Analysis of the number of insurance in passenger cars in March: Will the impact of this round of epidemic on the car market be more serious than in 2020?

From March to May 2022, it is very likely to repeat the sales trend in the first quarter of 2020.

However, under the similar decline, the impact of the 2022 epidemic is still different from the 2020 epidemic. First of all, the main impact of the epidemic in 2022 is the high-tier cities represented by the four first-tier cities. Secondly, the recovery of investment and consumption that began in the middle and late 2019 reflects a significant V-shaped growth after the epidemic in 2020. However, since the second half of 2021, the trend of insufficient growth momentum of the automobile market has become prominent, which will make the automobile market face a completely different structural adjustment after the epidemic in 2022.

1. The growth rate of traditional luxury brands has turned from positive to negative

The trend of peaking the growth rate of luxury brands will accelerate under the double impact of the epidemic and the concept of luxury consumption. On the one hand, the consumption silence of high-tier cities will have a greater impact on the luxury car market; on the other hand, the urgent desire of high-tier cities for new luxury and subversive luxury will also further divert the share of traditional and conservative luxury brands. The pattern of the luxury car market will also accelerate the change.

2. Mainstream joint venture car shrinks more than expected

In 2021, mainstream joint venture car still occupies most of the hot-selling models. However, by 2022, the mainstream joint venture car in the top ten hot-selling models will only be Xuanyi, Langyi and Corolla, and the year-on-year decline of these three models will exceed 20% or even 30%. At the same time as the decline in sales, it is accompanied by a decrease in market heat and an irreversible shift in consumer attention. When the extremely conservative population has basically completed the precipitation, the mainstream joint venture car market will also accelerate its contraction.

3. The impact of new energy vehicle price increases is diluted

In 2022, there will be a wide range of price increases in new energy models, but on the other hand, the proportion of new energy vehicle sales in March exceeded 30% for the first time, and the proportion of new energy vehicle sales in the first quarter also exceeded 20%. In the case of the general shortage of new energy hot-selling models, car companies hold a large number of accumulated orders, and will continue to dilute the impact of rising prices of new energy models on terminal consumption during the transition period between order submission and vehicle delivery. After the gradual easing of the epidemic and the resealing of the market, new energy vehicles are expected to continue to become an important driving force for the growth of the automobile market in 2022.

The sharp decline in the auto market in April-May this year is almost a foregone conclusion, but just as after the epidemic in 2020, a number of "net red models" based on consumer demand were born, rewriting the consumption concept of the terminal market, and car companies will face the same problem after the epidemic in 2022. The impact of new product definitions, technology applications, and whole-life processes on the pattern of the automobile market is far greater and longer-term than the short-term sales impact caused by the epidemic itself.