Written by Wu Jing
Editor/ Liu Baohua
Design / Shi Yuchao
On April 11, the Kechuang 50 Index fell below the 1,000-point basis point on December 31, 2019, which was the first time since the release of the Kechuang 50 Index that it fell below this point, and the stock market, which was already falling, once again suffered "Black Monday".
Some netizens joked that after 2 years and 4 months, the investors who began to buy from the launch of the science and technology innovation board index two years ago began to lose money.
Compared with the tragic scene of the stock market, the situation of the automobile market is much more optimistic.
According to the Association of Passenger Vehicles, the production of narrow passenger cars in March was 1.823 million units, down 0.3% year-on-year and 22.0% month-on-month. In the first three months of this year, production of narrow passenger cars was 5.361 million units, an increase of 11% year-on-year. "In terms of the overall situation of production, the performance in the first quarter was still very good."
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said, "In the first quarter of last year, (car companies) were affected by the lack of chips, resulting in a low base, so the first quarter of this year achieved an increase of 11% year-on-year production. ”
As we all know, since March this year, the spread of many places in Olmiquerong, the number of confirmed cases and asymptomatic infected people in China has increased, some key areas have adopted isolation measures, and the production and sales of automobiles have been blocked. Especially since the third week of March, the overall sales volume of the domestic automobile market has declined due to the stagnation of production and consumption in individual regions.
"The production and sales in February this year are attached to the upper limit of the calendar year, but March is the lower limit of the calendar year, and it is a relatively lower limit achieved after relative efforts." Therefore, Cui Dongshu judged that the trend of the automobile market in April this year was generally more difficult.
At present, the car market is playing the "Song of Ice and Fire". Along with the rising price of new energy, it is its terminal market. But correspondingly, luxury and joint venture car companies are under pressure. It is gratifying that while the market share of Japan, the United States and Japan has fallen across the board, independent car companies have bucked the trend.
How long can new energy vehicles catch fire
Affected by the continuous sharp rise in global raw material prices since the beginning of this year, from May 10, 2022, NIO will make appropriate adjustments to the prices of its products. In terms of vehicle prices, the starting price of the ES8, ES6 and EC6 models has been raised by ¥10,000, and the starting price of et7/ET5 has remained unchanged.
In this regard, Li Bin, founder and CEO of Weilai Automobile, said, "Raw materials, especially battery raw materials, have risen too much this year, and there is no downward trend in the near future, I originally wanted to carry it, the epidemic is even more unbearable, the price increase is also forced, please understand." ”
Corresponding to the fierce price increase tide of new energy, it is a hot terminal sales volume.
According to the data of the Association, the retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 445,000 units in March, an increase of 137.6% year-on-year and 63.1% month-on-month, which was better than the trend in March of the calendar year. Domestic retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles from January to March were 1.070 million units, up 146.6% year-on-year. The domestic retail penetration rate of new energy vehicles in March was 28.2%, an increase of 17.6 percentage points from the penetration rate of 10.6% in March 2021.
Specific to the sales of new energy models of various car companies, even under the impact of the price increase tide in March, most of them have obtained very good sales, and the sales of many car companies and models have created new highs.
It can be seen that the impact of the current two rounds of new energy vehicle price increases is not obvious. For the reasons behind it, the analysis of the multiplication association side said:
First, the sales model of new energy vehicles is order sales, and at present, there are more orders before the price increase in the hands of various car companies, resulting in 3-4 months basically digesting the previous orders, so the sales impact is not large;
Second, the diversion of new energy plugs and mixes to the fuel vehicle market, and high oil prices lead to an increase in the advantages of new energy. Now in the case of high oil prices, the cost performance of new energy vehicles has been significantly improved;
Third, the rigid demand of consumers of new energy vehicles is strong, and the price sensitivity is relatively low, so small price changes will not significantly affect consumer demand for new energy vehicles;
Fourth, the order price lock before the price increase of new energy vehicles has formed the result of the lock price of early booking, triggering a new situation in which more consumers are rational or follow the trend.
Luxury, joint venture car companies are under pressure
"Since the middle of March, from Changchun to Shanghai, there has been an extremely serious static state of production and life, which has brought extremely serious impacts to some manufacturers." Cui Dongshu said, "Especially the production of joint ventures and luxury cars has suffered huge losses, including luxury car brands such as Audi, BMW, and Mercedes-Benz, which have suffered serious losses, and the output is seriously lower than expected." ”
Passenger car production in March was 1.823 million units, down 0.3% year-on-year and 22.0% month-on-month, the data showed. Among them, the production of luxury brands fell by 31% year-on-year and 8% month-on-month; the production of joint venture brands fell by 10% year-on-year and increased by 17% month-on-month.
