22/04/11
Lead
The epidemic has depressed the car market, but the share of independent car companies is still increasing.
Author 丨 Kang Qin
Responsible editor 丨 Du Yuxin
Edit 丨 Chic
"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. "I believe that many people have seen the April 9 weilai automobile situation note, and it can be seen as a microcosm of the domestic automotive industry in March."
According to the National Health Commission, more than 103,000 cases of local infection were reported in China in March, affecting 29 provinces, of which Jilin Province and Shanghai Municipality were the most serious, reaching 44,000 cases and 36,000 cases respectively.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, introduced that as the headquarters of FAW Group and SAIC Motor Group, the automobile production in Jilin and Shanghai accounts for about 11% of the country, and the two provinces and cities and surrounding areas also distribute more core auto parts enterprises, due to the requirements of epidemic prevention and control, the production of these enterprises is limited to varying degrees.
Coupled with the multi-point outbreak of the epidemic, sales work in many cities could not be carried out normally, and a large number of promotions and new car launch activities in the same period of previous years had to be postponed, so the production and sales of the national automotive industry in March were affected to a certain extent.
According to data released by the Association of Passenger Vehicles on April 11, the retail sales of domestic narrow passenger cars in March this year were only 1.579 million units, down 10.5% year-on-year and 185,000 units lower than the same period last year. The sharp decline in March extended the decline in the retail market to 4.5% in the first quarter of this year, with sales of 4.915 million units.
Thanks to the strong support of local governments, many car companies and parts companies in epidemic control areas have adopted closed-loop production to minimize losses, and production in March fell slightly by 0.3% year-on-year, which still made wholesale sales reach 1.814 million units. Although wholesale sales in March fell only 1.6% year-on-year, this is the first decline in the market this year. Fortunately, wholesale in the first quarter still increased by 8.3% year-on-year due to the large advantage of 432,000 units created in the first two months.
For the expectations of the car market in April, Cui Dongshu said that due to the current uncertainty of the epidemic situation in Shanghai and Changchun, the Beijing Auto Show has also been postponed, so the domestic production and sales in April are facing an uncertain state, and the pressure may be greater.
1
Changan Automobile won the championship for the first time
As mentioned above, the severe situation of the epidemic in Changchun and Shanghai has caused huge losses to FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM, which has changed the top ten list of retail and wholesale car companies in March.
For example, in the retail list, even if FAW-Volkswagen still holds the championship position, its lead is no longer obvious after a plunge of 40.2%, only more than 6,000 Vehicles ahead of Changan Automobile behind it, and it has decreased by about 3,000 units month-on-month. SAIC Volkswagen also fell 34.6% year-on-year, with sales of only 78,000 units, ranking 6th, and SAIC-GM also fell sharply by 40.5%, and its ranking hit a new low of 8th in recent years.
At the same time, the head of independent car companies has shown a super trend. With the DM-i hybrid system and ultra-high cost performance, BYD's sales exceeded 100,000 vehicles for the first time in March and continued to stabilize in the top three. After a brief downturn in February, Changan Automobile also recovered again, relying on 120,000 vehicles to become the runner-up in a single month, while Geely Automobile followed BYD with 93,000 vehicles.
As for Great Wall Motor, which fell 12.3% year-on-year, its officials said that it was mainly because the epidemic in Shanghai and other places caused a number of parts suppliers to be affected, so that although the factory did not stop production, its production capacity was limited.
Driven by these leading car companies, the share of independent brands increased to 48.2% in March, an increase of 11.5 percentage points year-on-year, and the cumulative share in the first quarter also reached 48%, an increase of 9.7 percentage points year-on-year.
From the perspective of the wholesale list, the most prominent change is changan automobile's victory.
Although in the past two years, with the blessing of Plus models and UNI high-end sequence products, Changan Automobile's performance has been more eye-catching, and once became the first in the autonomous camp, what was unexpected was that in the face of such an unfavorable environment in March, it achieved 132,000 units, and thus became the champion of wholesale sales in the month.
Indeed, part of the reason for this is that FAW-Volkswagen suffered large losses due to the epidemic, and Changan had the opportunity to take advantage. However, even if the former is still the champion, 132,000 units is also something to be proud of, because this set a new record for Changan Automobile's sales in the same period in recent years, and it is also the third highest single-month performance in recent years, second only to 159,000 units in January this year and 152,000 units in January last year.
Of course, BYD's performance is also very worth mentioning, surpassing Geely Automobile with an advantage of more than 3,000 vehicles and becoming the second most independent car company in the month. After becoming the first independent retail and wholesale list in February, this is the second consecutive month that BYD has ranked among the top three independent retail and wholesale.
In addition to the huge changes in the north and south Volkswagen and independent head car companies, GAC Toyota's performance can also be remarkable, thanks to the addition of the two blockbuster models of Fenglanda and Sai Na, Guangfeng has maintained a good growth trend this year, while ranking is also constantly in the front, March also became one of the few car companies in the top ten list of retail and wholesale year-on-year.
2
New energy is still in short supply
From the perspective of the three major market segments, the wholesale sales and decline of cars and SUVs in March were not much different, but due to the large base in the same period, the former fell significantly more in the retail market than the latter, and the sales volume was basically the same. From the cumulative sales in the first quarter, the gap between the sedan and the SUV is not large, so it can be seen that the two are currently in a relatively balanced state.
Compared with the topic of cars and SUVs, I believe that more people's attention should focus on the new energy market today.
Although the overall auto market was relatively sluggish in March, the new energy segment continued to maintain a super trend, with retail and wholesale growth still reaching 137.6% and 122.4% respectively, while retail sales and wholesale sales exceeded the production of 437,000 units, which shows that the market is still in short supply at this stage. Moreover, it is also the independent car companies that enjoy huge dividends in the new energy market.
According to the data of the Association, the penetration rate of new energy in the retail sales of independent brands reached 46% in March, and the wholesale rate also reached 41%, far higher than the overall level of 28.2% and 25.1%.
At the same time, it is worth noting that since October last year, the growth rate of the plug-in and mixed market has been far ahead of pure electricity, and the former's retail and wholesale growth rates in the first quarter of this year are more than 200%, and the biggest contributor to this performance is BYD. With strong DM-i hybrid and excellent cost control capabilities, BYD's plug-in hybrid models have achieved an effective replacement for fuel vehicles with super high cost performance.
In fact, not only BYD, but also independent car companies such as Geely, Great Wall and Chery are gradually making efforts to the plug-in and hybrid market, and the sales volume of plug-in models and sales in the future market will continue to increase.
In addition to plug-in, price increases are another hot topic in the new energy market recently. Although since the beginning of this year, due to the shortage of chips and the rise in material prices and the decline of subsidies, the prices of many new energy models have been announced to be raised, and the purchase cost of new energy vehicles has also increased, but in terms of recent sales, it seems that there is not much impact.
On the one hand, this is because most of the new energy models currently delivered are digesting the backlog of orders in the early stage, which cannot fully reflect the impact of price increases on the terminal turnover of the market; on the other hand, the continuous rise in gasoline prices has made consumers' car costs continue to increase, the advantages of new energy vehicles have become more prominent, and the increase in most models is more reasonable, and it will not be obvious that consumers demand for new energy.
Therefore, Cui Dongshu said that perhaps there will be a serious downturn in fuel vehicles in passenger cars this year, and may even lead to the entire retail market can not achieve positive growth, but the forecast for new energy vehicles remains at about 5.5 million.
Conchen
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