2021 is definitely not a good year for Japanese luxury brands.
The three major Japanese luxury brands, Lexus, Acura, infiniti, some of the sales decline, some are completely marginalized, may be withdrawn from the Chinese market in the near future, and the Japanese ordinary joint venture car brands in the Chinese market development is not smooth, Japanese luxury brands in the country is struggling.
Acura: on the verge of exiting, reduce prices to clear inventory
Acura is currently in the country's major 4S stores are reducing prices to clear inventory, and it will not be long before Acura will completely withdraw from the Chinese market.
Acura belongs to the typical first hand of good cards to play sparsely, in fact, Acura's sales performance in overseas markets is not weak, in the 2021 US luxury car brand sales chart, Acura is closely ranked behind BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Lexus and Audi, ranking 5th, with annual sales of 157,000 vehicles. Acura's models are mainly sporty and luxurious, with excellent handling and strong power performance, but since entering China, sales performance has been very general. Sales reached 16,000 units in 2017, which was already the highlight of Acura, and then sales began to decline, with sales falling sharply by 45.05% in 2021 to only 6,554 units, accelerating marginalization.
Acura in China is not satisfied, mainly because Honda has not paid attention to the Chinese market at all, and will be introduced in the United States in the basic state, but the positioning of sports luxury has no market in China, and Acura has not created Chinese products for the Chinese market according to local conditions. Acura's brand logo is highly similar to a domestic independent car brand, but Acura has not made much effort in marketing and promotion, in addition, the lack of brand awareness, slow product introduction, and small number of distribution outlets have led to the Acura brand in the country can only end in a dismal end.
Infiniti: Marginalized, relegated to Nissan PLUS
On January 5 this year, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. announced that Dongfeng Infiniti will be included in Dongfeng Nissan's management system as an independent business headquarters. This means that Infiniti will operate the brand independently in China and internally "downgrade" it to dongfeng Nissan brand.
Infiniti was officially domestically produced in 2014, but since then the development has been unsatisfactory, with sales of 30,000 vehicles in 2014 and more than 40,000 in 2015, but then began to decline, from 2016 to 2019, Dongfeng Infiniti sold 17,000 vehicles, 20,000 vehicles, 19,000, 10,000 and 8951 vehicles, respectively. Infiniti sold only 13,478 vehicles, down 46.04% year-on-year.
If Acura's sales are dismal, not the pot of products, Infiniti's increasing marginalization is inseparable from products.
After the launch of the Q50L and QX50 domestic models in November 2014 and March 2015, Infiniti has not had any new models in the Chinese market for a long time, until December 2021, when the QX60 was opened, even if the existing models, the replacement is also very slow, the product line is not rich, and the new car launch is insufficient, resulting in a serious lack of market heat in Infiniti.
Infiniti's models have experienced large-scale quality problems, mainly due to the setback and quality problems of the CVT transmission, and also appeared at last year's 315 gala. When the owner of the car found the 4S shop for maintenance, he was asked to sign a so-called confidentiality agreement, which was really surprising.
In terms of products, Infiniti has been lacking technical highlights, the VQ series engine of the year may be counted as one, but the matching 7AT gearbox has obvious setbacks, and in terms of intelligent networking, or automatic driving, Infiniti is even more unenterprising. Infiniti's relegation or even withdrawal from China is reasonable.
Lexus: Sales declined
The three major Japanese luxury car brands that were once called "Asian BBA", only Lexus's sales in China are relatively strong. Among the three major Japanese luxury car brands, only Lexus is thriving, but the sales gap between Lexus, which relies only on imported models, and the BBA, which once went hand in hand, widened.
In 2021, Lexus sold 219,000 units in China in 2021, down 6.8% year-on-year. Lexus, which could have competed with Cadillac as the leader of second-tier luxury car brands, was surpassed by Hongqi and chased by Volvo, and the gap between it and the BBA is getting bigger and bigger. Lexus' product and sales policies have also been questioned.
Because of the unscrupulous price increase, Lexus was given a fine of tens of millions in 2019, but the price increase of Lexus is still continuing, and the price increase behavior makes many consumers resentful, especially young consumers, who do not have the same faith as their parents in Lexus, so they often choose other brands.
In addition, Lexus hybrid models have always been its signature, but with the domestic car brands also force the hybrid system, Lexus hybrid system in terms of driving experience and fuel economy has no advantage, and the high price, but also led to many owners who want to buy hybrid models, directly abandoned Lexus. With the wave of electrification, Lexus' so-called stability advantage has become smaller and smaller.
Therefore, although Lexus's sales volume is the best among the three major Japanese luxury brands, Lexus is not resting easy, and it is impossible to continue to maintain the high growth in China as in previous years.
Although Toyota Honda and other Japanese joint venture car brands, in recent years in the development of the domestic all the way to good, but the three major Japanese luxury brands, but the distance between the BBA and BBA is getting farther and farther, with the rise of Weilai, ideal, gaohe and other high-end independent brands, the domestic high-end car market has been further divided, the living space belonging to the Japanese luxury brands will be smaller and smaller, there are wolves after the tiger, Japanese luxury brands may be difficult to break the game, Infiniti and Acuras The failure to leave the market has been doomed, Lexus may be difficult to lie down and make money.