After the hustle and bustle of the auto show, the sales anxiety of car companies also came

Titanium Media APP

2024-05-05 16:26Posted on the official account of Beijing Titanium Media APP

After the hustle and bustle of the auto show, the sales anxiety of car companies also came

Traffic has become the most important keyword of this Beijing Auto Show. People pay more attention to traffic events than even to automobiles, which are the protagonists of auto shows. But as Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of NIO, said, "Users buy your car because of the product, not because of the traffic."

When traffic cannot be converted into sales, the next anxiety of major car companies will be transformed from the previous traffic anxiety into sales anxiety. Especially when a third of the way has passed in 2024, it's time for car companies to work hard for this year's KPIs.

On May 1, major automakers announced their sales results for April this year and the previous four months. Although in order to make the report card look better, car companies have racked their brains to only show the "good-looking" side to the outside world, or simply remain silent and choose not to send it. But in the face of the hard power of sales that relies on data, no hiding can hide the real strength.

Judging from the sales volume that has been announced, for the rest of this year, I am afraid that every company will not be able to avoid the anxiety about sales.

Anxiety about different new forces

First of all, let's take a look at the new car-making forces with the blessing of Internet genes. In this camp, the most anxious at present is none other than Nezha Automobile, a new car brand that once topped the new power in 2022, and is still struggling to return to its former glory. Nezha's April sales and this year's cumulative sales are the only brands among the same type of new forces to record negative year-on-year growth. However, the good news is that its April sales have increased slightly compared to March, and the Nezha L, which was launched on April 22, has now received more than 15,000 orders. Therefore, Nezha L can be said to be the "only hope of the whole village" for Nezha to achieve a turnaround against the wind.

After Nezha, the second most anxious should be Li Auto. Ideal delivered 26,000 new cars in April, a year-on-year increase of 0.4%, surpassing the world for the first time this year and returning to the first place among new forces. However, the biggest anxiety of Ideal is that the L series models, which were not sold before, are now facing a sluggish growth situation.

The ideal L6, which is about to start large-scale delivery, is the only sustenance for the ideal to regain rapid growth. According to Li Auto's Weibo on May 4, the Ideal L6 has been on the market for 16 days, and the cumulative orders have exceeded 30,000 units.

Like the ideal, the current anxiety of the question world is that the M7, which was previously "sold out", is now beginning to show signs of weak growth. Wenjie delivered 25,000 vehicles in April, up 929% year-on-year, but down 20.9% month-on-month. The main reason for the month-on-month decline was the slowdown in the growth of the M7, whose April deliveries fell back to 11,000 units, which is not a small gap from the highest monthly sales level of 30,000 units at the beginning of the year.

However, the M9 is still on the hot track, with 13,000 units delivered in April, a significant increase of 146% from March. There is a high probability that the M9 will surpass the Ideal L9 in April and become the first in the sales list of large SUVs. Another sales support is the new M5, which has just been introduced to the market. Within 12 hours of the car's launch, orders exceeded 10,000 units, and there was a chance to replicate the sales of the M7.

Another one that should have sales anxiety is Xpeng Motors. Although the delivery line in the first four months was red, Xpeng's anxiety is that the delivery growth is too slow, and the current monthly delivery level has not increased to 10,000 units, which is less than half of the strength of last year's peak. Xpeng's main problem is that the hot-selling shelf life of newly launched models is too short, from last year's G6 to this year's X9.

After climbing to a high of more than 8,700 units last year, the G6 began to decline all the way to less than 1,500 units in March, and the X9 finally climbed to nearly 4,000 units in three months after its launch, only to fall back to less than 2,000 units in April. How to keep new products alive in the market should be Xiaopeng's biggest anxiety.

Compared with the above-mentioned brands, NIO and Leap have a little less anxiety. NIO delivered 16,000 vehicles in April, a record high this year, and Leapmotor delivered 15,000 vehicles in April, which was also red across the board. The main reason for NIO's delivery to return to the high point is the two-pronged approach of various measures to promote sales, from the sharp reduction of BaaS monthly rental fees, to the zero down payment car purchase plan, to the special replacement subsidy of 1 billion yuan. A number of measures have helped NIO return to its high point, which is also the fulfillment of Li Bin's promise set at the beginning of the year to "concentrate on selling cars in 2024".

Leap continues to continue the momentum of biting the new forces at the head, and always keeps itself in the front position. The main reason why Leapmotor has been able to maintain the momentum of not falling behind is that it has always followed the top competitors in terms of product definition, and has always maintained an efficient and effective response to market trends.

Among these new forces, the only one that does not have traffic anxiety and sales anxiety is none other than Xiaomi Auto. In the first month of delivery, Xiaomi Auto handed over 7,058 first-month deliveries to the market, which can be described as a good start. According to Lei Jun, Xiaomi Auto is currently working with supply chain companies to ensure production at full capacity, and has set a target of delivering 100,000 vehicles in 2024.

