According to estimates, the current epidemic is expected to cause a direct loss of about 20% of the industry's output, and may also have a radiating impact on the national automotive industry chain.
Text | Song Beanie
On April 11, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (hereinafter referred to as "CAAM") released the March automobile production and sales data. In March this year, automobile production and sales figures were 2.241 million units and 2.234 million units, down 9.1% and 11.7% year-on-year, and up 23.4% and 28.4% month-on-month. From January to March this year, automobile production and sales totaled 6.484 million units and 6.509 million units, up 2.0% and 0.2% year-on-year.
"Recently, there have been many outbreaks of epidemics in China, the difficulties of market players have increased significantly, the smooth flow of the economic cycle has encountered some constraints, and the new downward pressure has further increased."
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said, "From the perspective of automobile supply, the shortage of chips has not been significantly alleviated, the price of raw materials for power batteries has risen rapidly, further pushing up the manufacturing costs of enterprise products, and the production and operation activities of automobile enterprises have been affected to a certain extent, and the overall situation is less than expected; from the perspective of automobile consumption, the consumption momentum is obviously insufficient, and compared with the same period, it shows a certain decline." ”
In the first quarter, automobile production and sales increased slightly year-on-year, and the growth rate dropped significantly from the same period last year
In March, production and sales of passenger cars totaled 1.881 million units, down 0.1% y/y, and sales totaled 1.864 million units, down 0.6% y/y. From January to March, production and sales of passenger cars totaled 5.499 million units, up 11% y/y, and sales totaled 5.545 million units, up 11% y/y.
Among them, Chinese brand passenger cars maintained rapid growth year-on-year, with a total of 904,000 Chinese brand passenger cars sold in March, an increase of 21.5% year-on-year, accounting for 48.5% of total passenger car sales. In the first quarter, a total of 2.547 million Chinese brand passenger cars were sold, an increase of 21% year-on-year, and the growth rate was higher than that of the industry as a whole.
However, the decline in domestic production of high-end brand passenger cars in March was greater than that of passenger cars as a whole, with sales of 273,000 units in March, down 14.3% year-on-year. From January to March, the sales volume of high-end brand passenger cars produced in China reached 929,000 units, an increase of 7.4% year-on-year, an increase of 1.6 percentage points lower than that of passenger cars as a whole.
It is worth mentioning that the new energy vehicle market and automobile exports continue to grow in the past. In March, production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 465,000 units and 484,000 units, up 1.1 times year-on-year. From January to March, the production and sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.293 million units and 1.257 million units, respectively, an increase of 1.4 times year-on-year, and the market share reached 19.3%, and the strategic leading role of new energy vehicles was further highlighted.
Automobile exports also maintained rapid growth, in March, automobile companies exported 170,000 vehicles, an increase of 28.8% over the same period last year. From January to March, automobile companies exported 582,000 units, an increase of 58.3% year-on-year, and automobile exports continued to develop well.
"Although the production and sales of automobiles at the beginning of the year ushered in a good start, the industry momentum is good, but with a series of negative factors, including the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the rise in the price of raw materials for power batteries, the increase in crude oil prices, the shortage of chip supply, the outbreak of the domestic epidemic at multiple points, etc., it will bring new problems and new challenges to the stable and orderly healthy development of the automotive industry, which will have an impact on the sales trend of the whole year and even the process of subsequent industrial upgrading and transformation." On April 11, Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Automobile Association, stressed.
In addition, it is worth noting that in recent years, the passenger car market demand has diverged K-shaped trends, the proportion of traditional fuel vehicles has continued to decline, and products are facing greater growth pressure, accompanied by the continuous increase in the proportion of new energy vehicles, forming a structural growth trend of the domestic automobile market.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the All-China Passenger Transport Association, believes that the current trend of traditional fuel vehicles is lower than expected, and the retail sales of fuel passenger cars may have a serious downturn this year, resulting in zero growth in the entire car market retail.
"Under the epidemic, the decline of low-end fuel vehicles is not to buy a car, instead of buying a new energy vehicle, which is bitter, not happy." Economic traditional fuel vehicles fell sharply, in March A class traditional fuel vehicles fell by 29%, the high cost of traditional fuel vehicles is mainly because of the payment of huge taxes and make a huge tax contribution to society, so it should be given to traditional fuel vehicles in the downturn when the central tax reduction or local subsidies. The Association of Multipliers pointed out.
