Under the influence of the epidemic, domestic car companies have collectively encountered "Waterloo".
On April 27, the Association disclosed the retail sales data of domestic passenger cars in the third week, and the average daily retail sales of domestic passenger cars in that week were 29,600 units, down 46% year-on-year. Previously, the Association of Automobile Manufacturers had predicted that as the industry resumed work and production, auto retail sales would gradually pick up in the third and fourth weeks, but in fact, the decline in the third week not only did not narrow, but further expanded.
The Association believes that the impact of this round of epidemic has seriously exceeded expectations, consumers' risk-avoidance and static mentality is very serious, dealers have suffered huge losses in passenger flow, and dealers in Jilin, Shanghai, Shandong, Guangdong, Hebei and other places have been affected by their stores and transactions.
According to the auto insurance data disclosed by a domestic media a few days ago, as of April 17, only BYD maintained a substantial year-on-year growth among the 15 major auto companies, and the other 14 auto companies collapsed across the board, generally falling by more than 50% year-on-year. Faw-Volkswagen, SAIC-Volkswagen, SAIC-GM and Dongfeng Nissan all fell by more than 60% year-on-year, and the insurance volume of the independent brand leader "Two Long and One Ji" (Changan, Great Wall, Geely) also fell by more than 60% year-on-year.
It is worth noting that although BYD's insurance volume increased by 89% year-on-year, it fell significantly compared with the previous month. The reason why BYD can become the only positive growth enterprise is that it has entered a strong cycle of products and technologies since last year, and the terminal has always exceeded the supply, and a large number of undelivered orders have been accumulated before March, and the monthly new orders have exceeded the delivery volume of the current month. In addition, BYD's vertically integrated supply chain model makes it relatively less affected at the production end.
"There are problems on both sides of the supply and demand side." Sun Shaojun, founder of the automobile sales service platform "Chefans", told the first financial reporter that the platform has been monitoring the changes in the number of major brand dealer customers entering the store during the epidemic. Since the end of February this year, the decline in the number of dealers entering the store has initially emerged. With the spread of the epidemic and the upgrading of control measures in related cities, the data on the number of car consumers entering the store continued to decline. The decline in the number of stores is especially in the hard-hit areas of the epidemic, radiating outward with the hard-hit areas as the center, and the number of terminal stores in many non-static management areas has also fallen by more than 50% recently.
According to a document from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, since 2022, due to the shortage of domestic chips, the rapid rise of key raw materials for power batteries and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, especially the outbreak of the epidemic in many parts of the country, suppliers and OEMs have been forced to stop production, and some important automobile production base areas have adopted sealing and control measures, and the production and operation of automobile enterprises have encountered severe challenges.
Although Shanghai and Jilin and other places are currently promoting the resumption of work and production, and related logistics and transportation are gradually recovering, Sun Shaojun believes that it will take a long time for automobile sales to return to pre-epidemic levels, "the epidemic has led to an increase in consumers' expectations for future uncertainty, and the first thing they have to cut is the consumption of bulk commodities like cars." ”
Some car companies and industry experts interviewed also have a pessimistic attitude towards automobile consumption in May this year, and one car executive believes that as sales continue to slump, there will be a new round of industry reshuffle this year.