After 22 years in the Chinese market, Beijing Hyundai has changed from a former leader to a follower today.
At the beginning of 2024, in the face of another round of price war in the domestic auto market, many of Beijing Hyundai's models have cut prices, and they have also shouted the slogan of "oil is lower than electricity", and the price of the new Elantra entry-level model of the main sales model has been reduced from 99,800 yuan to 71,800 yuan. The price of the ix35 upgraded version of the compact SUV model Musa, and the price of the entry-level model has also been reduced to 99,800 yuan. At the end of March, Beijing Hyundai's 11th-generation Sonata was also officially launched, and the price of the entry-level model was only 139,800 yuan, bringing the price of the joint venture mid-size sedan to a new low.
Everything shows that Beijing Hyundai is trying to keep up with the rhythm of the Chinese auto market, but at present, it seems that Beijing Hyundai's arms and legs can't run like Chinese car companies running wildly.
At its peak, the Beijing Hyundai joint venture had eight car-making plants in China. But so far, only the Beijing Renhe factory remains, and in January this year, the Beijing Hyundai Chongqing factory has just completed the transaction at a transaction price of 1.62 billion yuan. Compared with the total investment of 7.7 billion yuan that year, it is equivalent to more than 2% off "cheap sale".
At its peak, Beijing Hyundai's annual sales exceeded 1.14 million units, but in 2023, it will drop to only 257,000 units, while its brother car company Yueda Kia has fallen from 650,000 units at its peak to only 80,000 units (Chinese sales).
How to explain the loneliness of Korean cars in the Chinese market? The THAAD incident? The rise of Chinese car companies is too fast? I think it is more important to find out the reasons for the Korean cars themselves.
Hyundai's layout in the Chinese market is much earlier than that of Honda and Toyota. In 2002, Hyundai and BAIC Group established a joint venture Beijing Hyundai, while Kia established Dongfeng Yueda Kia with Jiangsu Yueda and Dongfeng Group. After 12 years of establishment, Beijing Hyundai's sales exceeded the million mark in 2014 and reached its peak in 2016.
Korean cars sold well 10 years ago, and it is not without reason, the price is cheap, the product quality is excellent, the failure rate is low, the configuration is higher than that of Japanese cars, and the product shape design is excellent, so it is natural that it sells well. But ah, the thunder of Korean cars was actually buried at the beginning.
To put it simply, they want to make money in the Chinese market, but they don't give Chinese users the same respect. This is the fundamental reason for the decline of Korean cars, not to mention any THAAD, what domestic cars are rising, that is not the fundamental reason.
The double standard of Korean cars is actually reflected in many aspects:
For example, Korean cars obviously have high-end models, but most of the imported models are cheap models, and Hyundai Group can rank among the top three in global sales, which is definitely not without technical strength, but why do we think that Korean cars have no technology? Because those models with strong product power are often not introduced into the Chinese market at the first time, and those sold in China are some cheap entry-level models, and there is even a feat of four generations of Elantra being sold in the same house.
For example, in terms of safety, there are obvious domestic and foreign double standards for Korean cars, Festa in the China Insurance Research Institute test, the A-pillar bends, a model with monthly sales of more than 10,000 yuan, and the sales volume collapses immediately, the same is true for compact cars, and the same is true for intermediate cars, after the 40% offset collision test on the front of the tenth-generation Sonata, the A-pillar has obvious bending marks. But in the U.S., the car has a five-star safety rating. What's even more ironic is that the deputy general manager of Beijing Hyundai once said, "Since last year (2019), Beijing Hyundai's business thinking has begun to shift from the pursuit of sales to the pursuit of quality." Even their own executives admit that Beijing Hyundai did not pay attention to product quality before.
Another example is after-sales service, in recent years, the after-sales service of Korean cars has kept up, and the new car has also launched a lifetime free maintenance, that is because the car is not good to sell, there is no way, you look at the United States, for new cars to provide a three-year or 58,000 kilometers of free maintenance services, powertrain to provide 10 years or 100,000 miles (about 160,000 kilometers) warranty, new vehicles to provide 5 years or 60,000 miles (about 100,000 kilometers) warranty and 7 years of body anti-perforation warranty. Why does Hyundai sell well in North America? Because it is cheaper and has a better after-sales service than Japanese cars, why is there no such perfect after-sales policy in China?
The domestic auto market is very volatile, but the real root of Beijing Hyundai's downfall lies in its "double standard" selling cars. In terms of technology, product quality, model launch, and after-sales service, it is the fundamental reason for the plummeting sales of Beijing Hyundai, and now Beijing Hyundai seems to have woken up, but unfortunately, it is too late.