotive chips remains unimpressed.
On March 11, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, national automobile sales in February were 1.737 million units, down 31.4% month-on-month and 18.7% year-on-year; automobile production was 1.813 million units, down 25.2% month-on-month and 20.6% year-on-year.
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that in February 2022, the production and sales of the automotive industry remained stable overall. Affected by the Spring Festival holiday factors, the working day has decreased, and the epidemic in some parts of the country has been sporadic, which has also affected the growth of the automobile market demand to a certain extent, so the automobile production and marketing ring has declined significantly, but it has shown rapid growth year-on-year.
According to the data, the sales of new energy vehicles nationwide in February were 334,000 units, down 22.7% month-on-month, an increase of 1.8 times year-on-year; production was 368,000 units, down 18.6% month-on-month, an increase of 2.0 times.
Chen Shihua said that at the end of last year, the inventory gap of car companies was as high as 1.5 million vehicles, and it will take at least 1-2 years to return to the pre-epidemic level. However, the primary task of current car companies is not to replenish inventory, but to solve the problem of market supply and demand. He mentioned that there is still a big gap in the current supply of automotive chips, and compared with the fourth quarter of last year, there is still no significant improvement, and car companies still have to wait a long time to buy chips. At present, the task of car companies is to give priority to meeting market demand.
From the perspective of corporate sales, caucus pointed out that from January to February, the sales volume of the top ten enterprise groups in automobile sales totaled 3.67 million units, an increase of 6.0% year-on-year, accounting for 86% of total automobile sales, 1.2 percentage points lower than the same period last year.
Source: China Automobile Association
Chen Shihua said that with the rise of new car-making forces, the market share of the top ten sales of traditional car companies has been affected, and it can be seen from sales that the new car-making forces are encroaching on the market share of the top ten car companies.
In terms of the main varieties of new energy vehicles, the data shows that compared with January, the production and sales of pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid vehicles have declined, of which the decline in the production and sales of pure electric vehicles is more obvious.
Chen Shihua said that plug-in hybrids have not been very good in terms of overall sales performance in the past, and the absolute amount of pure electric vehicles is much higher than that of plug-in hybrid vehicles. Recently, the sales of hybrid vehicles have improved, on the one hand, due to changes in the policy environment, and the subsidy for pure electric models is gradually declining. However, the manufacturing cost of new energy vehicles is very high, the entire industry is in a general state of loss, basically few companies can make a profit, and the situation that enterprises are not profitable is actually unsustainable. In contrast, hybrid vehicles will have a certain cost advantage.
On the other hand, although consumers are very recognized by new energy vehicles, there are still a large number of consumers who have a large demand for mileage. Therefore, at present, hybrid vehicles have better balanced the consumer market demand and the profitability of car companies, and have achieved a better growth rate.
Regarding the impact of the recent Russian-Ukrainian conflict on Chinese car companies, Xu Haidong, deputy chief engineer of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that China's vehicle exports to Russia and Ukraine accounted for 5%-6% of total exports last year. At present, on the one hand, the outcome of the conflict is unclear, the markets of the two countries are basically in a state of cessation, coupled with the sharp depreciation of the ruble, Chinese car companies will face a sharp increase in prices if they export. On the other hand, most of China's automobile exports rely on shipping, which also has certain obstacles. Chinese car companies will definitely be affected to a certain extent, but the specific degree is not easy to judge, and at present, car companies are mostly wait-and-see.