With BMW's announcement that it will withdraw from the price war in China and the overall price increase of its models, car companies have begun to make multiple choice questions: whether to lie down or roll?
At the end of July, many car companies were exposed to price increases in August, so what kind of strategy did car companies adopt in August? "" conducted a wave of investigations and visits.
Joint venture car companies are difficult to "let go"
With the successive announcements of the sales of various car companies in August, joint venture brands are undoubtedly under greater pressure from the market decline than independent brands. Taking Honda as an example, in the first seven months of this year, the cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in the Chinese market were 468,500 units, a year-on-year decrease of 24.4%.
In this case, it is difficult for joint venture car companies to "withdraw their troops". Therefore, as soon as it entered August, Dongfeng Honda released a limited-time car purchase right in August, and the participating models include CR-V, Civic and Inshipai. The CR-V is priced from 135,900 yuan for a limited time, and the Civic is priced from 101,900 yuan after a comprehensive discount. After the subsidy, the price of the naked car starts at 132,800 yuan.
On the last day of July, SAIC Volkswagen launched the ID.4 X smart model and ID.3 smart model, which not only improved the intelligent configuration, but also reduced the official guide price of the original model by up to 60,000 yuan. In addition, FAW-Volkswagen, FAW Toyota, and Changan Mazda also launched promotional information in August.
In fact, not only joint venture brands, but also traditional independent brands and new EV manufacturers also launched new promotional policies in August. However, on the whole, although the promotion efforts of car companies in August were not particularly "aggressive", there was no obvious decline. Some car companies have increased some subsidies for the purchase of cars such as finance and car insurance.
Therefore, car companies like BMW that clearly reduce the preferential efforts are not considered mainstream. In the traditional off-season of sales such as August, car companies still maintain an "offensive" in terms of new model pricing and old model discounts. In particular, car companies with unsatisfactory sales in the first half of the year will provide more targeted promotion policies for models in August.
"Wake up" the golden nine and silver ten in advance
Industry insiders said that tightening the promotion policy in August is not in line with industry practice. Because according to historical data analysis, the weather is generally hot across the country in August, customers are reluctant to go out to see cars, and dealer passenger flow is seriously insufficient, so August is the traditional sales off-season for the automotive industry.
After August, there will be an important "Golden Nine and Silver Ten" of the year, which will determine the annual sales trend of car companies, so August is a very important month to connect the previous and the next. In August, car companies took action in advance to stimulate more demand for car purchases, so as to occupy the "first opportunity" sales. It is for this reason that the automotive industry has set the car buying festival on August 18.
Previously, it was reported that BMW's price increase caused a large number of orders to "flow" to Mercedes-Benz, and ordinary brand models can choose to replace more. In the current sensitive period of anti-"involution", although most car companies have not made it clear whether to continue or stop the price war, at the critical moment of fierce competition in the auto market this year, car companies still make a clear statement, hoping to go further in the market performance, rather than "handing over the market" to others.
The "auto" also learned from the sales staff of a traditional car company that compared with the previous manufacturers, this year did formulate a more relaxed sales assessment policy, but on the other hand, manufacturers have also increased the collection and conversion of online sales leads, as well as the assessment of the number of test drives. "Although we will not single the low price, we will not let the price become an obstacle for customers to buy." "The most important thing is to bring back the appeal to consumers," the salesperson said. ”