Since February 1, a number of automakers have announced their sales and delivery data for January 2024. Through these numbers, we found that some brands have skyrocketed, but others have not performed as well as they should.
Because of this, some people are starting to "make a big fuss" about these brands that are declining in sales or falling short of expectations. On the Internet, eye-catching headlines such as "xxx brand sales**" abound.
Recently, there are always people around me who ask, "Is the xx brand really bad?" This month's sales have fallen so badly" and other issues. In fact, a month's change in sales doesn't say much. Industry insiders know very well that the approaching Spring Festival is the regular off-season for the auto market, and it is not surprising that the sales data in January is slightly flat, coupled with the wait-and-see sentiment of consumers.
After all, Jiang Wen has already told us through the movie: let the bullets fly for a while.
December every year is an important time point for many car companies to reduce inventory and hit sales targets. Therefore, there is often a situation where there is a small number of shipments in January. Many dealerships sell new cars at the beginning of the year from inventory that has been built up before.
Why is this so? Because at the beginning of each year, many car companies will set high sales targets for themselves. In order to successfully complete the project, or to make the data for the whole year more "beautiful", I will try my best to hit the target in the last few months.
Generally speaking, these target car companies will go crazy at the end of the year, and "dig" out potential users who hold coins for purchase as much as possible. In addition, at the end of the year, dealers will also digest inventory by exchanging price for volume in order to achieve the annual task goal in order to get year-end rebates. Because the demand at the end of the year was dug too hard, the sales volume in January of the following year naturally became less than ideal.
Many people are curious, so how crazy is the ** at the end of 2023?
For reference, BYD will reduce prices for many of its own models starting in November 2023, and the Qin PLUS DM-i Champion Edition has a comprehensive discount of 10,000 yuan; Song PLUS DM-i Champion Edition comprehensive discount of 10,000 yuan; Han DM-i Champion Edition Comprehensive Offer 150,000 yuan. As a brand with strong sales, such a discount is not small.
Chang'an Qiyuan launched a limited-time discount strategy with greater profits (December 1 - December 31): A07 has a maximum combination discount of 40,000 yuan for a limited time; A05 to get 320,000 yuan equity; Q05 pays a deposit of 1999 yuan, which can be deducted 220,000 yuan for the purchase of a car, which is equivalent to a discount of 20,000 yuan.
In addition, Li Auto has reduced the price of the 2023 model that will be discontinued by 33-3.50,000 yuan, and NIO will reduce the price by 2 for the 2023 model4-3.20,000 yuan, the highest price reduction of zero run is 170,000 yuan, Nezha reduced the price by 3,000-18,000 yuan, Lantu gave 50,000 yuan of rights, and Zeekrypton provided 40,000 yuan of optional discounts + up to 370,000 yuan cash discount + 10,000 yuan balance deduction.
In fact, for consumers, the end of the year is also one of the more suitable times to buy a new car.
In addition to the above-mentioned year-end madness**, there is another reason, that is, car companies will press inventory on dealers at the end of the year. BYD's target sales volume in 2023 is 3 million units, and the actual completion is 3.02 million units, which is very extreme, and we guess that it is likely to press a lot of goods on dealers.
The same situation also appears in car companies such as Leap, Aion, and Wuling. Pressing the warehouse does not seem to be a good thing, after all, it is difficult for consumers to accept stock cars unless they are greatly discounted. In fact, for hot-selling brands like BYD, pressing goods is not a bad thing, you must know that accepting the manufacturer's pressure will also get a certain discount, and profits will be increased accordingly.
Another point that will also have a slight impact on sales is that it is approaching the Spring Festival holiday, during which many factories will also choose to suspend production for holidays. Because of this, it is not possible to deliver even if there are sufficient orders. Combined with the information of previous years, the sum of sales in January and February is generally not so impressive. Therefore, in the face of declining sales of certain brands, consumers do not need to be overly nervous.
Of course, in addition to the lack of consumer motivation, the decline in sales at the beginning of the year is also the result of the active choice of many car companies.
Nowadays, new cars are emerging in an endless stream, and the replacement of mainstream models is getting faster and faster, and car manufacturers are like a race, for fear that their models will fall behind if they are late. So the facelifts and facelifts came one after the other.
Combined with past experience, many car companies often choose to launch annual facelifts or new generation models between March and April. Seeing that new cars with improved configuration and performance are coming, many consumers choose to wait and see. This is one of the reasons for the low sales of new cars at the beginning of the year.
Li Xiang, founder, chairman and CEO of Li Auto, has publicly announced that in March 2024, the company's first MPV model "Li MEGA" will be launched and delivered. At the same time, the current three sales models of the ideal L7, ideal L8 and ideal L9 will also usher in the 2024 model.
Not only Li Auto, but also NIO and Xpeng Motors have also said that some of their main products will be updated for the 2024 model year in March and April.
