Recently, a number of car companies/brands have successively announced their february car sales. According to the data summarized by Gaz Automobile, due to the Spring Festival holiday, chip shortage and other factors, the sales volume of car companies fell collectively from the previous month, but the sales of most car companies were still significantly higher than the same period last year.
The chain fell collectively, but BYD and the ideal were very "able to play"
Judging from the situation of 31 car companies counted by Gaz Auto, the sales of the vast majority of car companies in February fell by more than 30% month-on-month. For example, SAIC-GM-Wuling sold 66,000 vehicles in February, down 40.03% from January; GAC Toyota sold 50,100 vehicles in February, down nearly 50% month-on-month; GAC Aean sold 8,526 units in the month, down 46.82% month-on-month; Geely Automobile sold 63,420 units in February, down 48.37% from January; and moreover, GAC FCA's sales in February were only 134 units, down more than 90% month-on-month.
It is worth noting that the new forces of car companies also failed to become an exception in February, and they fell together month-on-month. Xiaopeng Motors, which held the highest sales position in January in this camp, fell 50% month-on-month in February. In addition, Ideal Auto, Weilai Auto, Nezha Auto and Zero Run Auto also fell by 31.42%, 36.48%, 35.35% and 57.51% respectively.
This situation is not difficult to predict. It should be known that in February this year, the number of working days affected by the Spring Festival holiday decreased, and it was basically in the off-season of post-holiday sales, the market demand slowed down, and the overall performance of the automobile market declined compared with the previous month. According to the China Automobile Association, mainland vehicle sales in February were 1.737 million units, down 31.4% month-on-month.
In addition, the sporadic outbreak of the epidemic in some areas, the tight supply of chips and power batteries, etc., has also brought different degrees of impact on the sales performance of car companies.
Great Wall Motor admitted that its production and sales in February fell significantly, mainly due to the lack of supply of Bosch body electronic stability system (ESP). The lack of ESP supply reflects the shortage of chips. Some insiders pointed out that the shells, components and PCB circuit boards and other parts contained in Bosch ESP are supplied by multiple suppliers, once one of the suppliers is out of stock, you can change to another supplier to ensure timely delivery, and now the only solution is the chip supply problem.
Ideal Also highlights the impact of a shortage of parts on sales. According to its statement, due to the impact of the epidemic in Suzhou in February, the shortage of some parts and components affected production. Shen Yanan, co-founder and president of Ideal Auto, also mentioned this matter in the earnings report meeting recently, saying that Ideal Auto has been affected by Bosch supply in the past two months.
Xiaopeng Automobile also has the problem of tight supply of parts. It is reported that in late February, some Of the orders of Xiaopeng P5 owners could not be delivered on schedule, and Xiaopeng Automobile responded that this situation was mainly caused by the extreme shortage of major components such as lithium iron phosphate batteries. Of course, for Xiaopeng Motors, the technical transformation of the Zhaoqing production base during the Spring Festival holiday from the end of January to February (fully resuming production in mid-February) also had a certain impact on sales in the month.
Of course, it is not difficult to see from the above table that although the sales of car companies in February fell collectively month-on-month, the year-on-year performance was still gratifying. According to the statistics of Gaz Automobile, there are not a few car companies with a year-on-year sales growth rate of more than 30% in February, and more than a dozen car companies have even increased by more than 100% year-on-year, such as BYD, DPCA, SAIC Passenger Cars, GAC Aeon in the traditional camp, and Xiaopeng Motors, Ideal Automobile, Nezha Automobile, Androy Cars in the new faction.
Among these many car companies, BYD has a super performance. According to the data, BYD sold 91,078 cars in February, an increase of 335.22% year-on-year, and the growth momentum was very fierce. Not only that, under the general sharp decline in sales of car companies, BYD's sales in February fell by only 4.55% month-on-month.
It is worth noting that in January this year, BYD announced that due to the sharp rise in raw material prices and the decline of new energy car purchase subsidies, the official guidance prices of new energy models related to Dynasty Network and Ocean Network will be adjusted, ranging from 1,000 to 7,000 yuan. Judging from its sales performance, the impact of the price increase seems to be minimal. Not only that, according to Shenwan Hongyuan information, BYD's order growth rate in hand is still strong, and about 20,000 to 25,000 new orders were still added in February.
In this regard, a senior analyst at the Gaz Automotive Research Institute said that BYD's core components are self-supplied, and the supply chain control of costs and components is relatively stronger than that of other companies, and DMI continues the market sales heat of last year, and the new car dolphin also performs better in similar products, and the overall product structure advantage is outstanding.
