"It's the best of times, it's the worst of times ...... it's the spring of hope, it's the winter of disappointment; there are all sorts of things in front of people, there's nothing in front of people; there are car companies that are going straight up to heaven, there are car companies that are going straight down to hell." If chemistry uses Dickens' words in the opening chapter of A Tale of Two Cities to describe the first half of 2020, then it could be said. But how did it get here?
The Buddha said: all fruits arise from causes, and all rewards arise from karma.
It will give honor to the diligent, such as FAW-Volkswagen, Dongfeng Nissan, North and South Toyota, GAC Honda, Dongfeng Honda, Geely, and Chang'an; to the unambitious to the hidden pain, such as SAIC Volkswagen SAIC-GM-Wuling, and SAIC passenger cars and other SAIC system; to the lazy and tricky to the failure, like zhongtai, hippocampus, than the speed, the phantom speed.
The excuses of the losers are all shibboleths of weakness and incompetence.
No one can deny that in the past six months, every car company has suffered the impact of the epidemic. In the face of flying "black swan", some companies are thorny, although seriously injured but still guarded the territory, while some car companies like papier-maché, a touch on the crumbling, perhaps they were so vulnerable, the epidemic is just the right time to pass by, coincidentally become the back of the pot warrior.
Looking at the first half of this year's auto market statistics from the Federation of Automobile Manufacturers (FAM), wholesale sales fell 22.9 percent year-on-year to 7,666,762 units, but the share of the top 15 companies rose to 77.8 percent from 74.7 percent in the same period last year, which shows that the more the special period, the more the sales volume is concentrated in the head.
What's worth noting is that the share of Chinese brands slipped to 34.1 percent from 38.5 percent a year earlier, and hit a record low of 32.6 percent in June. Among the top 10 in the half-year test, only Geely and Changan held on, with Great Wall having slipped to an 11th-place ranking.
Instead, the Japanese car companies are getting more and more courageous, in addition to five joint ventures have been on the list of the top 10, the Japanese first half of this year's share of the same period last year rose from 21.5% to 24.1%, the German share of the same period last year, 23.8% rose to 26.8%, and the sum of the two has been more than 50%, which means that half of China's car market share has been the German and the Japanese in the bag. Other joint ventures, such as the Korean, French, American and other European car companies total share of only 15%, the phenomenon of marginalization is becoming more and more obvious.
The big wave of sand not only eliminated the marginal brands of Chinese brands, joint venture brands are also unable to escape the sweep of the big wave. Standing at the crossroads in 2020, those joint-venture car companies can not wait to realize the dream, will gradually fade in the flow of time.
Divided North and South Volkswagen
266,966 units!
This is the gap between South Volkswagen and North Volkswagen in the first half of this year, setting a record high for the difference in sales since the two companies were founded. This is only a half-year sales gap, and the biggest annual sales gap in the past was only 155,447 units in 2015. That year, SAIC Volkswagen led FAW-Volkswagen's 1.65 million units with 1.8 million units, and it was also from 2015 that SAIC Volkswagen suppressed FAW-Volkswagen for four whole years, and has been occupying the sales champion throne in China's auto market.
Life is full of drama because none of us know what's going to happen next, and who would have known ahead of time that the story of North Volkswagen's overtaking of South Volkswagen began last July?
Full year 2019 saw FAW-Volkswagen overtake SAIC-Volkswagen by 44,000 units, a long overdue ascent to the top spot following its 2014 win. The watershed moment that year came in July, the month when the Tangyue officially outsold the Touguan L, and then that month when North Volkswagen bested South Volkswagen's 145,100 units with 157,614.
At that time, the Tangyue sold 16,405 units, while the Touguan L sold only 8,500 units, and in the year from July last year to June this year, the Tangyue outsold the Touguan L by a cumulative total of 197,000 units to the Touguan L's 172,000 units. The Touguan has been dominating the A-class SUV market for several years, and the significance and energy behind the swap in rankings between the two is extraordinary for both North and South Volkswagen.
Shanghai Automobile Volkswagen's sales have weakened in recent months, in addition to the market and the epidemic, the most important factor is its own product problems, including the Tuguan L. In the 2019 China Insurance Research practical crash test, the Tuguan L in the frontal 25% offset test received a "P poor" score, which at the time has been out of the The Tuguan L was at the bottom of the list of vehicles that had crashed.
While the Dream Team's diving record can only be broken by China, the SAIC-Volkswagen's bottom score can only be broken by SAIC-Volkswagen itself.
If the collision results of the Tuguan L in the Chinese insurance research just stirred up a small wave, then the Passat's "collision door" incident has set off a shocking wave. The incident from the beginning of the fermentation, has been affected to the present, including the future a long time, SAIC Volkswagen will be in the shadow of this incident.
In order to restore the Passat's lost reputation, SAIC-Volkswagen held a communication meeting in May after 170 days of cold-turkey treatment with responses along the lines of "I'm not wrong" and "you're overthinking it. After that meeting, SAIC not only didn't win any favor, but added another layer of weight to its arrogant attitude.
