Recently, the BitAuto Research Institute released the Women's Auto Market Insight Report (2024 Edition), which is jointly output by many industry analysts in the research team, and interprets the status and influence of women in the auto market with the theme of BYD's success in "her".
In 2023, female car buyers will increase by 10.62%, and their share will rise to 38.08%, contributing 8.23 million units to China's passenger car market, significantly exceeding the sales of Japan and Germany combined
In the global auto market, Bitcar took the lead in proposing opportunities for Chinese women and exported the "Women's Auto Market Insight Report (2024 Edition)" to continue to help car companies, dealers and other Bitauto customers capture new opportunities for Chinese women, and pay attention to the impact of female users on the auto market.
According to the report, from 2014 to 2023, women's contribution to China's passenger car market has been very significant, with overall sales rising from less than 5 million to 8.23 million units, and the share increasing from less than 30% to 38.08%. If we take "Chinese women" as the main body of independent customers, 8.23 million vehicles in 2023 will rank third in the world's major country car sales rankings, which is second only to the United States, beating India, and greatly exceeding the sales of Japan and Germany combined;
Germany and Japan are not only big consumers of automobiles, but also automobile manufacturing powerhouses, cultivating many world-renowned automobile brands such as Volkswagen, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Lexus and so on. With more than 8 million units sold, how many global car brands can be cultivated in China's female car market?
Chinese female car buyers are significantly more knowledgeable, focusing on highly educated, young and middle-aged, big cities and middle class, highlighting trends such as young and single, and helping auto brands to personalize and high-end
In 2023, Chinese female car buyers will have the following characteristics: 30-39 years old will account for 50%, of which nearly 20% will be 35-39 years old, more than 30% will be 30% old, and more than 20% will be 25-29 years old, mainly after 95 In the past two decades, most of China's post-80s and post-90s women have received a good education, and the proportion of women with college education or above in the female car market will continue to increase from 2020 to 2023, and exceed 80% A good educational background will objectively prompt more women to stay in the big city after graduation and work in the big city, and indirectly increase the proportion of the female car market, 2020-2023, the big cities dominated by municipalities, provincial capitals and sub-provincial cities will contribute as much as sixty percent to the sales of the female car market. From 2020 to 2023, the proportion of middle-class female car buyers, mainly in big cities, will continue to increase, and will exceed 50%, and the proportion of wealthy people will exceed 6%, boosting the consumption upgrade of women's car market......
In addition to high education, more avant-garde awareness, broader vision, and more cutting-edge consumption, these characteristics will continue to help the personalization and high-end of the female car market, and continue to challenge the current sports car market dominated by sports, performance and off-road, and the high-end car market dominated by business, administration and large families.
After the lockdown of the epidemic was relaxed, women's reasons for buying cars by car have increased significantly, and their demands for service and styling have become more sensitive, which will strengthen women's awareness of "not compromising" when buying cars
At the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023, Chinese society has achieved a drastic switch from a high degree of epidemic control to a complete liberalization, and the reasons for women to buy cars fluctuate drastically, with the proportion of commuting to work falling sharply from 60.11% in 2022 to 46.82% in 2023, and self-driving travel rising sharply to 43.64%, rapidly approaching commuting. Self-driving travel is a relatively special and personalized car use scene, which will breed more "uncompromising" car purchase consciousness;
In 2023, with the full liberalization of the epidemic and the gradual recovery of China's auto market, female users' attention to car purchases has generally increased, and their demands for service and styling have increased significantly, which will pose some challenges to the traditional service system of car companies led by 4S and the traditional design concept of car companies in China dominated by the idea of moderation.