In addition to BYD, the ideal car can also be described as "can play". According to the data, Ideal Cars delivered a total of 8,414 new cars in February, an increase of 265.8% year-on-year, and the cumulative sales volume in the first two months reached 20,682 units, which is the highest among the new power car companies in both a single month and a cumulative sales volume. And you know, other brands are several models on the same front, and the ideal car only with the ideal ONE model, to achieve such results, it is really rare.
Of course, from the perspective of long-term development, relying on only one new energy model to fight alone is not conducive to consolidating the position of the ideal car in the field of new energy. This ideal car naturally understands. Recently, Ideal Auto officially announced part of the product information of the new flagship SUV Ideal L9, which is reported to be launched during this year's Beijing Auto Show. With the arrival of the ideal L9, the ideal car dual car era will officially open.
Independent car companies are keen on "multi-brand", geometry, tanks and so on
Looking at the Chinese auto market in recent years, an obvious phenomenon is that many independent car companies have continuously launched new sub-brands on the basis of the original brands.
For example, Geely Automobile has established sub-brands such as Lynk & Co, Geometry, and Extreme Kr a few years ago. In January this year, Geely Automobile also announced the establishment of a new brand - Ruilan Automobile, it is reported that Ruilan Automobile is a new joint venture company established by Lifan Technology and Geely Automobile in Liangjiang New Area, Chongqing, the new company is engaged in the research and development, sales and operation of automobiles, the core direction is to create a new generation of power-changing models.
In addition to WEY, Euler, Great Wall Cannon, the new category brand created by Great Wall Motors - Tank was also announced in April last year, becoming the fifth independent brand of Great Wall Motors, and it is also in this year that Great Wall Motors established a salon brand, which is reported to be the third high-end brand launched by Great Wall Motors after WEY and Tanks.
In addition to traditional fuel vehicle brands such as Fengshen, Fengxing and Fengguang, Dongfeng Motor has also established a new energy vehicle brand Lantu. In addition to the original Chery and Kerry, Chery Automobile has also established the Jietu brand and the Xingtu brand.
The reason why independent car companies are keen on "multi-brand" is not difficult to understand. Senior analysts of Gaz Automotive Research Institute pointed out that the "multi-brand" of independent car companies mainly comes from the brand upward and the needs of consumer purchasers for differentiation and personalization, and the benign development route of multi-brand will help enterprises better define their brand image and attributes in the market segment, and attract more target customers.
From the actual performance, the newly established sub-brands have already contributed.
For Geely Automobile, in its February sales, several brands of Lynk & Co, Geometry, Extreme Krypton and Ruilan contributed to varying degrees. Among them, the Lynk & Co brand sold 10,524 units in February; the geometry brand also achieved 7,705 units in the month, an increase of more than 8 times from the same period last year; the Extreme Kr brand sold 2,916 units in February; and Ruilan Automobile delivered a total of 1,618 new vehicles in February.
Geely Automobile Research Institute senior analysts believe that Geely Automobile is a successful multi-brand and brand up enterprise, Volvo's addition will bring Geely from the original economic car brand into a higher dimension, and from the current point of view, in the new energy market, the industry's expectations for extreme krypton are also relatively high.
For Great Wall Motors, the performance of weY, tanks, and Euler's new brands is also relatively impressive. Excluding the month-on-month decline in the first two months of this year due to the Spring Festival and other factors, these brands have previously shown a good growth momentum. For example, the Euler brand, its monthly sales even soared to more than 20,000 units in December last year; tank brand sales also rose almost all the way, with monthly sales of nearly 12,000 units in December last year, and its sales in February this year increased by nearly 1 times compared with the same period last year; Weipai's performance was relatively stable, reaching a maximum monthly sales of 12,000 vehicles last year.
Although there is still a big gap between the sales volume of the above brands and the Haval brand, as far as Great Wall Motors is concerned, their contribution is increasing, which also makes up for the slightly weak growth of the Haval brand in recent years. As we all know, the Haval brand has always undertaken the task of great wall motors. However, relevant data show that since the sales volume fell to 800,000 vehicles in 2018, the annual sales of the Haval brand have been hovering around 750,000 vehicles for 4 consecutive years, and the Haval brand accounted for 60% of the total sales of Great Wall Motors in 2021, and in 2017, the corresponding proportion was 80%.
In this way, the establishment of new brand car companies has benefited a lot, but this may not be the case.
Some people believe that as long as car companies are not blind when launching "sub-brands", and the models under each sub-brand are laid out in an orderly manner, many sub-brands can achieve a virtuous circle. But that's easier said than done. The actual situation is that at present, there is mutual competition between the sub-brands set up by many car companies and the product positioning is not clear enough, which is very easy to produce "internal friction". In addition, as a senior analyst at the Gaz Automotive Research Institute said, excessive pursuit of brand differences without cost-effective products will weaken the original market position of the company.