According to the data, the retail sales of the passenger car market in April were 1.532 million, down 5.7% year-on-year and 9.4% month-on-month, and there was a year-on-year and month-on-month decline. The main factor is that the continuous price war in the auto market in April led to a strong wait-and-see atmosphere among consumers, resulting in a cyclical month-on-month downward trend. In addition, from January to April, the cumulative retail sales of domestic passenger cars were 6.364 million, a year-on-year increase of 8.0%.
Although the price war of domestic new energy vehicles in April has brought a certain increase, the sustainability is not strong, and the internal differentiation is more serious. The ongoing price war of new energy vehicles has further compressed the space for traditional fuel vehicles and inhibited the increase in sales. In addition, the retail sales of self-owned brands in April were 880,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 11%, and the market share reached 57.4%, a year-on-year increase of 9 percentage points. Among them, BYD, Chery Automobile, and Geely Automobile increased significantly. Joint venture brands continued to experience pressure, with retail sales of 450,000 units in April, down 26% year-on-year and 9% month-on-month.
Judging from the ranking of retail sales of specific manufacturers, most of the top 10 car companies in April showed a year-on-year decline, with only BYD, Geely and Chery Automobile achieving year-on-year growth, while Changan Automobile, which had performed well, fell 17.9% year-on-year in April.
Among the top five sales in April, independent brands occupied four seats. Among them, BYD continued to rank first in sales in April, with retail sales reaching 254,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 31.1%. It is worth noting that BYD is still continuing to make efforts in new cars, and on May 10, the BYD Hiace 07EV was officially launched, and at the end of May, the BYD Qin L will also be launched. With BYD's further layout in various market segments, its sales are still expected to maintain a high growth rate.
In addition, Geely Automobile, Changan Automobile and Chery Automobile ranked third to fifth, respectively. Among them, Geely Automobile's retail sales in April were 116,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 31.2%, and the performance was also very eye-catching. Today, the China Star series models are still the main sales force, and the sales of the Galaxy series in April also continued to exceed 10,000 units, maintaining a continuous growth trend. The delivery volume of ZEEKR in April also reached 16,089 vehicles, and in the case of further involution in the pure electric market, ZEEKR still maintained an excellent performance, and ZEEKR MIX will also be officially launched in the second half of the year.
Chery Automobile's deliveries in April reached 79,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 59.8%, and the growth rate even surpassed BYD, and the performance was also good. Nowadays, Chery Group's intensive listing of a series of high-performance new energy products has also ushered in a good degree of attention, coupled with the hot sales in overseas markets, its sales are expected to continue to grow at a high rate in the future. The performance of Changan Automobile in April was not satisfactory, with a sharp decline, and the performance of the Deep Blue series and AVATR was still tepid. At the end of April, Changan Automobile also launched a large car purchase subsidy, and it is still worth paying attention to whether its sales can reverse the decline in May.
Among the joint venture brands, FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC-Volkswagen ranked second and sixth respectively, but both declined to varying degrees. FAW-Volkswagen sales decreased 15.6% y/y to 119,000 units, while SAIC-Volkswagen sold 78,000 units, down 21.7% y/y. At the recent Beijing Auto Show, the all-new Passat and Tiguan L Pro were officially unveiled, as Volkswagen's main sales in the Chinese market, the arrival of these two new cars will also help its sales to recover.
In addition, GAC Toyota, Dongfeng Nissan and FAW Toyota, ranked seventh to ninth respectively, and sales also declined to a certain extent. The fact that Honda's two joint ventures did not enter the top 10 on the list further illustrates how embarrassing the Japanese brand is in the domestic market. At the same time, BMW Brilliance re-entered the top 10 in April, with sales of 49,000 units in April, down 7.9% year-on-year.
Write at the end
On the whole, in the domestic market, independent brands led by BYD continue to seize the inherent territory of the previous joint venture brands through new energy products, so that the joint venture brands have to accelerate the layout of new energy products to make up for the shortcomings. It is foreseeable that the competition in the next auto market will be more intense, and if the joint venture brand cannot achieve revolutionary improvement, the outcome is bound to be very miserable.
(This article is originally produced by Wenwu Lane New Media Studio, please indicate the source: Wenwu Lane, the author of this article: Xia Mu, personal opinion, for reference only)