Production and sales uncertainty increased in April
As the impact of various factors such as the epidemic continues, many industry insiders pointed out that whether production and sales can increase in April is facing great uncertainty.
On April 11, Cui Dongshu pointed out that according to estimates, the current epidemic is expected to cause a direct loss of about 20% of the industry's output, and may also have a radiating impact on the national automotive industry chain.
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 automobile production, and the production of some enterprises in Shanghai is running at full capacity, and the loss in Changchun is currently relatively clear." The biggest problem is that Shanghai and Changchun are the headquarters of SAIC and FAW, the two largest automobile groups in China, and generally speaking, the core components will be distributed accordingly in the headquarters area, so the supply of core components in Shanghai and Changchun is blocked, resulting in the impact on the radiation of the national industry, and the production and sales of passenger cars in the core areas will be greatly affected in April. Cui Dongshu said.
In his view, due to the impact of the epidemic, the production and sales in March did not meet expectations. In April, there was the impact of the Qingming holiday and the May Day holiday, and the market production and sales increase potential was not large. Due to the long automotive industry chain, high coordination requirements, and a wider range of suspension radiation in the core production and logistics bases, the production and marketing pressure in the automobile market in April may be very large. "At present, the impact of the parts industry chain is mostly some enterprises in Jiangsu and Zhejiang, if the impact continues, it may bring more uncertain losses to the national automobile industry, and the loss may exceed 15%-20%."
In this context, Weilai "bore the brunt of it" and announced the suspension of production. On April 9, NIO released the "Explanation on Recent Production and Delivery", 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 vehicle production has been suspended, and many users' vehicles will be delayed in delivery.
On April 10, relevant people in the Ningde era said that there has been a case of individual epidemics in Ningde recently, and in order to maximize the supply of the market, the company strictly adopts grid management measures to ensure that the Ningde base carries out production in an orderly manner.
The production side has been affected by the epidemic, and the purchasing power of the end market has also been constrained. Due to the spread of the epidemic, dealers in Jilin, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei and other places have been affected by the entry and transaction of stores, and the changes in local management measures have reduced logistics efficiency and greater retail losses.
A dealer of a line of independent brands told the think tank Jun, "At present, the number of customers who come to see the car is one-third less than that of the same period last year, and the transaction volume is also very low." Because of the epidemic, everyone will be more cautious about the consumption of large consumer goods. And now that oil prices are rising, consumers will also consider the cost of using a car after buying it. ”
"Since March, Fujian has still been plagued by the epidemic, and the sales volume in the terminal market is not ideal." On April 11, a FAW-Volkswagen dealer in Xiamen told the think tank Jun, "The start was not good, the number of customers was less than half of normal, and the second quarter continued to be not optimistic." The epidemic situation is repeated from time to time, and some cities such as Quanzhou are still under lockdown. ”
The above-mentioned person told the think tank Jun that on the one hand, the consumer side is facing insufficient purchase confidence and a decline in customers, on the other hand, the supply side manufacturers have been disrupted because of the epidemic, and the production of vehicle sources has been disorderly. "At present, dealers can only develop passenger flow through various forms, including online live broadcasting, platform drainage, and return visits and promotions of old customers, but they can only be partially improved." In the second quarter (production and sales), I am afraid that it will continue to decline year-on-year, and it will be a relatively large decline. ”
The association said that it is unavoidable that the consumption momentum under the influence of the epidemic has weakened, the service industry has not fully recovered before the current round of the epidemic, and the retail sales in March are much lower than that of domestic wholesale; the new confirmed cases in the local area in early April are in the rising stage, and the employees of small and medium-sized enterprises are facing huge survival pressure, and the retail sales of the car market in April are expected to be significantly lower than in March.
But there's good news. On April 11, Sun Jian, director of the Department of Industry and Information Technology of Jilin Province, said that China FAW has fully started to resume work on the same day, while the first batch of 47 parts and components companies are resuming work in an orderly manner. Previously, on March 13, China FAW decided to stop production at all five major vehicle plants in Changchun, including FAW Toyota and FAW-Volkswagen.
A relevant person from the China Automobile Association suggested that looking forward to the situation throughout the year, due to the macroeconomic impact, the development of the automotive industry is facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock and weak expectations, and the task of stabilizing growth is very arduous. Local governments should refine the national policies and measures for stable growth as soon as possible, and enterprises should also actively take active and effective countermeasures, and also recommend that government departments introduce policies and measures to promote automobile consumption, including the effective purchase tax halving policy in the past.