What was the sedan market like 10 years ago?
The sedan market is the largest of the three major passenger car markets, and it is also the most fiercely contested market among major automobile manufacturers.
Looking back 10 years ago, the sedan market in the mainland was basically the world of joint venture brand cars. We found that in March 2014, the sales data of the domestic sedan market showed that none of the top 20 sedan models in the industry were from independent brand manufacturers, and all of them were joint venture models.
Specifically, the top 4 are all Volkswagen, of which SAIC Volkswagen's Lavida, with monthly sales of 32,700 units, ranks first in the industry, followed by FAW-Volkswagen's Jetta, and Sutar and Passat are ranked 3-4 respectively. The 5th-10th places are: Nissan Sylphy, Buick Excelle, Volkswagen Santana, Chevrolet Cruz, Volkswagen Bora and Chevrolet Sail (sedan).
The models ranked 11-20 include the Focus hatchback from Changan Ford, the Langdong from Beijing Hyundai, the Magotan from FAW-Volkswagen, the Focus from Changan Ford, the Yinglang from Buick, the Audi A6L from FAW-Volkswagen, the Camry from GAC Toyota, the Volkswagen Golf, and the Hyundai Rena and Honda Lingpai.
Ten years later, self-owned brand cars became mainstream
It can be seen that 10 years ago, the mainland was the world's largest automobile consumer market, and most of the market cake was occupied by joint venture brands, such as SAIC Volkswagen, FAW-Volkswagen, Dongfeng Nissan, GAC Toyota, SAIC-GM, Changan Ford and other joint venture brands. are the beneficiaries of this period, especially the North and South Volkswagen companies, which have made a lot of money.
However, in recent years, with the advent of the era of new energy vehicles, these once glorious joint venture car companies and their models, because they have not kept up with the pace of the times, have begun to lag behind domestic new energy vehicle models in market sales.
Let's take the top 20 models in the domestic sedan market in March 2024 and make a horizontal comparison with the list 10 years ago, and the changes are very clear.
Among the top 10 models in terms of sales, domestic brands occupy 5 seats. Among the top 5 models, Qin Plus has monthly sales of more than 50,000 units, ranking first in the industry. Sylphy, which ranks second, has less than 30,000 units. BYD's Seagull, Volkswagen Lavida and Mercedes-Benz C-Class are among the top 3-5 in the industry.
Among the 6-10 models in the industry, there are BYD's Han, SAIC Volkswagen's Passat, BYD's Destroyer 05, FAW-Volkswagen's Audi A6L and Sutar. The 11-20 models include: SAIC-GM-Wuling's Hongguang miniEV, FAW Toyota's Corolla, GAC Aion AION S, Tesla Model 3, Geely Automobile's Xingrui, BMW Brilliance 3 Series, BYD Dolphin, Buick Valeant, FAW-Volkswagen's Magotan and Changan Automobile's Glutinous Corn Lumin.
Write at the end
Overall, 10 years ago, the same car sales data in March: in 2014, the domestic car consumer market, the top 20 did not have a self-owned brand car. Today, 10 years later, the top 20 sedans of independent brands occupy 10 seats, accounting for more than 50% of sales, and joint venture brands have become niche models.
From the perspective of automakers, 10 years ago, Volkswagen, Toyota, Buick, Ford, Hyundai, etc. were all among the top 20 active brands in the industry. Today, Hyundai, Buick, and Ford are rarely seen, while domestic brand sedans such as BYD, Geely, Changan, and Wuling have begun to move to the middle of the stage. In particular, BYD Auto has 4 cars shortlisted in the top 10 in the industry, and its market appeal is not inferior to Volkswagen 10 years ago.
We can foresee that with the further increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, if these joint venture car companies do not pay attention to this field, the proportion of the top 20 in the future will be further reduced.