Perhaps it is to see the potential of the A00 class market to turn red, just recently, the A00 class king earlier than Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, Zhidou Automobile announced its return to participate in this market where there are not many competing products.
According to the data of the Passenger Association, since September last year, the sales proportion of A00 class has jumped from 4.1% in August to 7.9%, and the highest month was December, accounting for 12.5%, and as of March, it still remained above 7%.
As the former "king", the A00-level pure electric market that Zhidou did not win was won by Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, but with the general decline in the price of high-level products, the product power and cost performance of the A00 class have been challenged, coupled with the changes in market demand, the A00 class will begin to decline in 2022. In the past six months, the market performance of the A00 class car market has really come back to life?
The A00 market is growing, and Wuling, Geely, and Changan are the foundations
After the era of electrification, Wuling Hongguang with its micro-surface production experience, homeopathic launch of Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, at that time to fill the market gap of new energy vehicles in the A00 class, and with ultra-low prices and pure urban travel of the distinctive attributes to gain market favor.
In fact, although the market demand for the A00 class is not as large as that of other class models, it will not usher in a product explosion period until 2022. At that time, A00-level products including Changan Lumin and Chery QQ ice cream were launched, but they caught up with a wave of demand off-season, and it was also from that time that A00-level pure electric models did not make too high a volume.
In 2023, there will be no shortage of products like Geely Panda on the market, but it still failed to drive the voice of the A00-class market in the early stage, until after September 2023, when the price of these models further drops to less than 30,000, and at the same time, the old scooter has entered the historical countdown, and the A00-class model has returned to the boom period.
In terms of sales, in the past year's sales data, Wuling Hongguang MINIEV has sold more than 210,000 new cars, which is almost the same as the Camry and Passat at the head of the B-class sedan, and can rank in the top 20 of all bicycle sales.
The starting price of the Changan Lumin is higher than that of the Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, Chery QQ Ice Cream and Geely Panda, and it is also the only model among these cars whose starting price has not dropped below 30,000 yuan, but it can still guarantee an average monthly sales of more than 10,000 yuan.
Geely Panda is the latest model of these cars to be listed, once it is listed, it has driven the A00 class market with its ultra-low price of all configurations, and it can also guarantee monthly sales of nearly 10,000 units within a year of listing.
The biggest factor affecting the sales of the A00 class is the price, in this level of products do not need to think too much about performance and configuration issues, as long as the safety is guaranteed, and there is a relatively sufficient mileage, it can meet the product needs of this part of the people.
Therefore, there are two aspects that affect the A00 level, one is the cost of the battery, and the other is the cost of functional configuration.
Take Wuling Hongguang MINIEV as an example, when it was first launched, some institutions have calculated its cost, and the cost of the lowest model with a price of less than 30,000 is about 14,500 to 23,000, which is only the cost of materials.
By this year, the cost of batteries has dropped by nearly 50% compared with before, the production and manufacturing costs of pure electric vehicles are also declining, and the cost of research and development is also lower than when the new car was first launched. It is just a microcosm of the industry, which shows that other products of the same level and price can also guarantee a certain profit.
If you only rely on following the current trend of the mainstream market, Zhidou wants to take the opportunity to become popular, and there is little chance. Although the market size is relatively small and there are not many competing products, a market pattern has been formed, and if you want to break this pattern, unless you have an outstanding side in terms of product or price, otherwise, the final fate of Zhidou is a second fall that cannot be escaped.
A00 market, how much room is there
How big the market for the A00 class is depends on how much the cost can be reduced.
Especially the cost of batteries, the more it falls, it means that if the A00-class model still maintains a starting price of 30,000 yuan, it will be further compressed by the A0-class and even A-class cars.
Judging from the current general price range, including Seagull, Wuling Binguo and other A0-level products, the starting price basically coincides with the price of the A00-level top model, and more importantly, the A0-level model also values practicality, and the battery life of the 60,000-level A0-class pure electric model is 50% higher than the 50,000-level A00-level pure electric model.
The concept of 100km battery life for 10,000 yuan is equivalent to superimposing an A00-level beggar version model, and from the perspective of cost performance, it is higher.
In addition, A0 fuel vehicles have also dropped to about 60,000 yuan. For users with higher comprehensive needs, fuel vehicles must be more cost-effective.
Therefore, in the case of continuous decline in battery costs, can we expect the emergence of A00 pure electric vehicles at the level of 20,000 yuan? As mentioned above, the A00 class is currently profitable, which means that there will be the ability to reduce prices further under the new battery agreement cycle.
Another important point is that the marketing of A00 products is very important. Limited by the narrow audience and the single functional attributes of the product, how to improve its added value is also a means to attract users.
FOR EXAMPLE, WULING HONGGUANG MINIEV HAS LAUNCHED VARIOUS VERSIONS OF MODELS FROM TIME TO TIME, INCLUDING MACARONS, GAMEBOY, ETC., AND CHERY QQ ICE CREAM HAS LAUNCHED CUCCI CO-BRANDED VERSIONS. ALTHOUGH THE SPECIAL EDITIONS LAUNCHED BY THESE MODELS ARE EXPENSIVE, SUCH AS THE GAMEBOY VERSION OF WULING HONGGUANG MINIEV TO SELL FOR NEARLY 70,000 YUAN, AND THE CHERY QQ ICE CREAM CUCCI VERSION IS COMPARABLE TO ITS PRICE, BUT UNDER THE PREMISE THAT MORE AUDIENCES ARE YOUNG PEOPLE, THIS METHOD WILL ALLOW MORE USERS TO PAY ATTENTION TO THIS MODEL AND HELP INCREASE SALES.
Therefore, if the A00 class model wants to have a larger market space, it not only needs to continuously optimize its own price to marketing, but also needs to look at the face of other level models, after all, as the bottom of all subdivided models, the A00 class has no ability to price up, and can only continue to find opportunities to go down.
The A00 class can begin to turn red in September last year, largely because the market has collectively declined, that is, the A00 class models that sell well mentioned above, the price has dropped to less than 30,000 yuan. Not only that, the top price of these models, except for Wuling Hongguang MINIEV, has basically fallen to the level of 50,000 yuan, avoiding the direct confrontation with the A0 level, and also setting the tone for the future A00 level new products, that is, if there is a new car launched, it is likely that the price of the top model will not exceed 50,000 yuan. In other words, if the A00 level wants to continue to turn red, the price layout is the key.
Epilogue:
The A00 market has turned red, and this market will continue to expand, and I believe that more companies will invest in new A00 products. But at present, 10% of the market sales proportion is almost the limit of A00 products, and it is even more difficult to expand market share.
Of course, if the A00 class model can further reduce the price, it may be able to drive the price reduction of higher-level market models, triggering a chain reaction. After all, the killer feature of the A00 class is the price, which is also the biggest factor that can affect the A0 and A markets.