On May 1, Xiaomi Auto officially announced that its cumulative number of locked orders has reached 88,063 units, a figure that reflects the strong competitiveness of Xiaomi Auto in the field of new energy vehicles. Only ten days later, a well-known car blogger broke the news that the number of locked orders of Xiaomi cars has exceeded 100,000 units, which is undoubtedly amazing.
The rapid growth of the number of lock orders means that the market demand for Xiaomi cars is very strong. For consumers, locking in Xiaomi cars now, they may need to wait until the end of this year and early next year to get the car. From another point of view, this achievement of Xiaomi Auto is undoubtedly a huge challenge for other new energy brands.
This means that a full 100,000 customers have been successfully "snatched" by Xiaomi Auto. These customers were originally highly likely to be potential customers of other new energy brands, but now they have chosen Xiaomi. This change has undoubtedly brought huge market pressure to other new energy brands.
In the face of the strong rise of Xiaomi Auto, other brands need to re-examine their market strategies and product positioning. The next market competition will undoubtedly be more intense, and each brand must come up with more competitive products and services in order to gain a firm foothold in the battle for the new energy market.
Another problem also surfaced, although the launch of products can be theoretically unlimited, the purchasing power of consumers and the total market demand are limited. Therefore, how to stand out in the limited market has become a key problem that major brands need to think deeply about and solve.
The fear is weak consumption
What is the concept of 100,000 orders? From January to April this year, among the many new energy vehicle brands, 10 brands sold less than 35,000 vehicles. This is a staggering figure, as it indicates that these brands may struggle to reach the 100,000-unit threshold for sales throughout the year. What's more serious is that there are 5 brands in direct competition with the emerging Xiaomi Auto.
The rise of Xiaomi cars, like a dark horse halfway through, is undoubtedly a huge shock for those brands that are already struggling in the market. They are already facing pressure from a sprint in sales, and the emergence of Xiaomi cars has made this competition even more intense.
Of course, if the capacity of the car market is infinite, then these 100,000 orders may be just a drop in the market and will not cause too many waves. But the reality is that when we analyze the current Chinese auto market in depth, we will find that the situation on the consumer side has reached a relatively dangerous situation.
In order to have a deeper understanding of the consumer groups behind Xiaomi cars, some media recently conducted a detailed survey of Xiaomi car owners. The survey results show that young people aged 25-35, those with an annual income of 10-300,000 yuan, and singles constitute the main consumer power of Xiaomi Auto. REMARKABLY, HALF OF THESE CONSUMERS ARE FIRST-TIME CAR BUYERS, AND XIAOMI'S HIGH-END VERSION, THE SU7 MAX, PRICED AT 299,900 YUAN, ACCOUNTS FOR MORE THAN HALF OF THE TOTAL SALES.
What does this send us? On the surface, Xiaomi Auto did win 100,000 orders, but at a deeper level, it was actually 100,000 young generation consumers who were spending in advance, or overdraft. The concept of overdraft consumption is well understood, and its consequences are obvious.
In China's auto market, consumers can be broadly divided into two categories: the younger generation and the middle-aged and above groups. Some people may ask that middle-aged consumers are more financially strong, and their spending power should be able to inject new vitality into the car market.
But in fact, although middle-aged consumers are more financially affluent, they are becoming more cautious in their spending. This is related to the current economic environment, life pressures, and changes in consumption attitudes. They are more inclined to choose products with high cost performance and guaranteed quality, rather than blindly pursuing brands or luxury.
Let's look at another set of data, and that is the sluggish B-segment car market. In the past, whether it is a leader in the field of new energy such as Tesla Model 3 and BYD Han, or a popular model in the fuel vehicle market such as "Maipajacquet", they have created a brilliant performance of monthly sales of more than 10,000 or even 20,000. However, now, these once popular models in the market are also beginning to face the dilemma of increasing saturation, and the sales of some models have even declined significantly.
What kind of market dynamics are behind this trend? First of all, we cannot simply assert that the spending power of middle-aged consumers is no longer strong. In fact, this part of the consumer is still financially stable, they have a stable income and a certain amount of wealth accumulation. However, their consumption behavior has changed significantly compared to the past.