While the new car-making forces choose to upgrade their existing products after the year, some car companies with stronger economic strength choose to seize the moment of market involution and quickly put more powerful models on the market. Today, BYD's Yuan UP, Qin L and other models for the mainstream market have been announced by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and it is expected that it will not be too far to meet consumers.
In addition, for car companies, after the old model is discontinued, the production line also needs to be upgraded and adjusted to adapt to the new product. After the adjustment, the assembly quality, production efficiency and production cycle of the new car will be optimized and upgraded. The period of adjustment has more or less affected the production capacity of new vehicles, which in turn affects the sales of terminals.
Generally speaking, after the new model is listed, the old model will be cleared, and the huge terminal discount also makes many consumers difficult, after all, in the face of a large price difference, is it to choose the old model with greater discount, or wait for a new car with a more advanced level of technology?
With the continuous increase in the frequency of frequent upgrades and facelifts of various car companies, many consumers who are not in a hurry to use the car will also choose to hold on to the currency and wait for the emergence of new models. After all, for many people, a discount of tens of thousands of yuan is far less than a better car experience in the next few years.
Judging from previous experience, at least in the field of smart electric vehicles, the "waiting party" is often the ultimate winner.
In fact, the rise and fall of new car sales is a normal market phenomenon. After all, what falls now is likely to rise after that, and what rises sharply now may also fall in the next period.
In January 2024, NIO delivered 10,055 new vehicles, down 44% month-on-month. On the evening of January 25, Li Bin, chairman of NIO, said bluntly at the user communication meeting of NIO's worry-free service products: "This year, we must be careful in our calculations, and the general direction of NIO is to carry out cost management. But this did not affect NIO's full-year sales target of 230,000 units, an increase of more than 40% compared with 2023 sales.
It is understood that NIO's 2024 models will be launched and delivered in early March. The new car will upgrade the intelligent hardware configuration of the existing model (4 Orin chips in the whole system, with a computing power of 1016TOPS), and use a self-developed LiDAR main control chip. All models are top-of-the-line, and the market performance of the new car after its launch is still very worth looking forward to.
In addition, Li Auto will sprint to annual sales of 800,000 units and monthly sales of 100,000 units in 2024, up from 3760,000 units doubled; Both Xpeng and Leapmotor aim to double their sales in 2023; Nezha Automobile aims at 300,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 136%; Deep Blue Automobile has set a target of 450,000 units, with a target growth rate of 220%.
Geely Automobile, which will complete its original annual sales target in 2023, will challenge 1.9 million units in 2024, a year-on-year increase of 13%; Great Wall Motors will sprint to 1.9 million units, an increase of 54% over 2023; GAC Group will challenge sales to increase by 10% year-on-year (about 2.75 million units); Chery Automobile's goal is to "exceed the industry by 10 to 20 percentage points in sales growth".
Combined with the annual sales data in 2023, only four car companies have completed the sales targets originally set, and the current degree of involution in the auto market can be seen in general. But even so, it still failed to stop the determination of car companies to hit higher sales. In 2024, the sales growth targets of car companies are generally above double digits, far higher than the 3% of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.
Li Bin, Founder, Chairman and CEO of NIO, said: "The next two years will be the most important stage of transformation in the automotive industry, and the competition will be fierce beyond imagination. ”
While the launch of new products of car companies is accelerating, the war is also intensifying. In January 2024 alone, more than a dozen car companies such as Tesla, Zeekr, Leap, Zhiji, and Xpeng will lower the prices of certain models, or launch limited-time cash discounts, in order to gain more sales and market share. Ideal cars, which rarely participate in the "fighting" of the ** war, have also joined the price reduction camp.
Under such fierce competition, there will inevitably be car companies that can move up steadily, and there will also be car companies that will be "slapped to death on the beach by the back waves". Geely and Chery, which ushered in a sharp rise in January, are really difficult to continue their momentum in 2024. Geely Holding's product belt is too narrow, prone to internal fights, and Chery's intelligence level is still far from the leader.
Therefore, January is just a test of the battlefield in 2024 for major car companies. The real competition will probably start in March.
Overall, the sales data for January this year doesn't seem to say much. And now that it has entered February, affected by the Spring Festival and the reduction of working days, it is expected that the customer flow and sales of 4S stores may decline significantly.
We expect that the involution of China's automotive industry will continue in 2024. The first-class war mode in 2023 may be continued, and the automotive industry will also usher in a major reshuffle. If you don't do your best in this year, the competition will be even more difficult in the future.
2023 is the first full year after the special period, and China's automobile sales will exceed 30 million units for the first time. In 2024, standing above 30 million vehicles, it will be a year of big waves, and no one's market position will be stable.
Text |High one fly.
Edit |Zhang Yuzhe.
Produced by |There are reports of driving.