Frequently sung down, the first half of the joint venture car company

Written by Tian Xi

Editor/Zhang Nan

Design / Ju Jia

For quite some time, the voices of singing about the decline of joint venture car companies have been heard endlessly. In the current report, some media even used "the building will fall" to describe the current situation of joint venture car companies.

People who hold the rhetoric of singing about joint venture car companies, they generally base on the logic that in the era of automotive intelligence, the product competitiveness of independent brands is indeed better, and with the rise of national consumption, the market share of Chinese brands that better understand Chinese consumers and markets will continue to increase, and the market share of joint venture car companies will be further compressed.

Another view is that it is too early to tell who killed the deer. In the current Chinese new energy vehicle companies, except for BYD, other car companies basically do not have hematopoietic ability, they are still in the situation of "selling one and losing one", if the situation of selling more and more losses does not change, new energy vehicle companies simply cannot carry out a protracted battle for market share with joint venture car companies.

A few days ago, a letter to all employees of GAC Mitsubishi was widely circulated on the Internet, saying that GAC Mitsubishi was in trouble and would have to optimize its personnel structure.

This is the first time that GAC-Mitsubishi has responded positively to the outside world since the news of the suspension of production was exposed in March.

The passive situation of joint venture car companies is not unique today, Suzuki, Renault, Acura, Fiat and other joint venture car companies have left, coupled with the vigorous development of independent car companies, the outside world has become more and more vocal about joint venture car companies.

However, independent brands competing in the same market show a completely different picture.

In June, Chinese brand passenger car sales were 1.205 million units, up 21.2% y/y, with a market share of 53.1%. From January to June, Chinese brand passenger car sales were 5.986 million units, up 22.4% y/y, with a market share of 53.1%. In 2023, independent brands achieved a half-year share of more than 50% for the first time in the first half of the year.

In contrast, the performance of joint venture brands is relatively dismal.

In June, mainstream joint venture brands retailed 660,000 units, down 19% y/y. Among them, the retail share of German brands was 21.1%, down 1.6 percentage points year-on-year; The retail share of Japanese brands was 17.8%, down 3.7 percentage points year-on-year; The retail share of the US brand market reached 9.2%, down 0.9 percentage points year-on-year.

The market share of German, Japanese and American companies all declined.

By combing the sales volume of mainstream joint venture car companies in June and the first half of the year, Auto Business Review found that in June, the joint venture car companies fell year-on-year, without exception. Among them, only three joint venture automakers decreased by less than 10% year-on-year, namely GAC Toyota, GAC Honda and Beijing Hyundai. Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, Changan Ford, and Changan Mazda all fell by about 30% year-on-year, and Peugeot-Citroen Automobile fell 67% year-on-year.

From January to June, the cumulative sales of only three automakers increased year-on-year, namely FAW Toyota, Beijing Hyundai and Jiangling Ford, and the rest all declined to varying degrees. Among them, only three companies fell within 10%, namely FAW-Volkswagen, SAIC Volkswagen and GAC Toyota. There are 6 car companies with a decline of 10%-30%, namely SAIC-GM, Guangqi Honda, Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, Changan Ford, and Yueda Kia, and two of them have a decline of more than 30%, namely Changan Mazda and Peugeot-Citroen Automobile.

Will the joint venture really fall?

After slipping from the peak

In 2017, China's automobile sales reached 28.879 million units, a year-on-year increase of 3%. At that time, no one expected that this year would be the peak of China's auto market. In the years since, this number has not been surpassed.

Also in this year, two of the joint venture car companies ushered in their peak moment, namely SAIC-GM and Changan Mazda.

In 2017, SAIC-GM's sales peaked at 2 million units, and since then they have been declining. From 2018 to 2022, the company sold 1.97 million units, 1.6 million units, 1.467 million units, 1.332 million units, and 1.17 million units, respectively, falling almost half of its peak.

In 2021, the "North and South Mazda" officially merged, but the merged Mazda did not return to its former glory. After peaking at 300,000 units in 2017, Mazda has struggled to survive in the Chinese auto market since then, as it declined. Until 2022, the annual sales fell to 100,000 units, becoming one of the joint venture automakers with the smallest sales volume in the Chinese auto market.

Recently, Masahiro Moro, CEO of Mazda Motor Company, said that Mazda's business in China may be difficult due to the fierce competition in China's electric vehicle market. He told a roundtable, "China is developing at a terrible pace. Our sales volume and revenue in China will be under certain pressure. ”

Changan Ford, Beijing Hyundai and Yueda Kia had their highlight in 2016, the year before the peak of the Chinese auto market. Peugeot-Citroen Motors is in 2015.

The first four to reach the peak also saw the most impressive declines. In the scuffling of the market, they have fallen to the third and fourth tier camp of joint venture car companies. Changan Ford fell from a peak of 943,800 units to 251,000 units in 2022, Beijing Hyundai from 1.14 million to 250,000 units, Yueda Kia from 650,000 units to 94,000 units, and Peugeot-Citroen Automobile from 704,800 units to 127,000 units. In 2022, the sales volume of these four car companies will be less than one-third of their peak.

