Don't the countrymen understand cars? These brands are not satisfied at home, but they are flourishing overseas!

The "price safety zone" on which some joint venture brands once depended is constantly being smoothed out. Recently, there was news on the Internet that Mitsubishi is about to withdraw from the Chinese market. Although GAC Mitsubishi quickly denied the rumors, in fact, the source did not directly point to Mitsubishi, it was all guessed.

In recent years, on the one hand, the strong rise of independent brands, on the other hand, the price of mainstream joint ventures and luxury brands, and the rapid development of the new energy market, those brands that were once active between independent and mainstream joint ventures have lost their cost-effective and technological advantages, resulting in declining sales, and some have even withdrawn from the Chinese market, such as GAC FCA, Dongfeng Renault and so on.

However, we should not laugh at these brands, because if we zoom in from domestic to global, these brands are actually having a good time.

In the second year of China's official accession to the WTO, Hyundai entered the Chinese market, and in the era of "imported cars> joint venture cars >domestic cars", with excellent cost performance and excellent quality, Hyundai created a bloody road under the encirclement and blockage of Germany, the United States and Japan, and also gave birth to well-known models such as the Elantra and Sonata. In 2013, Hyundai won the honor of annual sales of one million, and in 2016, sales even continued to rise to 1.14 million units.

Of course, the turning point also occurred in those two years, with the rise of independent brands, Hyundai's "cost performance", which has been a killer tool for many years, gradually failed, coupled with the "SD" incident in 2016, the recognition of modern brands declined, resulting in a sharp decline in annual sales, which in turn made the brand awareness of Chinese people also appear significantly broken, and finally led to Hyundai's domestic sales in 2022 of only 260,400 vehicles.

Only six years later, Hyundai has gone from 1.14 million to 260,400 vehicles, which has also become the talk of many people after dinner. However, if you know the global auto market, Hyundai Group ranks behind Toyota and Volkswagen on the global list, and the Hyundai brand's global sales performance in 2022 is 3.945 million units, which is much higher than Honda Motor (3.74 million units) and Ford Group (3.67 million units).

At the same time, Hyundai achieved 689,000 units in South Korea, 724,000 units in the United States, 518,600 units in Europe, and 550,000 units in India. In the current hot new energy market, Hyundai IONIQ 5 and IONIQ 6 will sell more than 100,000 vehicles worldwide in 2022, especially IONIQ 5 has been a double harvest of word of mouth and sales. It can be seen that although the performance in China is tepid today, in the global automobile market, even in the field of new energy, Hyundai is still an absolute mainstream brand.

In 1992, after PSA summarized Peugeot's experience in exploring the Chinese market, Citroen and Dongfeng Group joined hands to establish Peugeot-Citroen Automobile, and in the early stage, with one of the "old three" - Peugeot-Citroen Fukang in the Chinese market, and due to the accumulation of word of mouth, it firmly occupied the initiative in the market for many years. In 2014, with the help of the C5, C4L, Sega and Elysee, Citroen's annual sales exceeded 320,000 units for the first time.

Since 2015, due to the collective outbreak of its own brands, the problem of Citroen's new car launch and slow introduction of new technologies has gradually emerged, making product competitiveness gradually reduced, and sales have continued to decline, until domestic sales of about 50,200 units in 2022, and this is also thanks to the launch of Versailles C5X in 2021, because its sales account for more than 80% of the whole series.

However, if we look at the global market, Citroen's performance is still remarkable, its cumulative sales in the European market reached 378,600 units, of which Citroen C3 bicycle sales reached 143,400 units, ranking eleventh in European bicycle sales list; in terms of new energy, Citroen is also trying to deploy pure electric and plug-in hybrid, with sales of 18,000 and 15,000 respectively.

In 2010, Jeep of the "Second Palace" just caught up with the SUV trend, Chinese consumers changed their consumption habits, and the big SUV caught fire. At that time, "not all SUVs are called Jeep" was deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, which established Jeep's hardcore image, and then relied on the power of domestic models such as Liberty, Guide, and Liberty Light, Jeep's sales soared, and it won a peak data of 222,300 units in 2017.

