Data show that from January to July this year, the retail sales of the domestic luxury car market were about 1.6475 million units, a year-on-year increase of 11.2%, and the performance was good. Since the beginning of this year, price wars have been frequent, and the price fluctuations in the luxury car market are very obvious, even so, compared with the decline in sales caused by price wars in other market segments, the sales performance of the luxury car market has been very tenacious and the competitiveness shown is also very strong.
The BBA echelon, which occupies most of the market share in the luxury car market, performed well, with cumulative sales in the first seven months increasing compared with the same period last year, with the BMW brand ranking first, followed by Mercedes-Benz, with only 491 units and Audi ranking third.
However, if you analyze further, you will find that although the overall performance of BBA is better than last year, its market performance is not satisfactory at a time when the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles is gradually rising. In terms of NEV sales, the proportion of NEV products in the first seven months was low, BMW accounted for 12.7%, Mercedes-Benz 5.9%, and Audi 4.3%. Obviously, traditional fuel vehicles are still the absolute support for BBA sales.
Even in recent years, BBA has continued to make efforts in the new energy vehicle market, with a number of new products launched every year and a number of plans to improve the new energy market, but from the current point of view, at least in terms of sales, it has not completely landed. In contrast, individual brands in the second echelon are not so lucky, especially Lexus and Lincoln show a year-on-year decline.
The increase in the market share of luxury cars comes from the addition of new energy brands
It is understood that in the first half of this year, the cumulative sales of domestic mainstream luxury brands (13) were 2.07 million, a year-on-year increase of 14.9%, an increase much higher than that of passenger cars of 1.8%; It accounted for 21.6% of the passenger car market in the current period.
This means that one out of every five passenger cars sold in the current period is a luxury car. At the same time, compared with the same period in the past three years, the market share of luxury cars has shown an overall upward trend: 18.4% in the first half of 2020, 19.9% in the first half of 2021, and 19.7% in the first half of 2022.
Compared with other market segments, the luxury car market has been performing strongly, even in the period of core shortage or epidemic, although sales have fluctuated, but the market performance is still online. In terms of price, price for volume in other market segments may cause consumers to hold coins for purchase, but in the luxury car market, consumers' price sensitivity is not so high, which is also determined by their consumption characteristics.
At present, new energy vehicles are "popular", and the squeeze of traditional fuel vehicles is expanding little by little, and the luxury car market is also the same, which is the main reason why the market share of luxury cars is increasing year by year. With the addition of new energy luxury brands, especially the electric vehicle leader Tesla and the leader of new forces, Ideal and NIO. If these three brands are excluded, the market share of mainstream luxury brands in the first half of this year was 16.5%, which was lower than the 17.5% in the first half of 2020.
Looking back on the first half of the year, the BBA echelon won the top three positions on the list, with sales of more than 300,000 vehicles, and its strong products and brand influence made its competitors dare not say that they would be able to completely surpass the three major brands in the short term. However, with the growth of the new energy vehicle team, the sense of oppression brought by it is very obvious.
Tesla, which ranked fourth, saw a surge in sales in just a few years, following Audi with 297,000 units in the first half of the year, and the gap was only 24,500 vehicles, and in March and June at the end of the quarter, Tesla surpassed BBA to win the luxury brand sales championship. According to its 50% year-on-year growth trend, Tesla may surpass Audi by the end of the year, and according to this trend, the top three positions on the list are very likely to change. However, Tesla also has its own "troubles". With the main model of Model 3 down to 230,000 yuan, the definition of luxury brand on its body is being explored.
Let's look at the second echelon of the luxury car market. At present, among luxury brands, the penetration rate of new energy is 29.9%, which is basically the same as the passenger car market (30.7%). Still looking at the sales volume in the first half of the year, let's first look at the performance of new energy brands.
