Entering May, domestic A/H-share listed car companies have successively announced their production and sales in April. The editors of "Caiquan Society & Daoge Talking Car" counted the April sales of 10 A/H-share listed car companies. According to the statistical results, among the 10 listed car companies, only BYD, Geely and Haima Automobile achieved month-on-month sales growth in April, but the increase was relatively small, and the sales of the rest of the car companies declined month-on-month in April.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, vehicle production and sales in April this year reached 2.406 million units and 2.359 million units, down 10.5% m/m and 12.5% m/m and up 12.8% and 9.3% y/y, respectively. Combined with the changes in sales volume of the entire market, the month-on-month decline of listed car companies is also in line with the market trend. Cui Dongshu, Secretary-General of the Passenger Car Association, pointed out that "although there were 22 working days in April, two more days than the same period last year, due to factors such as unstable prices, consumers had a strong wait-and-see atmosphere, and the retail sales of passenger cars in April showed a cyclical month-on-month downward trend."
In addition, according to the results of this statistics, the new energy vehicle business of listed car companies is generally in a state of growth, and the proportion of sales is also considerable, and even Geely's new energy vehicle proportion has exceeded the penetration rate of new energy vehicles in 2023. This may also show that the new energy transformation of listed car companies is making continuous progress. Of course, the corresponding fuel vehicles, which may also be the representatives of joint venture brands, are being eroded, and the sales of SAIC Motor and GAC Group have declined year-on-year/month-on-month.
The second quarter got off to a rough start, and a new round of stimulus is on the way
As the beginning of the second quarter, the auto market showed a month-on-month decline in April. Among the 10 listed car companies in the statistics, only BYD, Geely and Haima Automobile achieved month-on-month growth of 3.57%, 1.61% and 13.64% respectively, of which BYD and Geely, the two larger car companies, only increased slightly month-on-month.
Cui Dongshu said that the new car price war of new energy vehicles has brought a certain increment, but the sustainability is not strong, and the internal differentiation is serious. Most of the conventional fuel models under the continuous price war have no room for continuous price reduction, so the market is being eroded by new energy vehicles at an accelerated pace, bringing some users to wait and see, which further inhibits the room for sales improvement.
From 2023 onwards, the domestic auto market has set off waves of price cuts, and "buy late and pay less" has become the inner monologue of many consumers. However, the stimulus about "low prices" continues, and it is aimed at the trade-in crowd. On April 26, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Finance and other 7 departments jointly issued the "Implementation Rules for Automobile Trade-in Subsidy", which will give a subsidy of up to 10,000 yuan to eligible trade-in users.
According to incomplete statistics, more than 20 auto brands, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW, BYD, Haval, Changan Automobile, etc., have announced that they will launch a replacement discount for the brand side in addition to government subsidies, ranging from several thousand yuan to 50,000 yuan. Among them, Changan Automobile's comprehensive subsidy can reach up to 57,000 yuan.
According to the business big data monitoring of the Ministry of Commerce, during the May Day holiday in 2024, in terms of commodity consumption, various localities will actively organize a series of activities to trade in the old for the new, driving the steady growth of bulk consumption. The Ministry of Commerce focuses on monitoring the sales of automobiles of retail enterprises increased by 4.8% year-on-year. Cui Dongshu pointed out that with the implementation of the trade-in policy, it will have a significant positive impact on the auto market, and it is expected that the retail sales of the auto market in May will be better than in April. Under the stimulation of the new policy, it is expected that the total annual scrapping of automobiles can reach the scale of nearly 10 million, and the car trade-in subsidy will bring millions of increments to the private new car consumption in the auto market, and can also bring more than 100 billion yuan of annual consumption increments.
The "carriage" of listed car companies should be replaced by exports, new energy or opportunities
In this statistics, SAIC and GAC are the two larger car companies that have declined year-on-year and month-on-month, but in terms of the decline range, SAIC is significantly better than GAC Group. The commonality between the two automakers is that the sales volume of the joint venture brand accounts for a relatively large proportion, so the sales growth of the two automakers has also been suppressed at the moment when the joint venture brand fuel vehicles have been impacted.
Among them, SAIC Motor Group's sales decreased by 37.92% year-on-year, and the sales of Japanese brands Honda and Toyota, which are under GAC Group, fell by 2.93% and 32.24% respectively in April. So why is SAIC's sales decline significantly smaller than that of GAC Group? A key reason is the difference in the growth rate of the two new energy vehicles, of which SAIC Group sold 74,590 new energy vehicles in April, a year-on-year increase of 9.33%, while GAC Group's new energy sales in April were 27,345 units, a year-on-year decrease of 41.12%.
Of course, this involves the pace of transformation of the joint ventures of the two groups and the business adjustment of independent new energy vehicle companies. Another key reason may be exports. Although GAC Group exported 45,000 vehicles from January to April, a year-on-year increase of 267.1%, SAIC Motor has become an important growth point and sales source for SAIC Motor Motor due to its earlier layout, and SAIC's overseas sales in April reached 92,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 2.7%.
Overseas markets are becoming opportunities for Chinese automakers, with data showing that exports of domestic brands reached 343,000 units in April, up 41% y/y. The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers also mentioned in the analysis of domestic automobile production and sales in April that the current export growth rate of the mainland automobile market is greater than that of domestic sales, and the domestic automobile market needs to be further boosted.
It should be mentioned that the monthly sales of car companies are cyclical, such as the GAC Group, which has poor sales growth in this statistics, received nearly 80,000 orders during the "May Day" Golden Week, and its sales in May may be worth looking forward to.