In 2017, SAIC Volkswagen became the first joint venture to exceed 2 million units, with sales of 2.063 million units that year. The following year, SAIC Volkswagen reached a peak of 2.065 million units, a slight year-on-year increase. After selling more than 2 million units for three consecutive years, SAIC Volkswagen fell at the altar, and its final sales in 2020 were fixed at 1.5 million units.

But it was also in this year that FAW-Volkswagen reached its peak. In 2020, FAW-Volkswagen's sales exceeded 2.16 million units, and FAW-Volkswagen became the only passenger car company in China with production and sales exceeding 2 million units. To this day, FAW-Volkswagen is still firmly in the first camp of joint venture car companies.

For quite a long time, Japanese cars have had a strong appeal in the Chinese auto market. However, in the recent data of the passenger association, it will be found that the decline in Japanese market share is already the norm. Even so, the overall performance of Japanese car companies can be regarded as stable.

Taking GAC Toyota as an example, in 2022, GAC Toyota's annual sales reached 1.005 million units, a year-on-year increase of 21.4%, a record high.

Another feature of the Toyota and Honda joint ventures is that they both peak their sales around 2021, so in comparison, they are not much different from the peak sales at present.

Dongfeng Nissan's sales peaked in 2018 at 1.167 million units. At the end of 2020 and the beginning of 2021, Venucia and Infiniti were successively included in the management of Dongfeng Nissan, and in 2022, the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Nissan were 902,000 units, down 21.4% year-on-year, and the sales of Nissan brands, which were responsible for the main sales, were 800,000 units, down 23.6% year-on-year, which was also the first time that Dongfeng Nissan's sales fell below 1 million units since 2015.

It is not necessary to sing the decline of the joint venture

Looking back in the past, today's self-owned brands that are developing day by day have also been sung and declined at different stages of history.

In 2014, the market share of independent brands suffered a "decline" for twelve consecutive months, which was even defined by some as a decline year for independent brands; In April 2019, the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars fell to 37.1%, and at that time, the share of own brands fell year-on-year for 13 consecutive months.

When the decline becomes a label for a certain period of time, it is not uncommon for a voice to be sung or even denigrated.

"The new forces will, we will learn it in three years; We will, the new forces will not learn for ten years! "This year's Auto Shanghai,

Volvo

Open declaration of war on the new forces of car manufacturing, perhaps, Volvo shouted the unwillingness of the vast majority of traditional fuel vehicle giants. The subtext behind it is obvious, and the competition of the new forces of car manufacturing, the fuel vehicle giant is temporarily behind, which involves not the question of whether it can be done, but the question of whether he wants to do it.

At this year's 15th China Automotive Blue Book Forum, Wu Zhoutao, Party Secretary and Permanent Deputy General Manager of Beijing Hyundai, expressed the biggest concern on the minds of joint venture car companies - in the electric vehicle industry, there are not many profitable companies, and this is also a big factor hindering the transformation of joint ventures. He said that the joint venture itself has many advantages, whether it is technology, capital, talents, global system, brand, etc., but the question left to the joint venture is, how to go quickly?

There seems to be good reason for the outside world. In the automotive industry, the idea that "fuel determines survival, hybrid determines life and death, and trams determine the future" has been accepted by most people. If the future is deduced from the present, no matter how you look at it, the joint venture car companies are representative groups that miss the future. It seems that survival is difficult, life and death are unknown, and there is no future.

But others believe that the present may not be able to deduce the future at all.

Zhang Yu, general manager of Shanghai Pre-Automobile Consulting Co., Ltd., believes that the stage of electrification development will be relatively long, even longer than expected; The competition in intelligent cockpit and intelligent network connection has not formed a real selling point; A high degree of intelligent driving has still not landed, and foreign capital can actually catch up through localized efforts. As long as there is a strong willingness to stay in China, these foreign-funded large factories have the opportunity to use the advantages of their oil vehicles to continue to consolidate their basic plates, if they can work a little harder in the field of plug-in hybrid and hybrid architecture, and then recover some market share.

In fact, there has been a change.

Take Dongfeng Honda as an example. At the theme event for the 20th anniversary of the establishment of the Dongfeng Honda on July 16, Dongfeng Honda made it clear that it is expected that by 2027, the Dongfeng Honda will no longer launch new fuel vehicles, and more than 10 pure electric models will be launched by 2030. Relying on the product matrix of e:NS, e:HEV/e:PHEV strong electric intelligent hybrid and new self-owned brand models, it is reported that in the second half of this year, the new independent brand will be officially released, and the brand will be included in its electrification matrix.

It can be said that this is a difficult choice for joint venture brands, and not all joint venture brands have such courage.

Is it possible that the new competition has just begun, but too many people see the current competition as halfway?