After "The Sad Little Car", the area where the joint venture brand further lost or voluntarily abandoned came to the compact car. Of course, this part of the market is not dying, it is only shrinking. Since it is shrinking, it means that there are still some companies that insist, but not all brands have the ability to stick to it.
Among these brands and models, the Honda Civic, Volkswagen Golf, and Volkswagen Sagittarius are among the few models that can maintain the brand and price. This is not unrelated to the civic and golf's global golden signs, in contrast to the lack of personality of Corolla, Xuanyi, Willang, Fox gradually into the defensive posture.
To say that it is a defense is actually to exchange price for volume.
Toyota and Honda, which have always been strong in Guangdong, have begun to be affected by the dual impact of the epidemic and rising oil prices, and there has been a situation of loose prices and free vehicle sources. The preferential range of Leiling was expanded to 34,000 yuan, and the mandatory requirements were no longer required, and even the purchase of cars in different places was accepted. The Accord preferential margin has been expanded to 15,000 yuan, which also supports off-site car purchases.
Since even the strongest brands are seeking to exchange price for volume, the situation of other brands can be imagined. However, not all brands can exchange price cuts for sales, and even if some brands reduce prices, they will not help, and simply lie flat.
For compact cars, sales mean everything. In this typical "small profit but high sales" market, the profit of bicycles is not high, and the cost is reduced through large-scale operation to obtain benefits. If there is no sales volume, the brand will inevitably abandon this market.
The most sensitive at this point are GM and Ford. In the small car plan, GM abandoned models such as Lefeng, Avio, and Kaiyue very early, and Ford stopped introducing carnivals very early. So and so, after Cruze withdrew, Kołoz, Cruze on top, Willand withdrew, Willand Pro on top. The Fox scenery is no longer there, the Chinese revamp Fox is about to be launched, and it has become a mystery as to whether and how the next generation of models will be launched.
Exit is exit, but how to price those models that stick to it becomes a very distressing problem.
Just as Fit is one of the few mini cars in the market today, the price is close to that of domestic sports cars and joint venture mainstream compact cars. On the one hand, the cost, on the other hand, the sales volume, if the situation continues to deteriorate, Fit's exit is also expected.
The new generation of joint venture compact family cars is facing three extremes, one is the infighting of the joint venture brand, one is the attack of the independent brand, and the other is the suppression of the joint venture medium-sized car.
Infighting over joint venture brands
As GM's once main compact model, Yinglang has not been replaced for a long time, and the price of Pinduoduo has been maintained at around 75,000 for many years, while Weilang has maintained around 85,000 because of the problem of 1.3T. However, in 2015, the price of Veyron was 135,900-199,900 when it went public.
With the sale of Opel and the concentration of SUVs and new energy models in the U.S. market, the future of Veyron is uncertain. However, SAIC-GM replaced the Veyron Pro with a 1.5T four-cylinder turbocharged engine in an attempt to salvage the problem of "subjective three-cylinder engine errors", but with little success.
Nowadays, the price of Veyron Pro on Pinduoduo is gradually approaching 100,000, which is nearly 75% off compared with the discount at the time of listing, and there is a great potential to succeed Yinglang and Weilang.
It's not just The Willan Pro, fox is no different. As Ford's new generation of global compact cars, the Focus maintains a very high level of sports tuning and technical investment. Before the upcoming mid-term redesign to replace the 1.5T four-cylinder engine, there have been 135,000 landing Fox ST tops in Guangdong.
As a regular customer on the price for volume list, Nissan Classic Xuanyi offers 30,000, 90,000 can be traded, the new Xuanyi is still insisting, the official discount is only 10,000, but the top match is only 135,000. Nissan did not distinguish between Xuanyi Classic and Xinxuanyi when announcing sales, so it is not clear how Xinxuanyi sold.
Preserving the face of the compact car is the Mazda Next Generation Mazda 3, which barely maintains the monthly sales of 5,000 units with few offers. This is not easy for a personalized brand like Mazda. On the one hand, due to the lack of advantages in the cost side due to the insufficient scale and volume to compete with Toyota, Honda and GM; on the other hand, the pricing of the next-generation Mazda 3 is not cheap, and in order to ensure brand value, the market preferential margin cannot be too large. Even so, the next-generation Mazda 3 discount has reached 8,000 yuan, earlier than in previous years.
Civic still killed all sides, not only starting at 129,900, the highest touched 163,900, but also obtained 16,000 sales, if you add GAC Toyota model, this sales is more exaggerated. Volkswagen Golf is somewhat inferior in comparison, and it barely maintains decency with a market discount of 10,000.
In fact, the joint venture compact car has been divided into two camps. One part will pull the main battlefield to the level of 100,000, through localization, cost reduction, price for volume, while dealing with the menacing independent brands; the other part will maintain the main battlefield near the average price of 150,000, through the appeal of brands and models to stand.