The breakthrough of sedans and compact cars should think more about female users
The rise of sports cars, micro-miniature, and pure electric vehicles has to focus on female users
From the perspective of category distribution, female car buyers will concentrate on sedans, accounting for 61.80% in 2023, more than 5 million, SUVs will account for 36.98%, more than 3 million, and MPVs will be less than 1%, far lower than the overall market share of MPVs of 5%. In terms of category penetration, women have contributed significantly to sports cars, nearly 68% in 2023, and to sedans, nearly 50% in 2023. Because the shape of sports cars and sedans is more stretched, it is easy to outline more fashionable and elegant lines, which is easy to attract female users. In the past ten years, the sedan market has suffered a strong erosion of SUVs, from absolute dominance to giving up half of the country, the future breakthrough of the sedan market, has to think more about female users;
In terms of level distribution, women are concentrated and compact, accounting for more than 40% in 2023. At present, women have begun to reshape the compact car market strongly, and traditional models such as Lavida, Sylphy, and Haval H6 that lack female thinking are becoming more and more difficult, and a new generation of models such as Yuan PLUS and Dolphin that actively attract female users are rising rapidly. The proportion of women buying medium-sized and medium-large cars is not low, which always reminds us that women's car buying is not simply equivalent to a small car. From the perspective of level penetration, women play an important role in the micro and small car markets, accounting for about 70% of sales, which is tantamount to getting a small car for women. Toyota, Honda, etc., the car strategy can appropriately highlight women's thinking;
From the perspective of energy, women are concentrated in fuel vehicles and pure electric vehicles, both of which will exceed 40% in 2023. From the perspective of penetration, women contribute nearly 67% to the sales of pure electric vehicles, which means that once the electric vehicle strategy of car companies lacks female thinking, it is likely to be reduced to paper. The focus on women in electric vehicles does not mean that women's car purchases are limited to electric vehicles, and some small off-road products with women as the core appeal should not ignore the sustainability of energy.
Chinese female users are the core foothold of German high-end brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW, and fully implement the "China for China Strategy".
In 2023, Chinese brands will be the most purchased by Chinese women, accounting for more than 45%, followed by German brands, accounting for more than 29%. In terms of penetration, Chinese women have made significant contributions to the German system, with a penetration rate of more than 50% in 2023. The main reason is that Chinese women have a soft spot for high-end brands, with a penetration rate of more than 54% in 2023, and the German system is the main force of China's high-end car market, with a large number of high-end brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche, etc., which is naturally conducive to the German system to attract Chinese female users;
The German system has benefited from the Chinese female car market, but the strategy is very lacking in women's awareness, and the most important new energy strategy still mechanically follows the fuel replacement thinking, which is not conducive to attracting women who are increasingly focused on non-mainstream scenarios. At present, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW have all put forward the top-level strategy of "in China for China", if the core logic is still electrification and intelligence, then Chinese female users are obviously a better foothold. From 2023, China's epidemic prevention and control policies have been fully liberalized, and China has also taken the initiative to exempt visas to Germany.
smart leads the 2023 mainstream brand female penetration rate ranking, new energy and high-end brands comprehensively dominate the top 20 female penetration rate, and BYD sneakily advances
Both the Phantom 1 and Phantom 3 have elegant, stylish body lines that complement the light and shadow of the city, making it easier to capture the hearts of women, who are naturally beautiful, just like the elves in the city. In 2023, smart's female penetration rate is as high as 81.18%, leading the mainstream brand rankings. In 1997, the smart concept car was unveiled at the Frankfurt Motor Show, and mass production was carried out the following year, focusing on family short-distance car use scenarios, and was committed to providing convenient urban travel solutions, but the high price affected smart sales. Since 2019, more than 50% of China's auto market has been replaced by trade-ins, and some families have entered the era of second-car cars, and the influx of women has accelerated, providing fertile soil for smart to fulfill its original strategic intention. In 2019, Mercedes-Benz and Geely followed the historical trend and jointly established a global joint venture company smart, committed to building smart into the world's leading luxury intelligent pure electric vehicle technology brand. China's electric vehicle supply chain is extremely rich, and there is a better solution to solve the high cost of smart in theory. According to the research of the Yiche Research Institute, the budget of old users of high-end brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW focuses on 10-200,000 yuan, and the current smart pricing focuses on the level of 200,000 yuan and above, which deviates from the mainstream high-end transportation demand, which partially leads to the current tepid sales of the elf 3 and elf 1. In 2025, once the price of Tesla's new domestically produced compact crossover drops to less than 200,000 yuan, especially approaching 150,000 yuan, if the price of smart is still high at 200,000 yuan and above, it is very likely to bear the brunt;
Ora, which clearly defines women, ranks second in the female penetration rate with 79.26%, followed by Baojun, Chery New Energy, Changan New Energy and Wuling. The TOP6 are all pure electric new energy brands or brands whose sales are absolutely pure electric, plus Tesla, Zeekr, Nezha, Xiaopeng, etc., electric vehicle brands dominate the ranking of the top 20 female penetration. Porsche, BMW, NIO, Audi, Volvo, Lexus, Lincoln and other high-end brands are also highly dependent on female users, all of which rank in the top 20 female penetration rate;
In 2023, BYD, an ordinary brand that takes into account both pure electric and plug-in hybrids, will secretly advance to the top 20 in the penetration rate of female students, and more than 40% of sales will come from female users.
