The phrase "brands that can't keep up with the pace in 2024 will be eliminated by the market" seems to be being verified during the May Day holiday just past.
Recently, major car companies have successively released orders for the May Day holiday. Among them, GAC Group received nearly 80,000 orders during the May Day Golden Week; In the first three days of May Day, the number of all models exceeded 6,600 units, with an average of more than 2,000 units per day; Ideal also saw a sharp increase in orders, only on May 5, the ideal L6 single-day orders exceeded 10,000 units.
However, behind these dazzling data, some new energy brands seem to be extremely silent, they have been marginalized in the carnival of the May Day car market, and the next thing waiting for them may be to be "abandoned" by the market.
Policies to stimulate the "May Day" car market
In fact, since the beginning of this year, BYD's "electricity is lower than oil" price reduction strategy has quickly swept the auto market, including joint venture brands, independent brands, new forces and other car companies at home and abroad have cut prices, and the price of some models has even fallen below 100,000 yuan. However, under a series of "price wars", consumers' wait-and-see sentiment continues to continue.
The Federation of Passenger Cars said that a series of continuous model price reductions began after the Spring Festival in February this year, coupled with the fact that the new energy models launched from 2022 have successively entered the stage of product modification and upgrading, which has brought a wait-and-see mentality, and consumers hope to wait for the car market to stabilize before buying cars, resulting in no obvious rebound in the car market at the end of March, and the market heat during the Qingming holiday is not as hot as the regular weekend, and the release of terminal demand is blocked.
According to the latest data released by the Passenger Car Association, the retail sales of the automobile market in April were 1.585 million units, down 2% year-on-year and 6% from the same period last month. The reason why the May Day auto market exploded was because of the recent Xiaomi launch and a new round of further adjustment of the price of related models, coupled with the intensive release period of new models in April, as well as the official convening of the Beijing Auto Show, the consumer enthusiasm of the market at the end of April was gradually stimulated.
On the other hand, the "trade-in" pro-consumption policy has experienced many meetings and clear announcements since the end of last year, and consumers' attention and expectations for the policy are very high. On April 26, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and other 7 departments jointly issued the "Implementation Rules for Car Trade-in Subsidy", and many car companies have also "followed", and various discounts were superimposed, quickly "detonating" the May Day car market.
A number of car companies quickly "got on the car"
At present, a number of car companies such as GAC, Hongmeng Zhixing, and Ideal have announced the results of the "May Day".
Specifically, during the "May Day" Golden Week, GAC Group received a total of nearly 80,000 orders. Among them, GAC Trumpchi has received orders of more than 13,000 units, GAC Aion has received more than 10,000 units, GAC Toyota has received more than 30,000 units, and GAC Honda has received more than 20,000 units.
From May 1st to May 5th, the number of all models of Hongmeng Zhixing exceeded 11,000 units, with an average of more than 2,000 units per day. Among them, on the first day of the May Day holiday, Hongmeng Zhixing had a large number of more than 2,700 models.
The same happened to Ideal. According to the data, during the first sales period from April 18 to May 5, the cumulative orders for the ideal L6 have exceeded 41,000 units. However, on May 4, the ideal official released data again to say that as of that day, the cumulative orders of the ideal L6 have exceeded 30,000 units, which can be concluded that on the last day of the first sale of rights on May 5, the ideal L6 single-day orders exceeded 10,000 units.
In addition to the number of orders, Ideal also released the sales list from April 29 to May 5, in the seven days of the May Day Golden Week, Ideal with a sales volume of 5,300 units, ranking first in the sales of new power brands in the Chinese market, BYD with a sales volume of 52,600 units, ranking first in the sales of new energy brands in the Chinese market, and Tesla with a sales volume of 11,000 units, ranking first in the sales of luxury brands in the Chinese market.
In addition, there are a total of 18 car companies and brands on the list, including Wenjie, Zeekr, NIO, Deep Blue, Leap, Denza, Xiaopeng, Xiaomi, VOY, Wuling, Changan, Aion, Galaxy, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volvo, and Lexus.
Which new energy brands have been left behind?
New energy brands with poor sales during the May Day Golden Week may have begun to have a sense of crisis.
In the first four months of this year, some brands have begun to fall behind. According to the latest sales data released by BAIC Blue Valley, its subsidiary Beijing New Energy Automobile Co., Ltd. sold 2,882 units in April, down from 4,768 units in the same period last year. This year's cumulative sales reached 13,004 units, a year-on-year decrease of 34.59%.
In addition, Nezha Automobile, one of the new forces, is also facing great pressure. In April this year, Nezha delivered 9,017 vehicles, a decrease of about 18.62% compared with 11,080 last year; In the first four months of this year, Nezha delivered a total of 33,451 new cars, a year-on-year decrease of about 10.21%.
In the face of such a situation, new energy brands that have not been on the "May Day" must start to think about how to adjust their strategies to meet the challenges of the market. After all, the market downturn in the past few months has shown that the "price war" will only further prolong the wait-and-see sentiment of consumers, and what can really stimulate them to make purchase decisions is the multiple pinching of products, prices and policies.
The May Day car market explosion only promoted the sales growth of some car companies, but also released a signal: although the price reduction is still the main means of competition in the new energy brand market, but the role is slowly weakening, only according to the market demand to adjust the product line, improve the core competitiveness and attractiveness of the product, and at the same time in the marketing strategy, in order to seize the opportunity when the next wave of policies arrives. Otherwise, being "abandoned" by the May Day car market at this time is the end of the future.