All this changed when SAIC Volkswagen Lingdu L arrived, starting at 149,900 and up to 189,900, almost breaking the price ceiling of compact cars, but Lingdu did not have the appeal of the Civic. It was this car that made people think about the question of how much should the joint venture compact car be.
Crackdown on joint venture mid-size cars
The crackdown on Lingdu pricing includes luxury compact cars such as the Audi A3, as well as mainstream joint venture mid-level cars such as Ford Mondeo, Chevrolet Mariebao XL, Kia K5, Peugeot 508L and so on.
Mondeo, released almost at the same time, set off Lingdu L's pricing strategy with great embarrassment. Equipped with a 2.0T high-power turbocharged engine, the length of the car reaches 4.9 meters, the wheelbase is 2945mm, and the starting price is only 159,800, excluding the ST kit version of 226,800, the top is equipped with a 199,800 Mondeo, and the price range coincides with the Lingdu height.
In fact, this is just that Mondeo has not yet seen a price loosening. If Mondeo does not meet expectations, models developed and manufactured based on localization will have stronger autonomy on the cost side, and even pull the starting price down to the 140,000 range. This partly explains that the pricing of joint venture mid-size cars is compressing the space for joint venture compact cars.
This is not to mention that it has fully entered the price-for-volume Mai RuiBao XL, the secondary market Mai Rui Bao XL has appeared 50,000 preferential offers. Even so, don't overlook the Kia K5, a Full Range Mid-range car launched by the Korean series that not only provides purchase tax subsidies, but also has a very pragmatic starting price and market margin. Both the 1.5T engine and the 2.0T engine with CVVD technology perform very well. Mid-range cars always have a higher starting point and better performance than compact cars.
The question is if the price of the joint venture mid-level car is increased to 150,000, what kind of price will be set when the compact car is launched in the future?
The emergence of the Audi A3 as well as the Cadillac CT4 is a compression of the joint venture compact car in another dimension.
In fact, any brand that adheres to the dual brand operation is difficult to deal with the problem of selling price space.
SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC Skoda, both positioned as one high and one low, but because the Volkswagen brand does not leave enough space for Skoda, consumers often encounter "Why don't you choose Volkswagen at this price?" question. This is why Skoda is gradually marginalized in China.
Buick and Chevrolet also have this problem. In fact, there is also a competitive relationship with the pioneers of the platform and the Encore Banner, and if the Price Reduction of The More and the More is bound to drive the Price Reduction of The Regal.
The upward attack of independent brands
The impact of independent brands on joint venture brands is very large, first of all, with the improvement of the level of mainstream domestic cars of independent brands, joint venture car companies found that even the manufacture of mini cars at this level can not ensure profits, and simply withdrew from the market below 100,000. Nowadays, with the attack of Lynk & Co, Geely, Trumpchi and MG, the joint venture brand has gradually given up less than 150,000 markets.
Lynk & Co 03 will target the opponents in Honda Civic, Volkswagen Sagittarius and other models, providing more abundant configuration and power, with Lynk & Co 02 in fact has firmly occupied the range of 120,000-160,000, which in the past was a very mainstream pricing of joint venture brands. At the same time, Geely Xingrui, which is built based on the CMA platform, is equipped with a 2.0T engine, which locks the pricing between 113,700 and 14.97 million.
It can only be said that the three mainstream compact cars of the Geely series have gained a firm foothold, representing a new height for the current rise of independent brands. The rest is still sprinting, and while it will take time to get this shock, there is already some momentum.
With a 1.5T engine, Shadow Leopard carefully locked in pricing at 98,300-131,800. The situation of the MG 6 Pro is similar to that of the Shadow Leopard, and the price is set at between 103,800 and 139,800. In fact, the product strength shown by the two has obvious advantages over the joint venture brands at the same price.
The emergence of the Shadow Leopard and MG6 Pro means that Chinese brands have not only begun to provide very good engines and transmission tuning capabilities, but also fully support the sense of sport on the chassis. The suspension is no longer a soft and ugly situation in the past, but strives to show very good support.
Through excellent sporty tuning and configuration, these models have gradually squeezed the market for a range of sports models such as the Mazda 3 and The Fox.
These brands are actually very likely to succeed. In addition to the Civic and Golf at the 150,000 level, independent brands face mainly some main household products such as Corolla, Xuanyi, and Veyron Pro at a price of 120,000. While the gap in brand perception will take time, it can be quickly narrowed through configuration and word of mouth.
Overall, joint venture brands face very difficult pricing. The independent brand has risen to 120,000, and the joint venture brand mid-level car squeeze has reached 150,000. Even so, in order to gain a foothold in the range of 120,000-150,000, we need a brand with strong appeal such as Civic. If the appeal is not strong, it can only hit the price of 100,000 yuan in the mud and sand. Compact markets are beginning to enter a shuffle range.
Perhaps The final foothold of Lingdu is 120,000-150,000, and the strategy may be to use high lift and low play, but from the feedback of consumers, it should be realized that the compact car is about to change the sky.
Figure | Sourced from the web
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