In 2023, only five car companies have completed their sales targets?
In the past 2023, independent car companies have made remarkable achievements, and their market performance has successfully surpassed joint venture brands and become the protagonists of China's auto market. However, comparing the 2023 performance of car companies with the sales targets set at the beginning, it can be found that the market performance of most brands is not as optimistic as it seems.
Judging from the sales data released by major car companies, only a few car companies such as BYD, Geely Automobile, Li Auto, and VOYAH Automobile have successfully completed their sales targets for 2023, so what happened to other car companies?
What is the 2023 target achievement rate?
Let's first look at the automakers that have achieved their sales targets. Among them, BYD's annual sales reached 3.02 million units, exceeding the target of 3 million units set in 2023, with rapid growth momentum, not only winning the annual sales championship of Chinese automobiles, but also the global sales champion of new energy vehicles. Geely Automobile's cumulative sales in 2023 will be 1,686,500 units.
Looking at the new car-making forces, Tesla will deliver a total of 1.809 million vehicles in 2023, completing the annual target of 1.8 million vehicles proposed by Tesla CEO Elon Musk. Li Auto delivered 376,000 vehicles in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 182.2%. In 2023, VOYAH will sell 50,552 units, which is not a high sales figure, but it has also achieved its annual sales target.
The reasons for the five major car companies to achieve their goals are different, among which BYD, Tesla, and Ideal mainly rely on new energy vehicles, and BYD's Qin PLUS, Song PLUS, etc., as well as Ideal L7/L8/L9 and other models are well received by the market. Geely's NEV business has also achieved good results, with cumulative sales of 487,461 new energy vehicles in 2023, an increase of 48% over the same period in 2022. As for VOYAH automobiles, it is also an indisputable fact that the models are becoming more and more popular, but the sales target for VOYAH in FY2023 is not high, at only 50,000 units.
Other automakers have not met their annual sales targets, but many brands have achieved their targets well. GAC Group's sales target was 93.4%, Changan Automobile's was 91.1%, and SAIC's was 83.7%.
The reason why most car companies do not achieve their annual sales targets as expected is that the targets set by car companies are too high and have a lot to do with the market environment. From the perspective of the market environment, last year, independent and joint venture car companies have increased the launch of new models in the field of new energy vehicles, and the price war has continued from the beginning of the year to the end of the year, especially for BYD, Geely and other head brands, the price of new cars on the market continues to fall, making the competition in the entire new energy vehicle market very fierce. At the same time, the continuous entry of new models has also led to a squeeze on the market share of the new energy vehicle market.
However, the cake of the new energy vehicle market is so big, after the head brand grabbed a large piece of the cake, only a small piece of cake was coaxed by most brands, and the result is that most brands are difficult to achieve the plan in their hearts.
On the other hand, consumers in the post-epidemic period do not have too strong desire to spend. In the past few years, the epidemic has caused many people's economic income to suffer hard, and their consumption attitudes have become more conservative. At the same time, the recession in the real estate industry has also affected the development of many industries, and people's incomes are not as high as during the epidemic. In addition, due to the impact of unstable international relations in 2023, some domestic companies have also moved to countries such as Vietnam and Mexico, resulting in slow wage growth for workers and unable to keep up with the pace of price increases, so many families are unable to improve their living standards. In this context, coupled with the instability of the job market and the rise in medical costs, people are afraid to spend at will, and their desire to buy a car has also decreased.
How to set goals in 2024?
Entering 2024, will the annual sales targets planned by car companies be more aggressive or more conservative? Among them, Li Auto plans to deliver 800,000 vehicles annually, 100,000 vehicles per month, 30,000 L7 deliveries, and 2,000 super charging stations this year, which means that Li Auto will challenge the annual sales volume of 800,000 vehicles and the monthly delivery volume of 100,000 vehicles in 2024. The confidence of Li Auto mainly comes from the hot sales of the L7, L8 and L9 models.
Deep Blue Auto's 2024 goal is to sell 450,000 units worldwide. The sales targets of Leapmotor and ZEEKR are 200,000 and 140,000 units, respectively, an increase of 80% and 94% respectively from the actual sales of the previous year. Geely Group's sales target for 2024 is 1.9 million units (including the Lynk & Co brand), an increase of about 13% over the total sales in 2023, and the sales target for new energy vehicles is expected to increase by more than 66% compared with 2023 sales, or more than 800,000 units. The GAC Group said that it will challenge sales to increase by 10% year-on-year to 2.75 million units in 2024.
It can be seen that traditional car companies are also relatively cautious and conservative when setting sales targets, and the average growth rate is low. However, they are generally optimistic about the new energy vehicle business, and some new car companies have set more aggressive targets. But it remains to be seen whether the goal will be achieved.
It is still unknown whether the auto market environment and consumers' desire to buy cars will change in 2024. But it is certain that the competition in the entire auto market will be more fierce this year. Now that it is only a week into 2024, a number of car companies have already started a price war, and many brands such as Tesla, Nezha Automobile, Geely Emgrand, Lynk & Co, SAIC-GM-Wuling, FAW Toyota, Dongfeng Nissan and Wenjie have launched different promotional activities.
At the same time, the price of traditional fuel vehicles is also declining, known as one of the three musketeers of the Japanese GAC Toyota, the new generation of Camry, the pre-sale price range of 173,800 yuan - 208,800 yuan, the price hit a record low. At the same time, the enthusiasm of car companies to launch new cars in January is also quite high, Chery Fengyun A8, Geely Galaxy E8, the new Lynk & Co 09 EM-P and other models will officially enter the market, and there may be more blockbuster new models entering the market in the future. All these factors will lead to further intensification of competition among car companies.
In fact, now the new energy market is going through a period of carding, in this process, some companies will be eliminated by the market, only after this stage, the market will enter a state of local stability, to achieve a turnaround. This means that some weak car companies will be eliminated from the market in 2024. Therefore, 2024 will be a critical period for the big waves, the industry reshuffle will accelerate, some companies will get growth opportunities, and some companies will have a more difficult time.
Of course, from the perspective of the overall market, especially the new energy vehicle market, the overall trend is worth looking forward to. At present, relevant policies strongly encourage the development of new energy vehicles, and with the advancement of new energy vehicle technology, new energy vehicles are becoming more and more recognized by the market, so it is not difficult to increase the overall sales performance of the new energy market in 2024. The Federation of Passenger Cars also predicts that the growth of the new energy market in 2024 will be relatively optimistic, and the wholesale volume of new energy passenger vehicles is expected to reach 11 million, a year-on-year increase of 22%, and the penetration rate will reach 40%. It's just that most of the resources in the market will move closer to the head brands.
The high sales target, the abundance of market models, and the low desire of consumers to buy cars are all important reasons why most car companies cannot achieve their sales targets in 2023. However, for some car companies, it may not be important whether they can achieve the sales target, but rather the guiding role of the target.
In any case, the sales target is essentially just a direction marker, and the performance of car companies is also affected by multiple factors, as long as the company itself continues to improve its core competitiveness, it will eventually be able to achieve outstanding results one day, just like BYD, Ideal and Tesla and other head car companies that have successfully reached the standard.