Binguo leads the ranking of female penetration rate of mainstream models in 2023, followed by dolphins and seagulls, and small electric vehicles, high-end electric vehicles and high-end entry-level fuel vehicles dominate the TOP20
In the second half of 2020, female users helped the small and cute Hongguang MINIEV to explode as soon as it was listed, with domestic sales exceeding 110,000 units that year and approaching 400,000 units the following year, surpassing Hongguang S and becoming SAIC-GM-Wuling's new sales leader. In the first half of 2023, Wuling Binguo will be launched, which will also be an instant hit and lead the mainstream model list with a female penetration rate of 91.78%. In the first half of 2024, Wuling Binguo PLUS will be launched, and it is committed to continuously consolidating and upgrading the women's car market. During the same period, SAIC-GM-Wuling launched a large number of male-oriented products such as Capgemini, Xingchen, Journey, Xingchi, Nebula, Jiachen, etc., but the overall performance was far inferior to the small electric that catered to female users, which made SAIC-GM-Wuling's strategic planning a little embarrassing;
Dolphin and Seagull followed, ranking second and third respectively in the female penetration rate, Panda MINI, ID.3, QQ ice cream are also very high, and the backing are Geely, Volkswagen, Chery and other strong car companies;
In 2023, high-end electric vehicles such as Zeekr 001, NIO ET5, and BMW i3, as well as high-end entry-level fuel vehicles such as Audi Q3, Mercedes-Benz A-class, and BMW X1, will all rank among the top 20 in female penetration.
BYD relied on "her" to successfully ascend to the position, surpassing strong competitors such as Volkswagen and Toyota in one fell swoop, and dominating the Chinese auto market, becoming the biggest beneficiary of the fast-rising female auto market
In the face of BYD's strong impact, although Geely, Changan, Great Wall and other strong Chinese brands have laid out new series of products such as Galaxy, Qiyuan, and Xiaolong, and strong overseas ordinary brands such as Volkswagen, Toyota, and Nissan, and have strengthened the promotion of fuel vehicles such as Lavida, Sylphy, Corolla, Accord, and Camry, why is the effect always almost meaningless?
From 2021 to 2023, the female penetration rate of the BYD brand soared from 25.54% to 43.83%, and the top three Japanese brands of Toyota, Honda, and Nissan all declined. In 2023, the market share of the BYD brand in the female car market will rise sharply to 12.62%, and the sales from women will quickly exceed 1 million units, but the rapid rise of new opportunities for women has hardly attracted the attention of BYD's core competitors.
As of the beginning of March 2024, Volkswagen, Honda, Toyota and Nissan still do not have a clear "female strategy" or "female consciousness", and from 2024 to 2025, new products such as Yuan UP and Conch will continue to explode, and BYD will not only continue to benefit from the female car market, but also further widen the sales gap with core competitors.