While SAIC-Volkswagen still ranked second in the first half of this year with 577,385 units, its share fell from 9.1 percent in the same period last year to 7.5 percent this year, with SAIC-GM and Geely just 20,000 and 40,000 units behind it.
But even if SAIC-Volkswagen is as arrogant as it is, any carmaker that doesn't have enough respect for its customers and the market will eat the fruits of evil in the wheel of time.
More than that, SAIC Group, where SAIC-Volkswagen is based, saw its sales plunge 30 percent in the first half of this year, ending the year with a drop of -22.9 percent above the broader market. SAIC's SAIC-GM-Wuling (-28.69%), SAIC-Volkswagen (-37.18%), SAIC-GM (-33.31%), and SAIC-Passenger Vehicle (-22.52%) dazzled on the list of decliners. It's clear that SAIC-Volkswagen's defeat to FAW-Volkswagen was no accident.
Uncle Lai in "A World Without Thieves" said to female thief Xiaoye, "When people's hearts are scattered, it's not easy to lead the team." I wonder if SAIC Chairman Chen Hong has encountered the same problem?
And since the introduction of SUV products, FAW-Volkswagen (Jetta / Volkswagen brand / Audi brand) will have an advantage over SAIC Volkswagen (Skoda / Volkswagen brand) in product layout, and also become the only car company with a share of more than double-digit to 11 percent in the first half of this year (8.6 percent in the same period last year), with sales of 844,351 vehicles, overlooking the crowd. The FAW Group, where FAW-Volkswagen is based, finished the first half of this year with 1.631 million units, a remarkable 2.3 percent year-on-year reverse growth.
South Volkswagen's reduced share is naturally sad, but the Volkswagen Group behind it is happy. For it, the 18.5 percent share in the first half of this year is nearly one percentage point more than the 17.7 percent in the same period last year. Still, no matter who loses or wins between the two, the winner at the end of the day is still VW.
The full-fledged Japanese system
Compared with the disparate division between North and South Volkswagen, the five Japanese automakers are balancing their development and advancing hand in hand **** together.
In the same period last year, only Dongfeng Nissan (No. 5), Guangzhou Honda (No. 8), FAW Toyota (No. 10) in the top 10 list of car companies, but in the first half of this year, the other two Japanese car companies, Guangzhou Toyota and FAW Toyota, have also entered the list.
Looking at the June increases of these companies, FAW Toyota (28.9%), GAC Toyota (21%) rose by more than 20%, the momentum is very strong, GAC Honda (15.8%), Dongfeng Honda (16.9%) increased by more than 10%, and the Dongfeng Nissan also had a 9.8% increase. And BAIC Toyota with a 3.1% increase in half a year in the top 10 car companies, the only two growth (the other is Changan), FAW Toyota 8.4% decline is also considered to be the performance of a particularly sharp players, which is enough to see the strength of the Toyota brand and the ability to resist the risk of quite strong.
While the remaining four car companies sales are down, but from the point of view of the share share ratio, they are quite resistant to strength. 2020 January to June, the Japanese share of 24.1%, while the sum of the share of these five car companies is 23%, individual car companies with the same period last year's share compared to the share of the state of positive growth, the Dongfeng Nissan this year, 6.2% (5.8% over the same period), a Toyota 4.5% (3.7% for the same period), Guangfeng 4.2% (3.1% for the same period), Guangben 4.1% (3.9% for the same period), Dongben 3.9% (3.6% for the same period). Of these, North and South Toyota are again among the car companies that have expanded the most.
Goethe said that in the face of tribulation, the weak brood and sigh, while the strong lift their pure eyes toward the light. Toyota's ability to rise steadily during the epidemic has nothing to do with its past.
Since Toyota was plunged into a global crisis in 2010, it has begun to fully adjust its development strategy, including the Chinese market. It gave up its pre-2010 development strategy of seeking more and more quickly, especially after the Diaoyu Islands incident in 2012, and its strategy has become more and more prudent and conservative.
Whether the external environment is good or bad, Toyota has always been rational, pragmatic and effective in the overall control, set a reasonable expectation management, to ensure that the whole industrial chain of healthy and stable development. When the market is good, not arrogant, maintain the same level, and in the market is bad, it happens to be the character of this unhurried, so that he is more distinctive in the woe.
It's a trait that belongs to Toyota, and Nissan has its own tune.
Dongfeng Nissan's cumulative sales in the first half of the year fell only 19.5 percent year-on-year to 475,242 units, despite zero wholesale sales in February this year, which is not unrelated to its sedan + SUV two-legged approach.
Sedans are the market that Dongfeng Nissan relies on the most, contributing nearly 70 percent of its sales in the first half of the year, and there's no doubt that the Hennessey is the main product, with cumulative sales of 209,680 units, accounting for nearly half of Dongfeng Nissan's share. And the sales of the Sky, a mid-range car, exceeded 10,000 units in June, with 42,525 units sold. Compared with last year's downturn, the market for the Sky is gradually picking up this year. Dongfeng Nissan's other two SUVs, the Kizashi and the Promaster, also contributed more than 60,000 units each.