Ideal jumped to fifth place with 141,200 results, becoming the leader of second-tier luxury brands, with a year-on-year increase of 132.2%, the fastest growth rate in the list. It was followed by Hongqi, which ranked sixth with 128,300 units, up 8.7% y/y. The original "Kevole" started from the seventh place on the list, of which Lexus fell 18.5% year-on-year, the largest decline, also the largest decline in the list. The times when the masses were obsessed with original, purely imported cars are changing little by little.
It is worth mentioning that among the top thirteen luxury cars in the first half of the year, there are three new energy brands: Tesla, Lili, NIO, and other new energy rates account for a higher proportion of Porsche (18%), BMW (13%) and Hongqi (12%), and the lowest Lincoln is only 0.1%, ranking at the end of total sales.
New energy continues to rise, and traditional luxury brands will reduce prices more sharply in the second half of the year
In the first half of 2023, under the effect of continuous and frequent price wars, there are still a large number of customers paying for fuel vehicles, BMW and Mercedes-Benz, the two old partners, are still in the luxury car segment, and compared with Mercedes-Benz, BMW's pure electric model sales are even more eye-catching, but also reveal its ambition in the new energy vehicle market.
At the 2023 Chengdu Motor Show held in August, the innovative pure electric BMW iX1 was launched, announcing that the youngest pioneer of the BMW X family has joined the battlefield, and the innovative pure electric BMW i7 M70L, the top model of BMW's "flagship of the electric era", was officially launched, and a number of other new energy models were unveiled. This year, BMW will present 11 pure electric products in the Chinese market. At the same time, under the strategy of "focusing on luxury" and "fuel and electricity", Mercedes-Benz's new EQE pure electric SUV, the new generation Mercedes-Benz GLE 400 e 4MATIC plug-in hybrid SUV, Mercedes-Maybach S 580 e plug-in hybrid sedan were also unveiled at the auto show.
In fact, in the face of the market impact of new forces in car manufacturing, first-line luxury brands represented by BBA have generally shown an attitude of actively promoting electrification transformation, but each brand differs in actions and landing results.
In addition to accelerating the promotion of new cars, luxury cars are better at price exchange in the second half of the year or more fierce. In the SUV market, Li Auto's L7, L8, L9 series, and NIO ES6 have begun to affect BBA sales, in addition to the price war for traditional fuel vehicles, BBA is also increasingly liberalized in price for new energy models. BMW i3, iX3, iX and other models start with a price reduction of 100,000 yuan. In addition, Mercedes-Benz EQE, EQS and other models also have terminal discounts of 100,000 to 150,000 yuan; Although Audi is more conservative, the price reduction has reached 50,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan.
At present, in the face of the acceleration of new force brands to seize the new energy luxury market, price reduction has become the only way for traditional luxury brands to increase the sales of their electric models at this stage, not only BBA, but also the second echelon of Volvo and other brands under the new energy model terminal decline is also very radical.
At the same time, in the face of the sharp price reduction of traditional luxury brands, the new force brand is also helpless, in addition to Tesla, ideal and other models are still relatively strong in price. Although the price war within the new energy market has also been obvious since the beginning of this year, it is still constrained by factors such as parts and production costs.
In addition, for traditional fuel vehicles, with another wave of price war at the beginning of the off-season, the current price fluctuations of luxury brands in the terminal market are also obvious, mainstream models such as BMW 3 series, X3, Audi A4L, A6L, Mercedes-Benz E-class, GLC, etc. have discounts between 5-100,000, and the reduction rate of other models is also very attractive.
At present, the gold nine silver ten has arrived, the market as a whole is very aggressive in terms of price, the impulse atmosphere is more obvious, coupled with the failure of some car companies to meet the sales volume in the first half of the year, the pressure in the second half of the year doubled, and the terminal inventory is obvious, and various factors superimpose to make it more open in price.
Written at the end: Tesla is advancing vigorously, shuffling the domestic luxury car brand market, and new forces such as NIO and Ideal are also taking advantage of the new energy momentum to get a piece of the pie. The significant increase in sales of new energy vehicles is the main reason for the growth of luxury cars against the market, and it is also the future trend of the luxury car market.