2022 may be a difficult year for Skoda, and perhaps the century-old brand Skoda will be difficult to survive this winter in China. Last month, Skoda only sold 3900 cars in China, and all the models were added to one piece, which was not as good as the 3-day sales of the hot-selling models.
Specific to the model, The Komic sold 1470 units, and the Octavia PRO only sold more than 700 units. In fact, in recent years, ŠKODA's sales have been declining sharply, ŠKODA sales in China for three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018 exceeded 300,000 units, 2018 reached a peak of 352,000 units, but then it could not stop the decline, 282,000 units in 2019, 173,000 units in 2020, 71,000 units in 2021, and by 2022, it is expected that annual sales will only be 50,000 units. What is more frightening is that Skoda has been reduced to a brand with no sense of existence, there is no sound wave on the new model listing, and consumers rarely think of this brand when choosing a car, the century-old brand Skoda, why did it fall into such a situation?
In fact, the most critical reason for the decline of Skoda is that the public may not have thought about what role to let Skoda play. Because the biggest problem of Skoda is not the product force, but the unclear positioning.
In the early years, Skoda had the reputation of changing the shell of Volkswagen, basically a simple decoration version of Volkswagen, from the model platform to the three major pieces, all of which are highly consistent with the Volkswagen model, which is actually beyond reproach, maximizing cost savings, and can also cover the high-end and low-end markets as much as possible, but in addition to cheap, what label does Skoda have? The answer is no, the cheap version of Volkswagen is the biggest and only label of Škoda, but what if Volkswagen is also cheap?
Affected by the Zhongbao Research Institute incident, coupled with the intensification of competition in the automobile market, the rise of domestic cars, Volkswagen had to constantly adjust product pricing, the previous Volkswagen models, basically there are few discounts, Volkswagen's sales are soaring, but also not low license fees, at that time Skoda, can also survive in the cracks, between Volkswagen and domestic cars, to find a place, after all, Volkswagen with the same three pieces, is always much stronger than the domestic cars at that time.
But now, the Volkswagen brand reputation collapsed, its models often preferential 30,000-40,000, jetta brand independence, volkswagen in the domestic market, began to play a role in the upper and lower take-all, Skoda's living space is extremely compressed, and Skoda itself in addition to cheap Volkswagen, there is no other selling point, more and more marginalized.
The rise of domestic cars in the past 2 years is obvious, especially BYD's hybrid models, it can be said that the 100,000-150,000 car market, stirred up the world upside down, at this time, Skoda brand appeal is weak, product design is strange, the details lack of texture, has become the first brand abandoned by the Chinese.
Skoda now wants to turn over, it is very difficult, because it is extremely dependent on the technology of the masses, there is no core technology at all, want to develop independently is completely inadequate, in order to get rid of the volkswagen label to establish a new brand image, it is also difficult to ascend to the sky, unless there is a drastic change, otherwise Skoda withdrew from the domestic market, it is only a matter of time.