On April 11, the Association announced the production and sales data of the passenger car market in March this year. According to the data, the retail sales of the mainland passenger car market reached 1.579 million units in March, down 10.5% year-on-year; the cumulative retail sales from January to March were 4.915 million units, down 4.5% year-on-year, down 230,000 units year-on-year, and the overall trend was lower than expected.
In the report, the Association pointed out that the new crown epidemic spread across the country in March, and all localities continued to resolutely adopt the strategy of zeroing out social aspects. Distributors in Jilin, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei and other places have been affected by the entry and transaction of stores, and the changes in the measures in charge of various places have a certain impact on logistics efficiency, and retail losses are large.
In terms of production, domestic passenger car production fell 0.3% year-on-year and increased by 22% month-on-month in March. Cui Dongshu said that the first quarter of last year due to the lack of core problems caused by the low base of automobile production, so from the overall data point of view, the production performance in the first quarter of this year is better, but the actual production pressure is huge, especially in Changchun, Shanghai and other places of automobile production suffered serious losses.
In terms of structure, the output of joint venture brands and luxury brands in March showed a sharp year-on-year decline, with a range of 10% and 31% respectively. Independent brands have stepped out of the independent market, and production has increased by 23% year-on-year.
Under the new round of the epidemic, the strength of independent brands is not only reflected in production. In March this year, the retail sales of mainland independent brands achieved a year-on-year and month-on-month growth. According to the data of the Association, in March, the retail sales of independent brands were 750,000 vehicles, an increase of 17% year-on-year and a 37% month-on-month increase. According to different statistical calibers, Changan Automobile topped the domestic championship in march in terms of batch sales, and BYD entered the top three in retail sales for the first time.
There were uncertainties in automobile production and sales in April
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, pointed out that the main reason for the sharp decline in luxury car production in March was that Audi and BMW's factories were located in Changchun and Shenyang, and production was suspended due to the impact of the epidemic; Mercedes-Benz's production cut was due to global supply chain problems. Mercedes-Benz produced 44,000 units, BMW produced 31,000 units and Audi produced 28,000 units in March, significantly lower than normal monthly levels, according to the Association. According to the statistics of the Passenger Car Association, from March to early April, the production of passenger cars in the entire industry was reduced by about 20%.
New energy vehicle companies have also seen a significant reduction in production, such as Tesla's production of 55,000 units in March, and Tesla's monthly output of about 70,000 units in the normal month of last year. However, the retail sales of new energy vehicles have not been greatly affected at present. In March, new energy vehicles continued to maintain a significant growth trend, and retail sales of new energy passenger cars reached 445,000 units in March, up 137.6% year-on-year and 63.1% month-on-month. The domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in March was as high as 28.2%, an increase of 17.6 percentage points from the 10.6% penetration rate in March 2021, and an increase of 6.4 percentage points compared with 21.8% in February this year.
From the perspective of specific manufacturers, there are 13 enterprises with wholesale sales of new energy vehicles exceeding 10,000 vehicles, an increase of 2 over the same period last year, of which sales of more than 20,000 include BYD, Tesla China, SAIC-GM-Wuling, Chery Automobile, and GAC Eian.
The Association of Passenger Transporters said that the new energy vehicle market was affected by price increases, and the order performance before the price increase was hot, and the overall orders were sufficient. Moreover, the price increase of electric vehicles in 2022 is relatively rational, and consumer acceptance is also high. In terms of the impact of the epidemic, although there are still local sporadic cases of the domestic epidemic, especially in megacities with main sales of new energy such as Shenzhen and Shanghai, the relatively mild epidemic prevention measures in most areas at that time had no obvious impact on residents' travel and car purchase consumption.
At present, the factory propaganda department of some car companies has stopped production, including FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen, Tesla and so on. On April 9, Weilai Automobile also issued an announcement that since March, due to the epidemic, the company's supply chain partners in Jilin, Shanghai, Jiangsu and other places have stopped production one after another and have not yet recovered. Affected by this, WEILAI's vehicle production has been suspended.
The report of the Federation pointed out that production and sales in April faced an uncertain state. According to the provincial production data of the National Bureau of Statistics, Shanghai and Jilin Province each account for about 11% of the country's production, so the production and sales of passenger cars in the core areas will be greatly affected in April.
"The biggest risk is that Shanghai and Changchun are the headquarters of China's two largest automobile groups (SAIC Group and FAW Group), in general, the core parts and components enterprises will be distributed accordingly in the headquarters location, so the core parts and components enterprises in Shanghai and other regions will also lead to the impact of industry radiation due to the epidemic, and enterprises in Anhui, Jiangsu and Zhejiang also need the supply of core parts and components enterprises located in Shanghai." If the impact of the epidemic continues, it may bring uncertainty to more enterprises across the country. Cui Dongshu told reporters.
Independent brands are growing against the trend
The association said that the epidemic spread throughout the country in March, and dealers in Jilin, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei and other places were affected by stores and transactions, and the epidemic prevention and control measures in various places also had a certain impact on logistics efficiency, and retail losses were large.
Production of luxury brands dominated by BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, and Audi) in March fell 31% year-on-year, and production of joint venture brands fell 10% year-on-year. However, independent brands have come out of the independent market, and production has increased by 23% year-on-year.
Under the new round of the epidemic, the strength of independent brands is not only reflected in production. In March this year, the retail sales of mainland independent brands achieved a year-on-year and month-on-month growth. According to the data of the Association, in March, the retail sales of independent brands were 750,000 vehicles, an increase of 17% year-on-year and a 37% month-on-month increase.
In this case, the market share of mainland independent brands has also been further increased. The domestic retail share of independent brands in March was 48.2%, an increase of 11.5 percentage points year-on-year, and the cumulative share from January to March was 48%, an increase of 9.7 percentage points year-on-year.
The retailer sales rankings in March also saw a significant reshuffle compared to February. Among the top ten manufacturers, independent brands occupy 4 seats, of which Changan, BYD and Geely occupy 3 of the top 4, and the Great Wall ranks 7th.
Among the top ten manufacturers in terms of sales, only 4 retail sales in March still showed a year-on-year growth trend, of which, in addition to GAC Toyota, the other three are all independent brands, of which BYD retail sales exceeded 100,000 vehicles, an increase of 161.4% year-on-year, Changan Automobile ranked second with a year-on-year increase of 17.2%, and Geely Automobile increased by 3.8% year-on-year.
In contrast, FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC-GM retail sales fell by more than 40% year-on-year, while SAIC-Volkswagen and Dongfeng Nissan fell by more than 30% year-on-year. SAIC Volkswagen fell from 3rd to 6th in February, SAIC-GM from 4th to 9th, Dongfeng Nissan from 6th to 10th, and FAW Toyota and Dongfeng Honda both fell behind in March.
![Mercedes-Benz BMW attacked the city and plundered the ground, and the independent car companies suffered from the enemy[fig]](data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAP///wAAACwAAAAAAQABAAACAkQBADs=)