Text/Wen Chong
Although everyone does not like "yang" recently, the "10 consecutive yin" of monthly sales of luxury cars is also annoying.
In the first quarter of this year, the luxury car market fell by 8.2% year-on-year, and as of March, the luxury car market had declined for 10 consecutive months. With the stall of luxury cars, the "locomotive", the overall performance of the automobile market is also under greater pressure, and the industry is expected to fall by nearly 32% year-on-year, and the figures circulating in the anecdote are even darker.
On the positive side, the General Office of the State Council issued a document on the 25th, once again proposing to relax the restrictions on the purchase of automobiles, bringing some hope of recovery at the time of the "continuous yin" of the automobile market. Industry experts have called on some purchase-restricted cities to consider increasing the supply of indicators.
Image source: Visual China
■Monthly sales of luxury cars "10 consecutive drops"
Since the decline of China's auto market in 2018, the strong demand and high growth of the luxury car market have made it a maverick existence. "Going against the trend", "growing sharply" and "thriving" have become the adjectives of the luxury car market, and they are also the "locomotives" that the car market can maintain relatively stable growth.
But now the "locomotive" is also starting to stall. Since June 2021, its monthly sales have continued to decline, with a maximum decline of 23%.
Fortunately, the high growth in the first half of last year offset the decline in the second half of the year, and in 2021, the domestic luxury car ended with a cumulative retail sales increase of 4.9% year-on-year to 2.65 million units, but it was also a "bright rise and a dark decline". The growth rate of the luxury car market is significantly lower than in the past three years, and its signs of lackluster growth have begun to appear.
More seriously, the situation did not improve in 2022. As of March this year, the luxury car market sales have been declining for 10 consecutive months.
In the first quarter, the cumulative sales volume of the luxury car market was 670,000 units, down 8.2% year-on-year. In March, when the epidemic was more seriously eroded, the sales volume of the luxury car market even ended the recovery of nearly three months, with a year-on-year decline of 14%.
At the same time, the market share of luxury cars was 13.7%, down 0.7 percentage points from the same period last year. Don't underestimate this number, know that from 2020 to 2021, the market share of the luxury car market will only grow by 0.1 percentage points in one year.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, told Beiqing Automobile that the continuous decline in the luxury car market is mainly caused by insufficient supply. "Luxury car brands are all producing very low and in a state of undersupply." In the second half of 2021, the automobile market began to have a shortage of chips, which had a greater impact on the automobile market, especially the luxury car market. "Up to now, the supply of the industrial chain in Europe is still not strong, the market is relatively sluggish, and the shortage of goods is more serious." Cui Dongshu said.
Since mid-March, the epidemic in Geely, Changchun, Shanghai and other places has put pressure on the production of some car companies, and some companies have even stopped production for a while. Cui Dongshu said, "The short-term suspension of production has brought serious losses to some car companies, including Audi, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, luxury brands have experienced serious losses, and production is seriously lower than expected." ”
In the first quarter, Beijing Benz produced 137,000 units, down 16% year-on-year; FAW Audi production was 141,000 units, down 14% year-on-year; cadillac production was 23,000 units, down 37% year-on-year.
"At present, the situation of the luxury car market is very passive and difficult." Cui Dongshu said.
■ The April car market is "worse than imagined"?
Losing the "locomotive" of luxury cars, the overall performance of the car market has also been under more pressure. Recently, a statistical data on the number of licenses of various car companies in the first half of April flowed out, even in the context of the overall market environment, the decline reflected in the data is far beyond expectations.
The data may not be precise, but it is true
According to this calculation, retail sales in April reached half of the same period last year, which is already a good result. Although the accuracy of the data has yet to be verified, according to the terminal market situation that Beiqing Automobile has learned recently, except for a few brands, the sales situation of 4S stores is not good. Some models with large demand are inevitably plagued by the shortage of existing cars.
Judging from the well-documented data, although this is not the case, the general trend is equally gray. The Association of Passenger Vehicles recently released April sales forecasts, the retail targets of major manufacturers are sharply lower than the same period last year, preliminary estimates, this month's narrow passenger car (sedan, SUVs, MPVs) retail sales of about 1.1 million units, down 31.9% year-on-year.
This is at least the most dismal April that the auto industry has experienced in the past 5 years.
■ Relax the purchase restrictions, new energy vehicles, who can save the market?
On the occasion of the "even yin" of the car market, there is also good news. On April 25, the General Office of the State Council issued the Opinions on Further Releasing Consumption Potential and Promoting the Sustained Recovery of Consumption, which pointed out that "consumption is the final demand, the key link and important engine of the smooth domestic cycle, which has a lasting pulling force for the economy and is related to ensuring and improving people's livelihood." ”
As a bulk consumption project, the automobile is mentioned in many places in the "Opinions", and the most attractive thing is this: breaking down the barriers to restricting consumption. It is worth noting that the opinion lists a number of very specific measures, such as "suburban indicators", "relaxation of eligibility restrictions", "shift to use management", etc.
Industry experts have called for cities with purchase restrictions to consider increasing the supply of indicators as the simplest and most direct way.
In addition to the expectations of policies, the auto market itself actually has a discoverable growth point.
According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, in 2021, the cumulative sales of models with a starting price of more than 300,000 yuan will be 2.11 million units, an increase of 14.9% year-on-year, far higher than the growth rate of the luxury car market. In the first quarter of this year, the cumulative sales of models with a starting price of more than 300,000 yuan were 583,000 units, an increase of 9.7% year-on-year.
This part of the sales growth is driven by high-end new energy vehicles. According to the data, Tesla's deliveries in China in the first quarter of this year were 182,000 units, of which Tesla Model Y cumulative sales of 75,000 units, an increase of 354.8% year-on-year. Similarly, in the larger mid-range market, BYD's new energy vehicles have also achieved higher growth. In the above-mentioned insurance volume data, BYD, which has been fully "new energy", has achieved an increase of nearly 90%.
Beiqing Automobile noted that in the "Opinions", it also mentioned measures such as accelerating the development of new energy vehicles and promoting new energy vehicles to "go to the countryside". New energy vehicles + relaxation of purchase restrictions may become a good medicine for the rescue of the market.