Take FAW-Volkswagen as an example. On March 11, Changchun City issued a lockdown notice, and the city's organs, enterprises and institutions stopped operating and stopped all unnecessary flows. Affected by this, faw-Volkswagen Changchun base completely stopped work and production. The Changchun base occupies more than a quarter of the production capacity of the FAW-Volkswagen brand, and the comprehensive suspension and suspension of work at the Changchun base will undoubtedly have a serious impact on FAW-Volkswagen.
According to the latest data, the output of faw-Volkswagen Changchun base in March fell by more than 60% year-on-year, and many hot-selling models were limited by production capacity; the production capacity of Chengdu, Tianjin and Qingdao bases also decreased to varying degrees, about 30%-50%.
With the continuous spread of the epidemic in Shanghai, on April 9, WEI AUTO officially announced 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.
In addition to the greater pressure on production, on the sales side, joint ventures and luxury car companies are also facing great challenges.
The data shows that luxury car retail sales in March were 230,000 units, down 14% year-on-year. Retail sales of luxury cars in early March were significantly stronger than the previous month, and in the later period, with the changes in the epidemic prevention and control situation in the main sales areas, they failed to continue the february trend.
At the same time, mainstream joint venture brand retail sales of 590,000 units in March, down 30% year-on-year. Among them, the retail share of Japanese, German and American brands in March was 20%, 18% and 10%, down 3 percentage points, 7 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points down respectively. The legal share increased by 0.3 percentage points.
For a long time, the traditional fuel vehicle market has been the main position of joint venture car companies. When the market environment of traditional fuel vehicle models deteriorates, the sales of traditional vehicles brought about by the diversion of demand for traditional fuel vehicles to the consumption of new energy vehicles under high oil prices are weakened, and the decline in the purchasing power of more consumer groups also brings about a decline in demand for traditional vehicles.
In recent years, the demand for passenger car market has shown a differentiated K-shaped trend, the proportion of traditional fuel vehicles has continued to decline, accompanied by the continuous increase in the proportion of new energy vehicles, forming a structural growth trend of the domestic automobile market. At present, traditional fuel vehicle products are facing greater growth pressure, while the electrification and intelligent social supply chain system of new energy vehicle products is still in the stage of innovation and rise.
Go against the tide autonomously
In 2021, China's auto market accounted for 32% of the global share, a record high. At the same time, from January to February 2022, China's wholesale sales of passenger cars reached 3.624 million units, an increase of 14.0% year-on-year, and the Chinese market share of the world car market reached a new high of 36%.
This is also the case of global lack of cores, China's independent brand car companies have tapped more chip resources than other countries' car companies, so independent brands have also obtained higher growth opportunities.
According to the data, 750,000 self-owned brand retail vehicles were sold in March, an increase of 17% year-on-year. 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 compared with the same period in 2021. Independence in the new energy market has achieved a significant increase, the performance of head enterprises is differentiated, and traditional car brands such as Changan Automobile and BYD have shown high growth year-on-year.
In the top 5 retail sales of manufacturers in March 2022, independent brands occupied 3 seats, and Changan, BYD and Geely ranked second, third and fourth respectively.
In addition, relying on the growth of new energy vehicles, the sales of head independent brands reached more than 100,000 vehicles in March. Among them, Changan's independent passenger car sales reached 134,000 units, followed by BYD, Geely and Great Wall. BYD's results are particularly impressive. According to the data, in March this year, BYD once again won the first place in China's new energy sales, and under the background of the strong breakthrough of new energy, BYD has also stopped the production of pure fuel vehicles.
Geely's new energy achievements are also quite eye-catching, the data shows that Geely's new energy field models in March and new energy models (including Geely, Geometry, Lynk & Co, Extreme Krypton, Ruilan) sales of 15,557 vehicles, an increase of 332% year-on-year. Among them, the new trend technology brand Extreme Kr delivered 1,795 vehicles in March; geometric brand in March single-month terminal delivery exceeded 10,000, with cumulative sales of 26,031 vehicles in the first quarter, an increase of 448% year-on-year; The new generation of electric mobility new potential energy Ruilan automobile sales in March 2008, an increase of 24% month-on-month.
It is worth mentioning that in the camp of independent brands, the year-on-year increase of Dongfeng Fengshen is the most eye-catching.
Dongfeng Fengshen sold 15,711 vehicles in March, an increase of 123% year-on-year, the best March in history. Sales of 45,889 units from January to March increased by 165% year-on-year, surpassing sales in the first half of 2021.
"Judging from the comparative data of the global automotive industry, the phenomenon of global automotive chip shortage has not only not brought too much loss to the development of Chinese car companies, but in the common predicament of global car companies, due to the strong self-help of Chinese independent car companies and the coordination of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, it has obtained super market results; under the background of the soaring lithium price, China's independent brands have risen to the challenge and obtained a good performance of super strong sales growth." Cui Dongshu said.
This article was originally produced by Automotive Business Review
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