The Macan that can't be sold with a discount of 120,000 yuan, Porsche has suffered the rich in China?

In the Chinese market in 2023, the rich are slowly moving away from Porsche.

This year's Porsche is not selling well in the domestic market. Porsche announced its sales data for the third quarter of this year, in which Porsche's sales in the Chinese market plummeted by 4%, becoming the only market in the world to decline. Porsche's performance in the first three quarters was 64,500 units in North America, up 14 percent year-on-year, while Europe (excluding Germany) sold 51,700 units and Germany 24,800 units, up 23 percent and 19 percent, respectively.

In the Chinese market, a total of 60,700 units were sold in the first three quarters, down 12% year-on-year. It is hard to imagine that Porsche, which has always been represented by high-end, luxury and sports, can be difficult to sell in the Chinese market. Today, the status quo is that the discount is more than 10 yuan to pick up the car, and it is still not as high as last year's sales. And this wave of discounts did not help the sales growth, but also hurt the old owners of Porsche. Porsche's retention rate has fallen by 81.71% in the third quarter, and the retention rate has decreased by nearly 3% compared with the previous quarter. This also means that this wave of new car discounts has had a greater impact on the price system of used cars. In a quarter, the Macan has lost 20,000 yuan, the Cayenne has lost 30,000 yuan, and the 911 has lost about 50,000 yuan (all of the above are calculated based on the naked price of each product's entry-level model).

So, why is Porsche making the rich lose interest in it in 2023?

What is the reason why it is not easy to sell in the Chinese market?

Combined with the above data, Porsche's sales in the Chinese market this year are indeed not good, and they are still declining. You know, this is a sales figure that was exchanged for a large amount of discounts. As for the data on the discounts of each model, to give a conservative one, the Macan is more than 120,000 yuan, the Cayenne is more than 110,000 yuan, and the Taycan is more than 100,000 yuan, and these are all prices after including the rotary configuration.

With these offers, sales are still declining.

So this kind of decline in sales with the premise of discounts, for what reasons are worth analyzing. In the first three quarters of 2022, Porsche sold 68,766 cars in China, a 12% decrease this year, or more than 8,000 cars, becoming the only single market to decline in the first three quarters. The Macan, Cayenne and Panamera are the absolute pillars of Porsche's sales in the Chinese market, with the three models contributing more than 3,000 to 4,000 units per month. The sales of the rest of the Taycan, 718 and 911 are all at the level of 100 units per month.

At present, the problem on the product side is that the Macan is not replaced, and the facelift of the Cayenne and Panamera is far less shocking than when it was launched in China. The former has made consumers aesthetically fatigued, and the latter two are decent and lack of temptation.

A product that has been sold for 8 years, under the premise that there is no change in the three major pieces during this period, how much can the consumer's desire to buy can be squeezed out? 8 years of sales time, for any car product, is quite a long time, and this period is almost the time to replace, the general fuel car products are 5-7 years a major replacement, but Porsche Macan is expected to be replaced next year.

And such a car happens to be one of the pillars of Porsche's sales.

SUVs are the best-selling in the Porsche global market, with a total of 95,604 vehicles delivered to the Porsche Cayenne in 2022. The Macan followed with 86,724 deliveries, with 35,661 and 25,080 units sold in China last year. What does this mean: the Cayenne and Macan account for 37.3% of sales in China and 29% of Macan sales, both of which account for about 30% of global sales. However, this year, the Macan, one of the pillars of sales, has encountered a sales bottleneck.

Take, for example, the October sales figures. Porsche sold 5,288 units in October, down 14.6 percent month-on-month, with the Cayenne selling 2,266 units, the Panamera selling 1,180 units, followed by the Macan with 949 units. At least until October, Porsche Macan sales were able to maintain sales of more than 1,000 units per month, but they also declined month by month, with a maximum of about 1,800 units (the brand's top sales in January and February), a minimum of about 1,200 units, and then less than 1,000 units in October.

The problem now is that one of Porsche's high-volume products, the Macan, is no longer selling. With the fluctuation of Macan's sales, Porsche's sales in the first three quarters have also been affected to a certain extent, and a decline is inevitable. It is also because Macan, as one of the few entry-level products of the brand, has a starting price of less than 600,000 yuan, which has ushered in market recognition within a few years of its launch. At a price of less than one million, getting a Porsche was extremely attractive to the domestic market back then.

But now the consumption Xi has changed, the discount has reached more than 100,000, and the price of naked cars has come to about 450,000. And 8 years have also exhausted consumers' enthusiasm for this product, so consumers with this budget have begun to look for alternatives. The electric car products designed and produced in 2023 should be much better than the fuel vehicles designed and produced in 2015 in terms of product strength.

As a result, some high-consumer groups began to lose interest in this product, or have found a better alternative, in the price range of about 600,000, Porsche is losing its brand advantage, product advantage, or is losing the initiative in this market.

After making money for more than 20 years, the transformation is still difficult

Since Porsche established its first Porsche Centre in Chinese mainland in 2001, it has been in the domestic market for 22 years, and it is undeniable that this luxury brand still has a strong irreplaceability in the hearts of consumers. Moreover, in the past, the models sold required additional optional parts to have the opportunity to pick up the car, which was generally much higher than the price of the naked car, even so, the former Porsche was also one of the high-end brands favored by Chinese consumers.

Not for anything else, consumers pay for its brand influence and product strength. However, this irreplaceability is also quietly changing with the transition to electrification. After more than 20 years of making money in the Chinese market, the trend of change may be to gradually lose part of the market.

The simple reason is that Porsche's electrification is very slow.

Nowadays, the penetration rate of new energy in the Chinese market is increasing year by year, and the market demand for electric vehicles is gradually increasing, especially next year, there is a trend of penetration to the price range of 500,000 yuan and higher, and this penetration will touch the core price range of luxury brands, including the price range of Porsche. Even if the Taycan is a pure electric product, it has not been able to open up the market, in other words, it has not succeeded in making this car a benchmark product for Porsche in the pure electric field, and the low recognition has a lot to do with the price and model positioning.

Secondly, according to the information, the pure electric Macan will be mass-produced at the beginning of 2024, and the specific time node has not been given, but the real domestic sales may have to wait until the first or second quarter. And next year Porsche has and only this pure electric model planned, and the next pure electric model is the 718 model, which is planned to be launched in 2025. Porsche's overall plan is that 50% of its products will be pure electric models by 2025, which means that there will be only three models in total in two years (and there are no plans to develop new models for the time being).

Three pure electric vehicles (including the Taycan) in two years, not to mention the product strength for the time being, in terms of product planning and the time rhythm of new product launches, there is a great difference from the current update rhythm of pure electric vehicles. Considering another point, in order to maintain the high-end and luxurious brand tonality, the price of the electric car will naturally not be low, and it is likely to be much higher than the price of the current gasoline version of the Macan.

Then we have to think about whether the price of the product can match the strength of the product. The product strength and differentiation of electric vehicles are not the indicators of acceleration and control, but the hard power of battery life, charging speed, and intelligence. Leaving a question of "by 2024, what will Porsche use to support the premium attribute of electric vehicles", I am looking forward to how the pure electric Macan will differentiate so that consumers will continue to pay for it.

The electrification of the turn is not simple, and it is more risky for a luxury brand like Porsche, and the only product that can be sold is the Macan, which is also the first product to be electrified, and if it fails, it will be a big loss to the sales performance. Electrified steering, for next year's Porsche, is more like a "bet".

The all-electric Macan loses either in terms of product power or price.