The current automotive industry does have some strange phenomena, saying that the industry is in a recession is very difficult, wholesale sales in April continued to maintain a 10% growth, and the vast majority of car companies showed positive year-on-year sales growth, but to say easy? Not necessarily. Price wars are frequent, car companies' margins are extremely compressed, and competition seems to be worse than ever.
However, the more turbulent the moment, the more the pattern will change, just like today's car company rankings, with the help of new energy, independent brands have gained more recognition and favor, especially the top four independent car companies, basically occupy 60% of the market share of all independent brands, and the concentration has been further improved.
Among them, in addition to BYD as a popular star, Chery, Geely, Chang'an, although not as popular as the Internet, but the actual sales are not low, especially their fuel vehicle models, not only for the enterprise to win the advantage in sales, but also in terms of profits for the enterprise in the process of new energy development provides a strong stamina.
Joint ventures have been suppressed by independence, but the decline in Germany is relatively better than that of Japanese and American. Of course, it can also be seen from the sales volume that some companies that have problems in corporate strategy, product layout, and marketing have gradually fallen behind in the melee, and life is becoming more and more difficult, and more often once they lose their potential energy, the brand will go down.
For example, in April, SAIC-GM and GAC Toyota basically hung up a year-on-year decline of about 30%, and their monthly sales fell below 50,000 units, which has fallen out of the top ten conventional car companies. There are also GAC Aion, which originally sold 40,000 units per month, but fell to the level of 20,000 units in April, a year-on-year decline of 48%, and the growth was slightly weak.
Competition is like this, especially in the current market situation of oversupply of Chinese automobiles, it is bound to eliminate some of the product power and brand power and enterprise heritage and strength of the enterprise is not deep enough enterprises, and at the same time, there are a number of automotive products that can not meet the needs of consumers in a timely manner, and will gradually fade out of the sight of the industry and consumers.
If you look at the situation in the first four months of this year, basically the pattern of car companies throughout the year has been shown. For example, BYD basically has no opponent to match in the short term of two years, and it is very difficult for Chery, Geely, and Changan to catch up. However, for BYD, the cumulative year-on-year growth rate of 23.6% also proves the truth of "the height is not cold", the resistance of rapid development and countless pursuers, every step to move forward will not be too easy.
As the first echelon of independent and the industry, Chery, Geely, Changan, with the increase in sales months, the cumulative sales gap between each other has gradually widened, and there has been a sales gap of about 60,000 units, given that these companies have advantages in their respective fields, such as Chery has advantages in overseas exports, Geely and Changan have advantages in the balance of multiple brands and market segments, so the three will go hand in hand on the road of development.
In 2024, BYD, Chery, Geely, and Changan will win the top four car companies, leading their own brands and even the entire auto market. Among the joint venture car companies, although FAW-Volkswagen can maintain the top five, it can also be seen that there is still a gap of 40,000 units between it and Changan Automobile, which is equivalent to 10,000 units per month.
Starting from SAIC Volkswagen, the gap between car companies has been highlighted, the gap between the north and south Volkswagen of nearly 200,000 vehicles, has formed a huge gap, and can not be easily crossed, which is equivalent to the 6th-8th place of car companies to build a second camp, which includes SAIC Volkswagen, Great Wall Motors, Tesla three car companies.
From the 9th place to the 14-15th place, it basically belongs to the third camp of the head, and the level of 200,000 units in the first four months is not much different from each other, and the battle in this field should be more intense throughout this year. For example, SAIC Motor's new energy price is explored again, just like Zhiji has lowered the price to less than 200,000 yuan, and Feifan is currently facing problems with new energy support due to positioning and pressure from Zhiji.
Dongfeng Nissan entered the top 10 four months ago, which is indeed surprising, which can be said to be a shot in the arm for the Japanese system in the context of the entire Japanese retreat. However, behind the sales volume and market share, it is naturally the price of blood, the price of Sylphy is getting cheaper and cheaper, and the proportion of sales is getting higher and higher, which is naturally a bad signal for the future development of the Japanese brand in China.
In some months, SAIC-GM-Wuling can enter the top 10, but in the first four months, it only won 11th. In fact, SAIC-GM-Wuling has explosive products, especially in the entry-level pure electric market segment, but the continuity of sales is a bit poor, and it is impossible to form a superposition of sales.
The change in sales volume of the series has been the hottest topic in the past two years, among which independent brands are the most popular. In April, the share of independent car companies has reached 63.8%, setting a record for the highest share in history, and directly driving the share of independent brands to officially exceed 60% in the first four months, reaching 60.8%, a direct increase of 8.3 percentage points over the same period. What's more worth mentioning is that the sales volume of independent car companies is significantly higher than the overall market trend of the industry, as evidenced by the 28% year-on-year growth in April and the first four months.
The strength of independence is obvious to all, in addition to the four head car companies, occupying sixty percent of the share, many new forces to build cars, will also gradually improve the potential energy of new energy vehicles, especially Cialis, ideal, Xiaomi, etc., for the entire independent car companies to bring considerable increments.
Of course, among the 30 independent brands, less than 20 have monthly sales of more than 10,000, which also means that the differentiation of the market and the core energy that drives the growth of independent brands are still in the hands of some car companies. Therefore, even if the new forces are popular again and get more traffic and attention, in fact, consumers will still look at the head and mature car companies and models in the car purchase decision, which does not mean that engaging in traffic may not necessarily get sales.
So far, foreign brands have not found a better solution, whether it is in new energy or traditional oil vehicles, or even if they have found a solution, it has not yet worked. Most foreign-funded car companies are not hot for new energy, among which pure electric products are difficult to be accepted by more users on the consumer side, and plug-in hybrid products sought after by consumers are temporarily difficult to make up for them, so the new energy cake cannot provide direct help for foreign brands.
Therefore, the share of German cars is still declining, which has decreased to 15.4% in April and 16.7% in the first four months. This is especially true of Japanese cars, with a decline of more than 10% in April and the first four months, so that the share of Japanese cars fell to 11.2%, almost the freezing point in recent years, except for Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda because of the base problem in the same period, which saved some of the situation for the decline of Japanese cars.
The share of U.S. cars was mainly affected by Tesla and SAIC-GM, with an overall decline of about 20%, making it the worst of all series, with the lowest monthly share and falling below 7%. Now, with the rise of domestic new energy, Tesla is under great pressure, and its sales in April and the first four months are declining year-on-year. This is especially true of SAIC-GM, with a decline of about 40%, and the cumulative sales volume has become the worst performance of mainstream joint venture car companies.
As the competition in the industry becomes increasingly fierce, more and more car companies cannot get orders and sales, and withdrawal and exit will also become the main theme of the future auto market.