The reason why BYD can rely on "her" to successfully ascend to the position is mainly to build a "women's product matrix" with concentrated resources and orderly layout
Attracting female users is not an empty word, the key is to look at your own products. From 2021 to 2023, BYD has successively launched three small electric models: Dolphin, Yuan PLUS and Seagull, focusing on the three major segments of the car market: entry-level compact sedan, entry-level compact SUV and small car, and compared with competing products of the same level, the selling points of the above three products such as styling and cost performance are very prominent. Qin PLUS, Song PLUS, Han, Tang, etc. also came to add icing on the cake, attracting more subdivided female users who pay more attention to practicality, large space and streamlined sports style. In 2023, the above products will jointly attract more than 1 million female users for BYD, and women will become the backbone of BYD's domestic terminal sales approaching 2.4 million units.
The reason why BYD's "women's product matrix" can achieve good results is closely related to the focus on the parent brand BYD, which avoids too scattered resources, and is also related to the focus on pure electric, compact and below delivery strategies, and actively caters to women's purchase preferences.
In addition, the current juxtaposition of Ocean and Dynasty will lay hidden dangers for BYD's reduction of internal friction and potential after the market pattern stabilizes, forcing the two to think about differentiated layouts and weigh who is more suitable to compete for the female car market.
Geely Automobile also has the potential to rely on "her" to ascend to the top, but the current model resources are too scattered, and it has not yet risen to the strategic level of car companies
It may be because Geely likes to benchmark against the public, and the public lacks female thinking, causing Geely to temporarily miss new opportunities for women. As of March 2024, Geely has laid out a lot of products in the car market segments such as exquisite fashion, streamlined sports, and small and cute, but the resources are scattered among Geely, Lynk & Co, ZEEKR and other brands, and the overall tonality is not particularly aimed at women, Lynk & Co 03, ZEEKR 007, ZEEKR 003 and other sports and personalities are not friendly to women; The sales of Lynk & Co 06 mainly come from female users, but it is somewhat incompatible with the sporty and masculine brand tone of Lynk & Co, and the development is easily limited......
In the past two years, the rapid rise of BYD has attracted the attention of Geely, which has launched the Galaxy series to counter BYD's main products such as Qin plus, Song plus, and Han, but it has not yet integrated resources to launch specific measures for BYD's women's strategy;
During the tour at the end of 2023, the Yiche Research Institute actively suggested that Geely's senior management should put down their hair and take more care of women, so as to avoid their own weaknesses being pinched by BYD. Here, we reiterate the following point of view: Geely has great potential to compete in the female car market, but the resources are too scattered, and it is recommended that Geely Automobile increase the strategic weight of women, actively form a "female attack group", and even find a handsome and dashing single handsome guy as the commander-in-chief, opening up a new blue ocean for the world's 3.65 million vehicles in 2025.
In addition to Geely, Chery also has the potential to compete in the women's car market, and if it can adjust its youth to femininity, I believe that iCar will become a good entry point
In the face of new opportunities for women, Chery has encountered an embarrassment similar to Geely: first, the resources are too scattered, and the four major brands of Chery, Jietu, Xingtu and iCar all nominally have products that attract female users;
With the support of a strong international market, Chery has no shortage of financial and material resources in the domestic auto market, but only effective strategies. Yiche Research Institute suggested that Chery should integrate existing resources based on the icar series, actively compete for the women's car market, focus on breaking through the exquisite and fashionable car market, and promote the transformation and upgrading of the "female matrix" based on micro cars such as QQ ice cream and small ants. It is necessary to transform icar's rejuvenation strategy into a women's strategy, and form a clear distinction from the three major brands of Chery, Jietu and Xingtu. In the future of China's auto market, femininity is the focus of youth;
In addition to optimizing women's strategies, clarifying men's strategies is also a thorny issue for Chery.
