22/04/11
Lead
For GAC at this stage, instead of being pushed forward by the times, it is better to learn how to change defense into offense.
Author 丨 Cao Jiadong
Responsible editor 丨 Du Yuxin
Edit 丨 Chic
Since the beginning of March, when the unknown round of the epidemic has once again swept through several major regions including northeast China and east China, the Chinese car market has suddenly become nervous. Not surprisingly, for several car companies such as FAW and SAIC, which are in the epicenter of the war epidemic, the sales volume in recent months will inevitably be unsatisfactory.
In contrast, gac motor group, which is deeply rooted in south China, the performance of its Japanese joint venture company needless to say, with the independent brands Trumpchi and Ethiopian safety face force, but by taking advantage of the momentum of rising bulk consumption after the Spring Festival, handed over a relatively good first quarter report card.
As of press time, the raging epidemic has more or less begun to affect Guangzhou and other major automobile consumption cities in South China, and it has become difficult to predict whether the direction of the automobile market in April will be affected. But at least, the sales base accumulated by GAC in the first quarter may be able to withstand too much market uncertainty and hidden crises in the future.
According to the official announcement of GAC, throughout March, the group's car sales were 227,500 units, an increase of 30.7% year-on-year. From January to March, the cumulative sales of automobiles reached 608,200 units, an increase of 22.5% year-on-year. The reason is that, as usual, the rapid growth of GAC Toyota and the stable trend of GAC Honda are on the one hand, on the other hand, the bright performance of the autonomous sector is a new force to promote the development of the group.
1
Acura gives way to electrification
All along, interpreting the sales performance of GAC Group has always been divided into two major sectors: joint venture and autonomy. But when it comes to specific companies in the sector, there will inevitably be some dark tides hidden in the rapid growth.
In the joint venture, GAC Toyota and GAC Honda must be the core forces supporting the group's acceleration to the head camp. You can also see the hint in the sales board. The former achieved cumulative sales of 97,006 units in March, an increase of 41% year-on-year, while the latter achieved cumulative sales of 76,833 units in March, an increase of 21.5% year-on-year.
Taking a closer look, GAC Toyota's overall research and judgment on china's auto market and the adjustment of its own supply chain, the market advantages achieved in the past two years, and the upward strength instilled in the group are what we must admit. Today, a large number of new models and re-optimized channel channels for new market segments can make the outside world perceive the potential of GAC Toyota.
But at the same time, we must also see that with the postponement of the Beijing Auto Show, Toyota's new energy business built around the bZ4X cannot be promoted as originally planned, which is bound to affect its future development.
Originally, Toyota's electrification process in China was lagging behind, and looking at volkswagen's current difficult situation, whether it could immediately catch up with the operation of the entire market has already put forward a problem for GAC Toyota. If in this period of joint venture brands attacking the new energy market in a big way, bZ4X fails to bring enough combat power to it in time, and it is obviously unrealistic to rely solely on eating old money and brand dividends.
GAC Toyota is doing its best, and it is urgent. In contrast, GUANGQI Honda, which seems to have slowed down its overall growth due to objective factors such as "core shortage" and intensified competition in sub-market segments, has instead seen the improving side of Japanese car companies in the promotion of new business.
From the unveiling of the new electric vehicle e:NP1 at last year's Guangzhou Auto Show to the official release of the electric vehicle brand e:NP pole in March, GUANGQI Honda has completely walked through a path that is different from others but has accumulated more than 70 years of brand genes of the Honda brand.
No matter what the future market trend is, there will always be like Zheng Heng, executive deputy general manager of Guangqi Honda, who said in front of people in jipan 1, "Breaking the boundaries of Guangqi Honda's previous career, taking the user as the center, carrying out vertical integration in all fields, and leaping to the comprehensive layout of the electric era in the four major areas of product research and development, production intelligence, sales channels and service models." ”
Standing at this juncture where the development of electrification is becoming more and more turbulent, GAC is ready to be just as the times need.
