Speaking of Subaru, I believe that many people are both familiar and unfamiliar. Familiar because Subaru had won numerous awards in the Rave in the 1980s and 1990s, and because subaru had seen few appearances in the market in the past five years, even to the point where few people asked for it.
Admittedly, Subaru's decline in the Chinese market was as abrupt as when Japan's bubble economy burst, collapsing at its peak with no warning or warning.
According to a latest sales data, Subaru sold only 16,886 vehicles in China in 2021, down 22.82% year-on-year. Many people may not have too much concept of this sales volume, but compared with BYD's turnover of more than 730,000 units in 2021, Subaru is not even a fraction of others. Of course, I believe that for many old car fans, the decline of Subaru is sometimes a pity. In the view of Xiaobian, behind all this is its isolation of the Chinese market and its brand strategy of abandoning the localization process.
As an "old fritter" who once worked in Subaru's after-sales department, Xiaobian has also witnessed subaru's most brilliant moments in the domestic market.
Remember that summer in 2016, when Subaru was not as depressed as it is now, and it was the most spirited moment of subaru foresters in the domestic market, and Xiaobian also deeply remembered the sentence that the other party said when chatting with a forester owner: "My car is ready to run the Sichuan-Tibet line, so I came to do maintenance." It can be seen that in the eyes of users at that time, the status of Subaru Foresters can almost be comparable to professional off-road vehicles such as Mitsubishi Pajero.
However, sometimes the law of the development of things is like this, and success is also xiao he is also xiao he. Behind Subaru's excellent quality, it relies on continuous imports of parts and components, and all of this will be "attributed" to Subaru's mistaken abandonment of the development path of localization.
From the perspective of the entire automotive industry, there may not be many car companies that can easily give up the "fat meat" of the Chinese market, among which most brands such as Volkswagen and Ford regard China as the commanding height of global product strategy in order to promote the localization process. Even Mitsubishi, which once had poor sales, has firmly held the "thigh" of GAC Group in recent years, established GAC Mitsubishi through a joint venture, and launched new models such as Atuka, although sales may not be able to rise quickly, but it is also a way to stop losses in time.
At this time, looking back at subaru's situation, it seems that it is completely unmoved by the potential of the Chinese market. To this day, there is no plan to join hands with relevant domestic car companies to promote joint venture domestic production, and its models such as Forester and Aohu are still showing their identity as imported cars. Although this sales method has been adopted by many luxury brands in the past and has basically been verified by the market in terms of sales, for a civilian brand with a maximum price of only 300,000, the cost of using imports is inevitably a little too high.
At the same time, with the increase of Subaru's ownership, the weakness of imported cars has gradually been exposed, the most obvious of which is the problem of after-sales service. Since most of Subaru's products use horizontally opposed four-cylinder engines, and such power systems have extremely high requirements for oil quality and post-maintenance, the phenomenon of cylinder partial grinding will occur if you are not careful. As a result, this also makes Subaru's after-sales maintenance costs generally higher than industry standards.
In addition, the excessive dependence on imports has also led to the concentration of many spare parts resources in Subaru abroad. At that time, in order to replace a core engine component, it was necessary to wait for two months, and when the accessories came across the ocean, I believe that many car owners were already a little impatient.
It is precisely because of this that many users' attitude towards Subaru at the beginning is only "fresh", when the shortcomings of imports are gradually exposed, I believe many people will still feel that it is still the "incense" of the joint venture. Subaru resolutely gave up the road of localization, which also made it lack recognition in the Chinese market, and finally became a humble small brand.
In addition to abandoning the localization process, another major pain point of Subaru is the too small number of products. According to the information queried from the official website, there are only 5 models on sale under Subaru at present, except for a BRZ sports car and a coupe Lishi that "copied" toyota 86, the rest are basically SUV models. For the Chinese market, the weak product lineup also means a decline in competitiveness. It is true that from the perspective of the market, it is difficult to compare with Japanese first-tier brands such as Toyota and Nissan for the time being, and even subaru, second-tier car companies such as Mazda and Mitsubishi.
Auto Network Review: Do not think of making progress, and face the market with a "lying flat" mentality
"Inner volume" and "lying flat" are two words that have been very popular in recent times, which means that contemporary young people are crazy about internal competition and give up resistance and show obedience. In the editor's view, today's Subaru is in the latter.
From the perspective of market, products and other dimensions, Subaru seems to have completely lost the spirit of the year, and the sluggish sales volume and the sales strategy of relying on imports are pushing it into the abyss. Of course, as an old car fan, if you say that Subaru is completely unsaved, it may not be necessary, but under the development wave of the times, Subaru has always been unwilling to lower the arrogant "head" and seize the development opportunities of the Chinese market. This brand pattern, which runs counter to the market, is also doomed to subaru's decline.