In the face of the rise of independent brands and the increasingly competitive market, multinational car companies developing in China have found a second development path.
A few days ago, Nissan China Investment Co., Ltd. announced that it will establish a joint research center with Tsinghua University, and in the future, it will use China's R&D resources to accelerate the development of electrified models and bring models developed and manufactured in China to the global market.
In addition to working with domestic universities to deepen its understanding of China's auto market, it also means that Nissan has chosen to join automakers such as Honda, BMW and Ford in expanding its exports of cars made in China.
In fact, in recent years, more and more multinational car companies in China have turned their attention to overseas markets, trying to rely on China's well-established industrial chain as an export base to cope with the overcapacity of fuel vehicles, and to help themselves complete the transformation with the help of China's first-mover advantage in the field of electric vehicles.
Of course, if you follow the statement of the early multinational car companies that "there is a market and you are manufacturing", today's approach is a bit of a slap in the face.
From the market made in China to the market to the market
In October this year, Dongfeng Nissan established an export division to promote the overseas business by a full-time team, which also opened the door for Nissan to manufacture in China and export overseas.
At the same time, Nissan is not the only multinational automaker to use China as an export base, and Dongfeng Nissan is not the only joint venture automaker that intends to export to overseas markets. In September this year, Guangqi Honda announced that its Odyssey models were officially exported to the Japanese market for saleDongfeng Honda announced in May this year that new energy vehicles were officially exported to European ......
Earlier, there were also DPCA, Kia, BMW, etc., which changed from "manufacturing in the market" to "manufacturing in China", which is the drastic change in China's auto market.
Ten years ago, in the field of passenger cars, joint venture brands accounted for more than 60% of the market share, but in recent years, with the rise of independent brands, the share of joint venture brands has declined significantly, and the corresponding market share of independent brands has been rising. In November, the market share of self-owned brand passenger cars reached 597%, up 54 percentage points, remaining at 59 for two consecutive monthsMore than 5%, only "one step away" from breaking through the market share of sixty percent, in the first 11 months of this year, the market share of self-owned brand passenger cars reached 558%。
From January to November, the market share of German, Japanese, American and Korean car series was less than 20%, of which German and Japanese can still account for nearly 30% of the market share in 2020. At the same time, in the face of the surging new energy transformation, in addition to Tesla, most of the overseas brands are also facing huge pressure, although there are also star models, but compared with their fuel vehicles once brilliant is far less.
Under the market changes, multinational car companies have also had to reconsider their development strategies in the Chinese market, and using China as an export base is one of their new ideas.
Dishonorable transformation, but probably the safest way?
Speaking of which, it is not a glorious practice for multinational car companies to change the strategy of "manufacturing if there is a market" due to market pressure, but it may also be the safest way they can think of.
Under the drastic changes in the market, there are not a few multinational car companies that have lost China, such as Mitsubishi, which stopped production in China a few days ago. Its defeat also shows us that even if the sales of joint ventures of multinational car companies in China are poor, they are still valuable, just as its production capacity was taken over by GAC Ai Safety Disk.
The use of China as an export base by the above-mentioned multinational automakers is also a way to revitalize production capacity. Taking Dongfeng Nissan, Nissan's joint venture in China, as an example, it has taken root in Guangzhou and cooperated with Xiangyang, Zhengzhou, Dalian and Changzhou to deploy seven plants in six locations, with an annual vehicle production capacity of 1.6 million units.
If placed in the past, Dongfeng Nissan, which sells millions of dollars annually, digests these production capacities naturally, but under market changes, Dongfeng Nissan's sales are no longer what they were back then, and if sales do not rebound as soon as possible, it is almost inevitable that there will be a certain amount of idle capacity. Exports have naturally become a way to solve the problem, on the one hand, to boost sales, and on the other hand, to prevent their production capacity in China from being re-sold.
It is worth noting that from the perspective of car companies that have begun to "make in China and sell overseas", fuel vehicles have also become the key models for export, and this part of the models is also an important profit for these multinational car companies**. Masashi Matsuyama, general manager of Nissan (China) Investment***, also said that Nissan is considering exporting existing internal combustion engine vehicles produced and developed in China, as well as upcoming pure electric and hybrid vehicles, to overseas markets.
Of course, using China as an export base does not mean that multinational automakers have lost their determination to "die" in the Chinese market, as Nissan has laid out this time, another focus is also on in-depth understanding of the Chinese market, as Nissan President and CEO Makoto Uchida said in a statement: "We hope that this cooperation will help us to better understand the Chinese market and develop strategies to better meet the needs of Chinese customers." ”