Specifically, the consumption concept of middle-aged consumer groups has begun to become cautious and conservative. They are no longer blindly pursuing high-end brands or luxury consumption as in the past, but pay more attention to the cost-effectiveness and practicality of products. This cautious and conservative approach to consumption is not limited to the automotive industry. We can also see similar trends in other industries, such as home appliances, tourism, catering, etc.
In addition, the cautious attitude of middle-aged consumers when consuming is also reflected in their in-depth understanding and comparison of product information. In today's highly developed Internet, consumers can easily obtain a variety of product information, including price, performance, user evaluation, etc. This makes them more rational when making purchasing decisions and is no longer easily induced by advertising or salespeople.
Therefore, although these middle-aged consumers have strong actual spending power, in the current economic environment, their consumption concepts are becoming more cautious and conservative, focusing more on cost performance and practicality, rather than blindly pursuing luxury, so it is difficult for them to bring significant increments to the entire auto market.
New products are getting more and more expensive
If there may be weakness on the consumer side, manufacturers may want to consider launching cost-effective or more affordable models to stimulate consumers' desire to buy, which is undoubtedly a seemingly reasonable rescue plan. However, after digging deeper into the market, we found that it is not so simple.
In the next new energy vehicle market, a large number of new models launched by major brands will focus on the price range of 25-350,000 yuan. This price range is still a lot of money for most ordinary consumers.
In the context of limited consumer purchasing power and increasingly fierce market competition, it may be difficult for high-priced new energy vehicles to attract enough potential customers. This situation has undoubtedly added a shadow to the sales of new energy vehicles, making the prospects for market recovery less clear.
In the past few years, NEV companies often regarded Tesla's Model Y as a competitor and benchmarked it in terms of product performance, but strategically lowered the price by a large margin, trying to attract consumers. But judging from the results, these models that are known as the "Model Y" killer have not shown the level of sales they should have.
However, today, with the debut of models such as AVATR 07, Ledao L60, and Zhijie's new SUV, as well as the Xiaomi SUV that will be launched next year, as well as the ideal L6 and Wenjie M5 that have been listed, the new energy market has become extremely fierce in the price range of 20-300,000 yuan, which can be described as a red sea.
The new energy vehicle market in this price range has now gathered many strong competitors, and each model is trying to show its own uniqueness in order to win the favor of consumers. From cruising range, intelligent driving technology, to interior design, user service and other aspects, car companies are competing in an all-round way.
In the face of the characteristics of overdraft consumption by the younger generation and conservative consumption by the middle-aged group, it is indeed a thorny problem to sell high-priced products priced at 20-300,000 yuan.
In the current market environment, there seem to be only two ways to go: either to accelerate the elimination of fuel vehicles to make room for new energy vehicles; Either new energy vehicles snatch market share from luxury brands such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz, and BMW. However, both paths are fraught with challenges.
In terms of the current penetration rate of the new energy vehicle market in the mainland, it is quite difficult to break through the 50% share. This means that despite the obvious advantages of new energy vehicles in terms of technology, consumers' dependence and habits on traditional fuel vehicles are still deep-rooted and difficult to change quickly. On the other hand, the consumer base of luxury brands usually has high brand loyalty and spending power, and they will not easily waver in their preference for the original brand.
Therefore, it is difficult to get a share of this part of the market.
In this way, the competition in the new energy vehicle market is becoming increasingly fierce, and perhaps the elimination game between new energy brands is going to accelerate. With the continuous progress of technology and the increasing expansion of the market, more and more companies are pouring into this field, resulting in the emergence of new energy vehicle brands in the market.
However, the capacity of the market is limited, while consumer demand is saturated, which undoubtedly intensifies the competition between brands.
Some industry insiders predict that this year is the most difficult test for new energy vehicle companies, market changes, policy adjustments and the diversification of consumer demand have brought huge pressure to enterprises. If new energy vehicle companies can't survive in such a market environment this year, then they will most likely bid farewell to the market.
So, what kind of car companies will win and stay in this knockout game in the future? Are those companies that can keep up with market trends and continuously introduce innovative products to meet the growing needs of consumers? Or are they brands that have deep technical accumulation and can continue to provide high-quality, high-performance products? Or are they companies that excel at brand marketing and can build deep emotional connections with consumers?
Leave it to time to test all this.