On April 25, the Beijing Auto Show returned after four years, and a large number of new cars were released intensively.
On April 26, the "Implementation Rules for Automobile Trade-in Subsidy" was promulgated, and Beijing, Henan, Inner Mongolia, Guangzhou, Wuhan and other provinces and municipalities successively introduced local subsidy rules.
Stimulated by these two positive benefits, the domestic auto market finally picked up significantly at the end of April. Taking the weekly retail sales of the Federation of Passenger Cars as an example, the average sales volume on the fourth week of April reached 82,000 units, far exceeding the same period in 2022 and 2023.
However, due to the heavy impact of the Qingming holiday and wait-and-see sentiment, the terminal performance in the first half of the year was poor, resulting in a decline in domestic passenger car sales in April.
According to the latest data from the Passenger Car Association on May 10, the retail sales of domestically produced passenger cars in the narrow sense in April were 1.532 million units, down not only 5.7% year-on-year, but also 9.4% month-on-month.
At the wholesale level, the situation was slightly different, although affected by weak domestic retail demand, due to the continuous increase in exports, it hit a new high of 417,000 units in April, and the wholesale sales of domestically produced passenger cars in April continued to increase by 9.8% year-on-year to 1.952 million units, replacing 1.872 million units in 2018 as the best result in the same period.
Looking at the overall trend in the first four months of this year, despite the year-on-year decline in April, retail sales increased by 8.0% year-on-year, with sales of 6.364 million units, while wholesale sales increased by 10.5% year-on-year, with sales reaching 7.546 million units.
Independent automakers once again occupy the top four
In a relatively sluggish environment, independent automakers continued to maintain an unusually strong momentum in April, and their share in both the retail and wholesale markets once again set a new record.
According to the statistics of the Passenger Car Association, while the overall terminal transaction volume is declining, the domestic retail sales of independent brands in April still increased by 11% year-on-year, which increases its domestic market share to 57.4%, an increase of 9 percentage points over the same period last year, and the cumulative share in the first four months of this year has also increased to 56%. It is estimated that the share of independent autonomy in the domestic retail market will likely climb to more than 55% this year, and it may even exceed 60% in some months.
Thanks to the continuous development of overseas markets by independent automakers such as BYD, Chery, Geely and Changan, the share of independent automakers in wholesale sales climbed to 64.1% in April, an increase of 7.9% year-on-year.
This can be confirmed by the list of the top 10 retail and wholesale car companies in April.
In the retail list, although the number of independent car companies is only 4, they all rank among the top five, among which BYD, Geely and Chery increased by more than 30% year-on-year, especially Chery increased by nearly 60% year-on-year, and they seem to be completely unaffected by the overall auto market.
On the other hand, the sales of the six joint venture automakers are not only negative year-on-year, but also GAC Toyota, Dongfeng Nissan, FAW Toyota and BMW Brilliance have only about 50,000 units. As the leader of the joint venture camp, FAW-Volkswagen still won the third place, but the gap between it and Geely Automobile behind it is only 3,000 units, and the lead is not obvious, and it is very likely to be overtaken next.
In the wholesale list, the strength of independent car companies is more obvious, the number is the same as in March, with 7, but Geely, Changan, Great Wall and SAIC-GM-Wuling have all improved their rankings.
Specifically, Geely Automobile ranked third with 153,000 units, Changan Automobile also led FAW-Volkswagen with nearly 7,000 units, and Great Wall Motor and SAIC-GM-Wuling advanced to 6th and 7th respectively.
Whether it is the above 4, or BYD and Chery, these 6 independent head car companies can achieve such excellent results in wholesale sales, mainly relying on the continuous expansion of overseas markets. Taking BYD as an example, its export sales crossed the threshold of 40,000 units for the first time in April, reaching 41,000 units, surpassing Tesla China, a major domestic new energy exporter, for two consecutive months.
Corresponding to the continuous progress of its own automakers, SAIC Volkswagen continued to hold on to 6th among the only three leaders in the joint venture camp, while FAW-Volkswagen and Tesla China slipped to 5th and 10th respectively.
New energy penetration soars to 43.7%
From the perspective of market segments, when the overall passenger car market fell again in April, the sales of new energy vehicles also decreased slightly month-on-month, but still maintained a large increase compared with the same period last year, with retail and wholesale increasing by 28.3% and 30.0% year-on-year respectively.
The huge contrast between the two is negative and positive, and the penetration rate of new energy in passenger cars has increased, with retail and wholesale at 43.7% and 39.9% respectively, of which the former once again set the highest record. It is also worth mentioning that it was previously reported that the penetration rate of new energy retail in the first half of April exceeded half for the first time, reaching 50.39%.
Next, with the implementation of the "trade-in" policy in various places, especially the subsidy of 10,000 yuan for the purchase of new energy passenger vehicles, slightly higher than the 7,000 yuan of traditional fuel vehicles, should create a certain new increment for the new energy market. After all, the scrapping subsidy policy stipulates that scrapped fuel vehicles can be replaced with new energy vehicles and traditional fuel vehicles, but scrapped new energy vehicles can only buy new energy vehicles, so consumers are more likely to buy new energy.
So, will the penetration rate of new energy exceed 50% in a certain month this year? Let's wait and see.
If we make a more detailed distinction in the new energy market, we will find that the gap between pure electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid (including range extenders) in April is still very obvious, with the former increasing by 12.1% year-on-year and the latter by 64.2% in China; Including exports, the growth rate of the former narrowed to 5.7%, while the latter expanded to 93.3%.
Does this mean that although the new energy passenger vehicles exported by the mainland are still dominated by pure electric vehicles, with the continuous improvement of recognition and acceptance, the export volume of plug-in hybrid is increasing rapidly?
From the perspective of the traditional three subdivisions of body form, due to consumers' preference for SUVs, the gap between sedans and SUVs is becoming more and more obvious, and the gap between retail and wholesale sales between the two is getting wider and wider. Considering that the recent trend of sedans has significantly lagged behind the overall market, one has to wonder whether the total sales of sedans may only be roughly the same as last year, or even slightly lower than the same period last year, under the premise of the growth of passenger cars throughout this year.
As for the smallest MPV market, even with the blessing of new energy MPVs such as Denza D9, Xpeng X9, and Ideal MEGA, Buick L8 plug-in hybrid has also been listed, but the year-on-year decline in April is still more than 10%, and it is very likely that it will continue to fall in the future. As a result, whether MPVs can exceed one million units again this year needs to be marked with a big question mark.
In any case, April has passed, with the implementation of the trade-in policy, as well as the convening of auto shows around the May Day, the auto market should have a significant improvement in May.