Compared with Geely and Chery, Great Wall's product system is relatively clear, and it has its own characteristics, and it has also clearly put forward a female strategy, which is more likely to challenge BYD's female leadership position
In 2020, when BYD had not yet risen, Great Wall Ora took the lead in proposing a strategy to focus on women, and then the white cat, black cat and good cat on the market quickly built a bridgehead to compete for the female car market. However, due to the cost problem, the white cat and the black cat were cut in love, the good cat also suffered from the strong suppression of competing products such as Dolphin and Aion Y because of the high price, and the ballet cat and the lightning cat suffered the embarrassment of seeing the light die because of the high price and high imitation design;
BYD relied on "her" to successfully ascend to the position, which fully illustrates the strength of the female car market, and the Great Wall took the lead in proposing a women's strategy, fully demonstrating the strategic vision of the Great Wall, and the remaining problem is the implementation of the strategy, how to continue to optimize the women's strategy, including pricing mechanism, styling design, intelligent configuration, etc. At the end of 2023, BYD officially launched Equation Leopard and Yangwang, which is equivalent to connecting the two armies of the Great Wall, and in 2024, Ora will become the key chess piece of the Great Wall against BYD;
Compared with Geely and Chery, Great Wall's product system is clearer and has its own hard-core characteristics. At a time when ORA is actively optimizing its women's strategy, Great Wall can give due consideration to Haval's women's strategy, and actively explore the personality and vitality of the women's car market based on Haval's H1, H2 and H4, echoing Ora's main fashion and mainstream women, laying the groundwork for Haval's return to its parent brand in the future.
Compared with Geely, Chery, Great Wall, etc., Volkswagen is more likely to become the new dark horse of the female car market and pull BYD down, but unfortunately Volkswagen's strategic decision-making cycle is too long
In 2023, although the 34.06% female penetration rate of the Volkswagen brand is not as good as that of BYD, it is higher than that of Toyota, Honda and Nissan, and relatively personalized models such as ID.3, POLO, Golf, CC, and Lingdu have a higher female penetration rate. At the same time, Volkswagen's market share in the female car market is as high as 9.09%, achieving good sales of 750,000 units, second only to BYD.
As of the beginning of March 2024, Volkswagen seems to have a dense layout of twenty or thirty products in the Chinese auto market, but the layout style is simple, sharp and mature, and highly focused on the three male-dominated segments of the auto market: economic moderation, mainstream quality and atmospheric high-end. Once Volkswagen fully proposes a women's strategy and initiates product matrix optimization measures, I believe that the method will still be mature and sophisticated;
At present, one of the biggest challenges for Volkswagen is that the strategic decision-making cycle is too long to be compared with local car companies such as Geely, Chery, and Great Wall, and a bunch of joint venture brands such as Toyota, Honda, Nissan, and General Motors all have similar problems.
The first half of China's auto market is for men and the second half for women, and from 2024 to 2030, the female auto market will still flourish, and the majority of car companies should actively strengthen and optimize the strategy of women
From 2020 to 2023, Hongguang MINIEV, Dolphin, Seagull and other products that can better cater to women have performed the spectacle of exploding models when they are listed, fully demonstrating the strong potential energy of the female car market. From 2024 to 2030, as more and more Kochi women marry later and have children later, and married families become more and more popular to buy cars for their wives, China's female car market will continue to grow, and its market share is expected to challenge 45%, supporting half of China's car market. If the first half of China's auto market is for men, then the second half is for women.
In the past two years, Ballerina, Lightning Cat, Yueye, Yunduo and other models that originally catered to women, and brands that originally defined women such as Ora have encountered the embarrassment of being unfavorable, all of which are warning everyone that there is technical content in competing for the female car market, and Geely, Chery, Great Wall, Volkswagen, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz and other car companies should actively strengthen and optimize their own women's strategies;
The rapid rise of China's private car market has only been more than 20 years, and most car companies have not yet established a complete female product system. In the future, car companies that aspire to compete in the women's car market should create more "uncompromising" good products for the majority of female users in China, and sell these good products to the world, so that more women around the world can share the happiness of "Chinese cars".