As one of the earliest car brands to enter the Chinese market, Buick has exceeded one million for three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018. According to the data, the cumulative sales in 2016 reached a peak, 1.2302 million vehicles, very close to FAW-Volkswagen, but the good times are not long, since 2016 experienced a "highlight" moment in sales, its sales began to decline, from 1.224 million vehicles in 2017 to 828,600 vehicles in 2021, it can be said that it is getting "cooler", and what is more lamentable is that it has been surpassed by Geely, BYD, Changan, Haval and other independent brands. Why did the sales of the joint venture car company that once created millions of dollars have been declining in recent years, and people can't help but ask, what is wrong with Buick?
Of course, the sales of a brand have problems, and ultimately depends on whether its main model is powerful. At present, Buick's models include Kaiyue, Yinglang, Ankera, Yuelang, Weilang, Encore Flag, Buick GL6, Buick GL8, Micro Blue 7, etc., which have covered a number of series of product lines such as cars, SUVs, MPVs, new energy, etc., but it is worth noting that Buick has no other classic models in addition to GL8, which is really not for a brand that has entered the Chinese market since 1999.
According to the data, Buick sales in January 2022 were 61,967 units, down 28.7% year-on-year and 31.8% month-on-month. All along, the reason why Buick can compete with Japanese-German joint venture brands in the Chinese car market is nothing more than three cars: in the field of cars, there is Yinglang; in the SUV segment, there is Oncovi; in the MPV market, Buick GL8 is an undisputed model. However, from the recent situation, Yinglang and Encore are in danger of both falling. Among them, as one of Buick's best-selling models, Yinglang has won the top spot in China's sedan sales list for 7 consecutive months, but in 2017, Buick began to die, Yinglang cancelled the four-cylinder, the whole series was replaced by a three-cylinder engine, and then in 2018 and 2019, Yinglang's sales began to fall off a cliff, compared with before the replacement of three cylinders, Yinglang's annual sales fell by more than 100,000 vehicles.
In 2020, after Yinglang switched back to the four-cylinder engine, sales immediately picked up significantly, but it was difficult to return to the peak. In January this year, Yinglang only sold 6435 vehicles, down 76.51% year-on-year and 69.94% month-on-month. Since October 2017, the Buick brand has announced the widespread adoption of 1.0T and 1.3T three-cylinder engines on new models, with a maximum power of 125 horsepower for a 1.0T engine and a maximum power of 165 horsepower for a 1.3T engine. The Buick GL6, Oncora and Oncora GX models currently on sale all use 1.0T and 1.3T three-cylinder engines, and it is for this reason that the monthly sales of these three models are the highest in four figures, and there is a gap of dozens of times compared with the monthly sales of popular models in the same class.
At the same time, heavy models such as Oncovi, Regale, LaCrosse, Oncora, and Encore Banner have all declined to varying degrees. Among them, as the main model of the Buick brand SUV, Oncovi has maintained the first position in the sales of joint venture SUVs for many months, but with the increase of competitive pressure, Oncovey's sales have gradually begun to decline, in January this year, Oncovi only sold 10538 vehicles, down 34.07% year-on-year and 9.95% month-on-month. In addition, in January 2022, Regal sales fell by 8.22% year-on-year and 21.94% month-on-month; LaCrosse sales fell by 0.58% year-on-year; Oncora sales fell by 95% year-on-year; and Encore Banner sales fell by 100% year-on-year.
In order to cope with the decline in sales, Buick chose the strategy of reducing the price of the whole series, such as the current Yinglang can enjoy up to 44,000 yuan in cash, which is equivalent to a 6.5% discount. This market strategy of exchanging price cuts for sales can be maintained for a while, but it cannot be maintained for a long time. Because from the current best-selling models on the market, the price advantage is not enough, the quality of the product itself is also a key factor affecting consumers to buy a car, taking Buick's SUV products as an example.
Buick launched the Encore in 2012 and added oncovi in 2014, and in less than two years, Buick has invested two new models in the fledgling SUV market, but only Encore has had a brief glory. From the listing of Encore in 2014 to October 2016, reaching the highest level of monthly sales of 30,000 vehicles, once beat CR-V, X-Trail, Tiguan and other hot products to become the champion of the joint venture compact SUV, unfortunately, from 2017, the news of Oncovi's broken shaft has been broken, its market performance has also taken a sharp turn, just accumulated word of mouth has been squandered, in the past year, Oncovey's highest sales volume is only 16,500 vehicles, and in January this year has fallen to the 31st place in the SUV sales list.
Not only that, Yinglang's market share is gradually shrinking, and its quality problems are also related to certain links, such as the 2021 Yinglang model 1.5L automatic elite type, which is also the largest model in sales at present, and the most complaints from users are engine failure lights, engine abnormal sounds, engine can not start, engine power is insufficient, idle speed is unstable and other issues, which affects Yinglang's reputation, so the low-price strategy can not boost sales. Uncle Che always believes that sales do not represent quality, which can be said to be vividly reflected in Yinglang. As the two largest selling models, both have a high number of complaints and failure rates, so the car uncle has more reasons to question the quality of other models, such a car everyone dare to buy with confidence?
Uncle Che summed up
Once Buick's brand attribute was "American luxury", or folk "business", but now Buick is getting farther and farther away from this attribute. Under the comprehensive collapse of quality and word of mouth, the market can only be retained through price reductions, but despite this, sales are still unsatisfactory. Nowadays, the overall car market downward pressure is very large, the competition between car companies is becoming increasingly fierce, in such a big situation, Buick's many models of product strength declined, if you want to turn over, Buick in addition to launching more popular new products, but also to get the quality up, otherwise there will only be a dead end in the future.