What's good is bad, and what's bad is bad is that Ghosn's "jailbreak" hasn't had a significant impact on the Chinese market.
As for Honda, Hao Ying in the Bao research "collision door" incident and the Passat has been worse, but it is hard to believe that its sales have not been affected, but rather unexpectedly high. June, in the entire joint venture SUV models, Hao Ying with 20,003 units in the first place, the more unexpected is the second and third place! were also Honda SUVs, the CR-V and Colorado, both with sales of more than 18,000 units.
Honda's strong brand power is not only reflected in SUVs, but also in the sedan field, where the Accord drove down the German Maipa brothers and dominated the mid-senior car market.
MPV field, Honda's Allison and Odyssey are also mainstream products. As you can see, Honda dominates in all major segments. If Honda's future room for improvement, the intermediate car field is the battlefield for it to break through. Compared to the Hennessey and Corolla, which have long dominated the top 5 of joint venture mid-size cars, the Civic is only in the top 10 ranking and has a lot of room to rise.
To sum up, the Japanese three in China in the short term are relatively benign development, especially in the past two years, the Japanese deep plowing dual-vehicle strategy, a variety of models into the mainstream market segments, bringing sales improvement that many car companies envy. At the same time, this wave of strong growth momentum of the Japanese system, and the share of the German system is not comparable, in China's future car market competition, the Japanese system is bound to become the last competitor of the German system as well.
Marginalized joint venture brands
After the German, Japanese and Chinese brands accounted for more than 85 percent of the market share, the share left for the other car models is less than 15 percent, with the U.S. share at 9.2 percent and the Korean, French and other European brands at less than 6 percent of the Chinese market.
While the U.S. system, represented by the U.S. General Motors, is still not marginalized, but with GM's global strategic contraction strategy, it is inevitable that its market share in China will gradually decrease.
With Mary Barra as GM's chairman and chief executive officer, the company's eight main brands have been streamlined to four, leaving Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac and GMC, with the exception of GMC, which is imported, and the rest of the three brands' sales performance in China is not outstanding.
In the first half of this year, SAIC-GM declined 33.3 percent year-on-year to 556,206 units, with Buick (326,485 units), Chevrolet (145,362 units), and Cadillac (84,359 units) declining 25.7 percent, 48.1 percent, and 26.4 percent year-on-year, which led to a direct decline in the share of SAIC-GM to 7.3 percent, down from 8.2 percent in the same period last year. 7.3 percent.
For the whole of last year, SAIC-GM's overall share was only 7.6 percent, bearing in mind that from 2015 to 2018, SAIC-GM's share had been at 8 percent and above.
The biggest reason for this result is that starting in 2017, SAIC-GM aggressively bet all its chips on three-cylinder engines, but just at the end of March this year, SAIC-GM announced that Buick Yinglang added two new models equipped with the new 1.5L four-cylinder naturally-aspirated engine, which means that the strategy of the small-displacement, three-cylinder engine models that was previously pursued by the company's efforts failed.
Shanghai Automobile General Motors (SAIC-GM) can be said to be "a careless, full plate quickly lost" rhythm, especially in the face of the accelerated expansion of the German and Japanese systems at the moment. In addition, the general in the global large parallel contraction strategy, the image of the general in China will not play a positive role.
For the future status of SAIC-GM, senior media person Wei Jinqiao teacher gave this answer: "SAIC-Volkswagen in the future to get rid of the burden of ?koda and SAIC Audi to support the future of the formation of a moat around 1.5 million units, and FAW-Volkswagen in the future of the joint venture first line, the future and the five Japanese joint venture (GAC Honda, Dongfeng Honda, FAW), Toyota, GAC Toyota and Toyota, GAC Toyota, and the Japanese joint venture (GAC Honda, Dongfeng Honda, FAW). Toyota, GAC Toyota and Dongfeng Nissan) constitute the future of the seven contenders in the joint venture situation - yes, there will be no SAIC-GM in it."
GM, which already filed for bankruptcy once in 2009, thinks it is more capable of appreciating that once it takes a wrong turn or goes down the wrong road, it will take more time to correct and make up for it. So for SAIC-GM, every decision will have a bearing on whether it returns to the mainstream joint venture ranks or does what its ally Ford did.
Except for the U.S., or SAIC-GM, which can still struggle to make adjustments, the Korean, French and other European brands are losing their presence in China. In the first half of this year, the three had shares of 4.3 percent, 0.3 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively.
"How long will you live? It passes away like the morning sun. The time is not heavy to arrive, Hua is not in the sun." Anyone who has read Lu Ji's "Short Songs" will probably lament the passage of time and the fact that, like other weak Chinese brands, they will become a grain of sand in the river of history in the years to come, and will eventually go with the waves.
Wen/Gan Fangli
This article was written by the author of Automotive Home, and does not represent the views of Automotive Home.