In the short term, Xiaomi is the least lacking in sales among all the new forces. However, in the long run, there are still uncertainties whether Xiaomi can maintain this market momentum in short supply.

The traditional new forces are also anxious

In the camp of new forces backed by traditional manufacturers, GAC Aion has the highest level of anxiety at present. This traditional new force, which will sell more than 40,000 units per month in 2023 and 480,000 units for the whole year, will continue to face pressure from lower sales in 2024. Aion's main anxiety is that the resources that have been supporting the ride-hailing and taxi markets in terms of sales are starting to peak. The layout of the private market and the high-end market is still in the stage of trial and error.

However, even so, Aion is still the most sellable traditional new force, and its cumulative sales in the first four months have exceeded 100,000 units, making it the only traditional new force to do this. Moreover, Aion's exploration of the high-end market has begun to bear fruit, and its high-end brand Haobo has begun to show growth momentum.

If Aion is currently the most anxious traditional new force, then Geely Holdings' Zeekr is the one with the lowest level of anxiety. ZEEKR delivered more than 16,000 vehicles in April, a record high, and together with Denza, it became the only two traditional new forces that were popular across the board in April.

The important secret of ZEEKR's ability to maintain rapid growth is that the momentum of hot sales of new products has always been unabated. ZEEKR 001, launched in 2021, still maintains its position as a pillar of brand sales after a mid-term replacement in February this year. In addition, the ZEEKR 007, which was launched at the end of last year, has always been in the forefront of sales of medium-sized pure electric cars. In terms of building the market position of new products, ZEEKR is worthy of reference by other new forces.

Among the traditional new forces under the national team, Chang'an's Deep Blue and AVATR are currently living relatively well. The cumulative sales of Deep Blue Automobile in the first four months have reached 53,000 units, second only to Aion, ranking second among traditional new forces, and AVATR has achieved more than 5,000 deliveries for two consecutive months after the initial pains of delivery, which is a qualified achievement for a brand that focuses on the high-end market.

As the first high-end new power brand of the national team to achieve results, VOYAH, a subsidiary of Dongfeng Motor, has been facing growth pressure since the end of 2023, after delivering the best monthly sales in history of more than 10,000 units at the end of 2023. It delivered 4,003 vehicles in April, down 35% month-on-month, and delivered a total of 20,300 vehicles in the first four months, up 126% year-on-year.

The other two important traditional new forces, BAIC's Jihu and SAIC's Zhiji, have not yet announced their sales in April. Zhiji's next growth point is the high-end pure electric sedan Zhiji L6, which was launched in March, and the next important new car of Jihu is the Xiangjie S9, which is the first to cooperate with Huawei in the smart car model, which is expected to help the Jihu brand gain a place in the high-end market.

Autonomous vehicle groups with different competitive advantages

In the past two years, most of the new power brands that have appeared in the market have been incubated by traditional manufacturers. These traditional manufacturers mainly include BYD, SAIC, Geely, Great Wall, Changan and Chery. Some of these auto groups that have developed a multi-brand strategy in the new energy vehicle market are already at the top of the pyramid, and some have just opened an upward channel.

At the top of the pyramid is undoubtedly BYD. The first to announce and the only traditional independent car company to voluntarily abandon the fuel vehicle market has achieved a "far ahead" market position in the new energy vehicle market.

BYD sold 312,000 new energy passenger vehicles in April, a year-on-year increase of 49%, exceeding 300,000 units for two consecutive months. However, the highlight of BYD's sales in April was not in China, but abroad. In April, it exported more than 41,000 passenger cars, up 177% y/y. BYD's export performance in 2023 is 242,000 units, making it the fastest growing independent automaker. This year, BYD will challenge its export sales target of 500,000 units. Judging from the current growth trend, BYD will have a great opportunity to challenge this goal.

Geely New Energy is the only traditional independent car company with sales performance in April other than BYD. Its sales of new energy vehicles in April exceeded 50,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 75%. Geely New Energy's sales sources are mainly Geely Galaxy, Geely Geometry, Lynk & Co New Energy and ZEEKR. The Geely brand is still mainly sold as fuel vehicles. Geely sold 102,000 fuel vehicles in April, with the Geely brand's China Star series being the main contributor.

Changan New Energy, SAIC New Energy and Chery Group New Energy are all in the stage of catching up, especially Changan and Chery, which are showing their determination to comprehensively transform into new energy. Among them, Changan wants to build Changan Qiyuan into the main brand, and Chery has carried out comprehensive new energy transformation for its three major brands, Chery, Jietu and Xingtu, and has also created a new energy brand iCAR, which has made a good start.

Overall, after years of exploration, independent automobile groups have established their own differentiated development routes in the new energy vehicle market, and they have all shown different competitive advantages. (This article was first published in Titanium Media App, author|Wang Ruihao, editor|Zhang Min)

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