Editor's note: In the first quarter of China's auto market, there were chicken feathers. A quarter that can never be found again.
Who ever expected that the first quarter of the 2022 Chinese auto market in the year of Nong yin tiger was completely defeated, and various situations were unexpected, and a variety of factors were superimposed on each other.
2022 is 9 months left, china's auto market can no longer make up for the quarter, or to catch up with the heel can catch up with the lost.
The Chinese car market is not in the car, waiting for the wind to come.
Auto-First | Liu Tianming
The first quarter of the Year of the Tiger has quietly come to an end, and the performance of China's auto market has generally come under pressure due to the epidemic, chip shortages, continued rising raw material prices and the Spring Festival holiday.
Especially in March, the epidemic in many places had a great impact on automobile production and sales. At the same time, affected by factors such as the lockdown of the epidemic, consumers' willingness to see cars and buy cars has been postponed, the sales rhythm of dealers has been broken, and car consumption in many places has also shown a stagnant state.
At the beginning of this year, FAW Toyota's Tianjin plant was affected by the epidemic and was shut down for several days, and its sales fell sharply. According to statistics, in January, FAW Toyota only produced 41,000 vehicles, down 45.41% year-on-year, and sales fell 37.71% from the same period last year to 51,700 units.
In February, the impact of sporadic epidemics on the automobile industry was much weaker, but the Spring Festival holiday made the pattern of the automobile market change. According to the statistics of the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the retail sales of the narrow passenger car market reached 1.246 million units in February, an increase of 4.2% year-on-year and a decrease of 40% month-on-month. In terms of independent brands, BYD surpassed SAIC Volkswagen for the first time with hot sales of new energy, ranking second, while Great Wall Motor showed a decline of about 20% for two consecutive months with a sales performance of 70,800 vehicles. Mainstream joint venture brands experienced a double year-on-year decline in February, retail sales shrank to 550,000 vehicles, and the market share of German brands and American brands showed different degrees of decline.
In March, the impact of the new wave of the epidemic on the automotive industry gradually increased, and the main clusters of China's automotive industry such as Changchun, Shanghai and Shenyang were hit hard. FAW Group's five major production bases in Changchun have planned to stop production since March 13, BMW Brilliance's production base in Shenyang has also suspended production since March 24, and after the lockdown in Shanghai, SAIC Group and Tesla's production plans have been affected. Not only were auto companies affected, but Aptiv, the largest supplier of automotive wiring harnesses in the Chinese market, was also forced to stop production due to the lockdown in Shanghai. The Association expects that the sales loss caused by the impact of the epidemic on the automobile market in March will be about 200,000 units.
The new energy vehicle market has become the core driving force of the overall automobile market, and the production and sales data in the first two months are far better than the market. However, due to factors such as subsidies declining, the price of power battery core materials and the rise of motor raw materials, most new energy automobile companies have raised the price of products. According to auto-first statistics, since March, nearly 20 new energy vehicle companies or brands such as Weilai Automobile, Tesla, Xiaopeng Automobile, Great Wall Euler, Chery New Energy, Geely Geometry, etc. have raised the price of their products, with increases ranging from thousands to tens of thousands of yuan.
The Spring Festival factor, the epidemic factor, the chip factor, and the raw material factor are like four mountains, which overwhelm the enterprise. According to the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the sales of full-caliber narrow passenger car terminals in March were about 1.6 million units, a 10% decline year-on-year.
Although passenger car sales in March showed a significant year-on-year decline, and the overall car in the first quarter may show a slight growth trend or even enter a negative growth range, there are still some models that are still in the sales upward channel.
Judging from some car companies that have released production and sales data in March, the new energy vehicle market has not been affected by factors such as price increases and the epidemic, and the association has given a three-digit year-on-year increase in expectations, and the penetration rate is expected to reach a record high.
In terms of new car-making forces, Xiaopeng Automobile ranked first in the sales list of new car-making forces with a sales performance of 15,400 vehicles in March, an increase of 202% year-on-year, and in the first quarter, Xiaopeng Automobile delivered 34,600 new vehicles, an increase of 260% year-on-year. Ideal Auto's March sales increased by 125.2% y/y to 11,000 units, with 31,700 new vehicles delivered in the first quarter, up 152.1% year-on-year, and NIO's March sales were 9,985 units, and the first quarter delivery of new vehicles was 25,800 units, up 28.5% year-on-year.
In addition, the delivery volume of zero-run cars exceeded the 10,000-unit mark in March, reaching 10,059 units, and the cumulative delivery volume in the first quarter was 21,600 units, an increase of 410% year-on-year. With a sales performance of 12,000 vehicles, Nezha Automobile ranked second among the new car-making forces, with a year-on-year increase of 270%, and delivered 30,200 new cars in the first quarter, an increase of 305% year-on-year.
BYD, which has just announced the suspension of the production of fuel vehicles, sold more than 100,000 vehicles in a single month for the first time. According to statistics, sales in March reached 104,300 units, an increase of 160.9% year-on-year. Among them, the sales of pure electric vehicles reached 53,700 units, an increase of 229.2% year-on-year, the sales volume of DM plug-in and hybrid models was 50,700 units, an increase of 615.2% year-on-year, and the production and sales of traditional fuel vehicles have returned to zero. In the first quarter, BYD's cumulative sales reached 291,400 units, an increase of 179.78% over the same period last year.
In addition to the pull of new energy products, models that can accurately grasp market demand can also achieve good sales results. Taking Dongfeng Fengshen as an example, the cumulative sales volume in the first quarter reached 45,900 vehicles, an increase of 165% year-on-year, and the sales volume in the first quarter has exceeded the total sales volume in the first half of 2021. In terms of sales structure, the Sales Volume of the Yixuan Family accounted for 51.3%, which became the core driving force for sales growth. Driven by Models such as Versailles, DPCA sold 31,500 units in the first quarter, an increase of 79% year-on-year.
Of course, in the context of consumption upgrading, luxury brands are also far better than the passenger car market. According to the statistics of China Automobile Association, in the first two months, the cumulative sales of domestic high-end brand passenger cars were 656,000 units, an increase of 20% year-on-year, which was 5.6 percentage points higher than the overall growth rate of passenger cars. Lincoln Motors, which has already announced its first-quarter sales performance, can also see this trend, with cumulative sales reaching 19,500 units, once again breaking the sales record in the first quarter.
Under the influence of complex external factors, the opening challenge of the first quarter is beyond imagination, and car companies are ushering in a stage of not talking about heroes based on sales, compared to grabbing the first place, it is better to accelerate the transformation of electrification, product positioning is more accurate to control consumer demand, and strive to survive under fierce competition.