But also in those two years, SUV has become the main new car in the domestic market, at that time really did not launch an SUV are embarrassed to say that they are a car, and Jeep gradually transformed into an urban SUV, but the segment of the market is seriously involved, and Jeep prices are high, so that Jeep sales gradually declined, announced its withdrawal in 2022, and currently only retains the import car business.

This kind of "light assets" is still very good for Jeep, because in 2022, there will be less than 5,000 domestic Jeeps, and imported Jeeps have exceeded 10,000, and the Wrangler hybrid version and the Grand Cherokee hybrid version will not delay the introduction. The point is that Jeep still has a presence in overseas markets, selling 103,200 units in Europe and 684,600 units in the United States.

Kia was originally an independent individual and was acquired by Hyundai in 1988, so the mention of Hyundai Group includes the Hyundai brand and the Kia brand, which also makes Hyundai enter the Chinese market at the same time as Kia also comes. Like Hyundai, Kia also takes the "cost-effective" route in the domestic market, with heavy models such as K3, K5, and Smart Running, Kia can really be said to be infinitely beautiful that year, with annual sales of 650,000 vehicles.

After that, in almost the same situation as Hyundai, in the face of the rise of its own brands and the "SD" incident, Kia's annual sales fell from 650,000 units to 94,300 units in 2022. Moreover, Kia just broke away from the Dongfeng Group last year, and Kia is currently holding shares in both Yueda and Kia in China, and there are even rumors that "Kia can't do it".

The reason why it is called "rumor" is because looking at Kia's global base and sales are really good, and the Kia brand's global sales in 2022 will be 2.904 million vehicles, although not as good as Hyundai brands, but still ranked first in the world. Kia achieved sales of 541,000 units in South Korea, 542,400 units in Europe, 542,400 units in the U.S., and 251,000 units in India.

At the same time, Kia is also introducing global blockbuster models to China, with Sportage selling more than 6.6 million vehicles worldwide, contributing 450,000 units in 2022, becoming Kia's best-selling model in the world, which completed domestic production last year; In terms of new energy, Asia has recently launched three pure electric SUVs, of which the EV6 received 80,000 units last year. It can be seen that Kia not only performs well in the global auto market, but also works hard.

When the domestic production was first announced, Mazda was the sweet potato of the market, and at the beginning of the cooperation with Hainan Automobile to produce the Mazda 323, it was soon favored by FAW Group and Changan Automobile, so that there was later FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda, and then with the "cooperation" of the two, the reputation of "Dongying BMW" and Mazda 6, Mazda 3, CX-5, CX-4 these boutique models, Mazda not only gained many fans, but also achieved sales of more than 300,000 units in 2017.

Of course, this has also become the peak of Mazda's sales in China, in the small displacement turbocharging has become a trend, electrification has been advancing in the past few years, Mazda's past technical advantages and brand reputation have gradually been smoothed out, and in 2020, it was also announced that it would not launch new models within two years, so that Mazda's sales in 2022 once fell to 108,100 units.

But everyone should have heard Mazda's famous saying: only 2% of consumers in the world recognize Mazda cars. Mazda itself is positioned as "small and beautiful", and looking at the world, Mazda's global sales in 2022 reached 1.1161 million units, although this number is not as high as the above car companies, but for a small car company, it can still be obtained.

In terms of market performance, Mazda achieved sales of 161,300 units in Japan, 151,300 units in Europe, and 294,900 units in the United States. In addition, the Mazda CX-5 sold more than 365,000 units worldwide, making it Mazda's most popular product last year, and the Mazda 3 in second place had 170,000 units. Seeing this, everyone should still think that Mazda can't do it, right?

It is true that although these brands have not performed well in the domestic market, and some have even withdrawn from the Chinese market, their global performance is still considerable. From another point of view, such a result must be inseparable from the strength of independent brands, which last year the market share of independent brands has reached 47%. Even, independent brands are relying on electrification to achieve "going to sea", perhaps, we are not far from the day when we see Chinese cars everywhere on overseas roads!