Volkswagen China recently released data that the cumulative sales of Volkswagen Group in China in the first quarter of this year were 754,000 units, down 23.9% year-on-year. Among them, the sales volume of new energy vehicles reached 38,700 units, an increase of 67.3% year-on-year.
For the above performance, the official interpretation is that "the continued global structural shortage of chips, as well as the new crown epidemic in many cities, led to a decline in the group's delivery volume compared with the same period last year". In addition, the suspension or restriction of parts production and related logistics has exacerbated the pressure on the already damaged supply chain.
From the brand point of view, in the first quarter of this year, the Sales volume of the Volkswagen brand and its sub-brand Jetta in China was 557,900 units, down 23.8% year-on-year.
Among them, the jetta brand sold about 42,500 vehicles in the first quarter, an increase of 16.9% year-on-year, which is reported to be less affected by chip supply.
The Audi brand sold 161,600 units in China in the first quarter, down year-on-year. It is worth mentioning that following the landing of the SAIC Audi project, the first model A7L has been officially launched in January this year, and new products such as Q5 e-tron will be launched to accelerate the brand's business development in China during the year.
In addition, Skoda and Porsche sold 15,200 units and 17,700 units, respectively.
However, in terms of new energy, the Volkswagen brand is gradually improving. In the first quarter of this year, the cumulative sales of new energy vehicles increased by 67.3% year-on-year to 39,700 units, of which the ID. family sold 27,100 units.
As the main force of the Group's new energy market in China, the ID.series has launched five products so far, including two ID.4 and ID.6 and one ID.3. In the context of the increasingly fierce competition in the domestic new energy vehicle market, Volkswagen China is accelerating the transformation of electrification, and will launch five more pure electric vehicle models in China this year.
Since the beginning of this year, the epidemic has seriously affected the three northeastern provinces, including Jilin Province, the Yangtze River Delta region and other places, and the Volkswagen Group has an extensive and dense sales network in these areas. Due to the epidemic, about 20% of the Group's dealers were temporarily closed in March alone.
It is worth mentioning that Volkswagen's two major production bases in China, Changchun and Shanghai, have been affected by the epidemic and stopped production since March. Up to now, the FAW-Volkswagen Changchun plant is resuming work and production in an orderly manner, and SAIC Volkswagen's plant in Anting, Shanghai, is also actively implementing closed-loop production.
Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan said that the delivery volume continues to be affected by the global chip structure and the epidemic, temporarily unable to meet a large number of customer needs, and has formulated a recovery plan to get back on track and will make up for production delays in the coming months.
However, according to industry analysts, due to the complexity and length of the automotive supply chain itself, it will take a certain amount of time for the shortage of supply and supply crisis caused by the epidemic to be transmitted from upstream to downstream, and it is expected that a larger range of parts shortage crisis will gradually appear from April, and a larger crisis is brewing.