To this end, with the gac acura also recently officially announced that from 2023, GAC Honda will no longer produce and sell the existing products of the GAC Acura brand; at the same time, GAC Honda will fully integrate the gac acura brand resources and join the electrification business. In other words, together with GAC Acura, GAC Honda will focus on the electric vehicle business and join a new era of competition with various new energy vehicle companies.
Seeing here, whether as the other two branches of the group's joint venture, GAC Mitsubishi, which borrows attunko's strength, and GAC FCA, which is controlled by the Stellantis Group, can bring full gains to the group, I believe that most people will have a new view of the future of the gazing group's joint venture sector.
2
Trumpchi recovers, and Aeon unties
As for the independent business of GAC Group, after a long period of market re-precipitation and brand growth, Trumpchi and Aeon finally contributed their own strength in 2022.
At the beginning of the month, Aeon, who released sales with a number of new forces, has proved to us that new energy brands from traditional car companies also have a side worthy of market recognition and a side that is more in line with the development of new energy technology.
Looking back at the official data, it can be seen that Aeon's sales in March reached 20,317 vehicles, a sharp increase of 189% year-on-year, and this achievement also made Aeon the first brand to cross the 2w+ threshold in the camp of new forces. Throughout the First to Third months, Aeon's cumulative sales volume was 44,874 units, an increase of more than 150% year-on-year.
On the surface, the rapid breakthrough in EIAN sales is indeed due to the expansion and upgrading of the factory's production capacity completed in February, and the scale of production capacity has doubled to ensure supply security. But the more concrete side is because of the innovative way of playing in technology, products, channels, marketing and other aspects of EAN, especially the comprehensive innovation and change brought about by mixed reform.
I still remember that Feng Xingya, general manager of GAC Group, said at the annual report exchange meeting, "The goal of Aean's mixed reform is at least to turn the current 'Wei Xiaoli' into 'Ai Xiaowei'!" "I think that no matter how the outside world views Aeon's brand image, using sales to put pressure on the existing pattern of "Wei Xiaoli" is the mission of E-an to accelerate the change of the entire new energy market pattern.
After saying Aeon, looking back at the entire quarter, Trumpchi, who failed to have a strong performance for a period of time, actually had a relatively expected performance. In March, sales totaled 30,091 units, up 15.1% year-on-year. Throughout January and March, Trumpchi's cumulative sales reached 90,448 units, an increase of 21.8% year-on-year, and it really outperformed the market.
Among them, the MPV model is still the model of Trumpchi Baodi. M8's cumulative sales in the first quarter exceeded 10,000, continuing to stabilize the head position of the Chinese brand luxury MPV camp. The cumulative sales of the M6 in the January-March period also reached 11,717 units, an increase of 60% year-on-year.
In addition, the second-generation GS8 and 12,374 GS4, which have sold 4,119 units in a single month, continue to serve as the mainstay of Trumpchi's quantitative change from quantitative to qualitative change.
However, for Trumpchi, the shadow leopard, which is greatly affected by the supply of chips, has indeed become a pain that Trumpchi cannot hide for months. In addition, Changan UNI-V, MG 5 Scorpio and other models of similar styles have entered one after another, and the pressure faced by Shadow Leopard can be imagined.
In the follow-up, GAC Trumpchi will adhere to the dual-core development strategy of "hybridization + intelligence", plan to achieve hybridization of all models in 2025, and continue to enhance product strength with scientific and technological innovation. However, it is clear that at this critical stage of the increase, GAC Trumpchi will still have an extremely arduous task to keep the traditional fuel vehicle market.
Of course, the overall performance of GAC Group is still relatively outstanding. Some small problems hidden in each sub-brand, in the context of the basic disk can not be expanded, will not be intensified into too much burden in the next development. If joint ventures such as GAC Toyota and GAC Honda can have the momentum of Aean in the process of electrification, the group will be more confident in challenging the goal of 15% growth in annual automobile production and sales in 2022.
Cao Jiadong
Gasoline running in the blood,
Only fast is not broken!