Mercedes-Benz Duan Jianjun criticized car companies for relying on stacking materials to compete, netizens: Do you rely on selling bids if you don't pile up materials?

At the recent annual meeting of the Yabuli Forum, Duan Jianjun, president and CEO of Beijing Benz, made a remark that was pushed to the hot search.

Duan Jianjun pointed out at the annual meeting that some enterprises rely on stacking materials to compete against commercial laws. He said that in today's automobile market, many players who have entered the game for many years are difficult to achieve profitability, in order to occupy the minds of the public, in order to tell the story better, to attract more investment, some companies often forget the basic laws of business, irrational competition will bring a lot of negative impact, for investors a large amount of money is burned, investment on the shore is far away.

For suppliers, the price of vehicle products is squeezed, resulting in the purchase of parts under pressure again and again, and the quality will shrink in disguise. For consumers, they have bought cheap products in the short term, but they have to face whether there is a place to repair and whether the price of second-hand cars has fallen again and again.

In addition, Duan Jianjun also believes that "in the case of product configuration, design style, and power system are so close, in order to gain the attention of consumers, 'big talk', 'ruthless talk', exaggerated marketing, and even bottom-line marketing will not only not bring a 'winner-takes-all' dominance, but also worsen the competitive ecology of the entire industry."

In fact, what Duan Jianjun said is indeed some problems in the current industry. But netizens didn't think so, and they sarcastically reduced Mercedes-Benz and made money by selling bids.

There are also some more rational netizens who believe that most of what Duan Jianjun said is not wrong, but it is just fifty steps and a hundred steps of laughter, and Mercedes-Benz himself is not much better.

Indeed, from a business perspective, there is nothing wrong with what Duan Jianjun said. And as early as December last year, the "Economic Daily" also published an article pointing out the new chaos derived from the automotive industry, especially the new energy automobile industry, at the current stage: no increase in profits, no bottom line in marketing, and blind projects.

According to incomplete statistics, a total of 320 models of new energy vehicles will be sold in China in 2023, most of which will sell less than 1,000 vehicles per month, and only three or four car companies will be truly profitable. Second, car companies are keen on all kinds of exaggerated marketing, and "the best car within XXX million yuan" abounds, all kinds of big words, ruthless words, and war of words. At the same time, there is already excess capacity, and local governments and enterprises are launching new projects.

What really aroused the dissatisfaction of netizens was what Duan Jianjun called "stacking competition".

In fact, if we look back at the development history of the world's automobile industry, we will find that the rise of Japanese and Korean systems was actually the result of the development of stockpiles.

In the sixties and seventies of the last century, American cars gave people the impression of being stupid, stupid and fuel-efficient, and Japanese brands took the lead in breaking the exclusive market of American cars with higher configuration, lower fuel consumption and higher reliability. Many years later, the rise of Korean cars also took a more extreme cost-effective route than Japanese cars, with higher configuration and lower prices. This can be said to be the only way for the latecomers to catch up with the first-movers.

On the one hand, consumers are happy to see more cost-effective products; on the other hand, in the current new energy era, Chinese brands, as latecomers, want to catch up with traditional joint venture brands without brand power, and must only outperform mature brands through more competitive products and price strategies, and complete the reshuffle and reconstruction of the market structure.

In this process, car companies may injure 1,000 enemies and 800 themselves, and it is also possible that start-ups like Weimar and Gaohe will collapse in the middle of the road. But that's the result of survival of the fittest.

And it should be pointed out that the current stacking of car companies is no longer simply piled up on sunroofs, seats, air conditioners and other configurations in the past. Chinese brands have begun to pile up on core technologies such as intelligent driving, intelligent chassis, air suspension, and battery motors. Like Huawei's high-end intelligent driving, BYD's Yi Sifang technology, Weilai's battery swap, etc., this kind of stacking is essentially a competition in technology, rather than a competition in price.

Mercedes-Benz, as a traditional luxury brand, is a vested interest in achieving fame. In the past, Mercedes-Benz could easily make money, and could easily and freely control the product strategy and rhythm. But as a defender, the pressure on Mercedes-Benz is coming to the fore in the face of the aggressiveness of Chinese brands.

Mercedes-Benz's sales in China in 2023 will be about 765,000 units, which is basically the same as in 2022, but this is based on the significant price reduction of Mercedes-Benz models. The data shows that in 2022, the average transaction price of Mercedes-Benz bicycles will be 500,000 yuan, but in the first half of 2023, the average transaction price of Mercedes-Benz bicycles has dropped to 438,000 yuan. In other words, luxury brands have lost their original ability to pay premiums.

On the other hand, according to the data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the sales volume of domestically produced high-end brand passenger cars reached 4.516 million units, a year-on-year increase of 15.4%. This is in stark contrast to Mercedes-Benz's sales in 2023, which is basically flat, indicating that China's high-end brands represented by Ideal, Wenjie, and Yangwang are eating away at the market share of traditional luxury brands represented by Mercedes-Benz.

Especially on the new track of new energy, new and old brands are in the same running line, Mercedes-Benz's past brand advantages are difficult to play, after losing the market dominance, it is naturally difficult to accept this kind of "contrary to the law of business" competition.

In this context, as soon as Duan Jianjun's "stacking competition" remarks came out, whether intentionally or unintentionally, it would be interpreted as saying that grapes were sour because he couldn't eat grapes. And over the years, Mercedes-Benz has relied on its dominant position in the market and often made reductions, which have long been criticized by users. At this time, Duan Jianjun stood up to criticize car companies for piling up materials, which was very inappropriate.

Write at the end:

Putting aside his stance and constantly taking the meaning from the context, Duan Jianjun pointed out the problems existing in the current competition in China's automotive industry. Especially at present, a number of new car-making forces are facing bankruptcy and bankruptcy, which has a certain warning significance for Chinese new energy brands. However, from the standpoint of Mercedes-Benz, it is inevitable that someone will be poked in the back.

(Text/Youshi Auto Old Cannon)

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