In the past two years, the sales of new energy vehicles have continued to be hot, and in 2023, the production and sales of new energy vehicles in China will reach 95870,000 and 94950,000 units, an increase of 358% and 379%, and the market share has exceeded 30% for 8 consecutive months.
The sales of some brands represented by BYD, Tesla, Geely Automobile, GAC Aion, and Ideal continue to be hot; However, there are some new car-making forces in the market who are struggling, and even some new energy vehicles cannot withstand the pressure and close their stores one after another.
Before the Chinese New Year, there was news circulating on the Internet that Gaohe Automobile's booth in Guangzhou's Tianhe CBD had been closed.
Gaohe Automobile also posted a notice on the glass door of the store, which mentioned that due to internal reasons of the brand, it was unable to continue to operate in Guangzhou Gaode Land Plaza.
In addition to the closure of the Guangzhou store, according to netizens, the Gaohe store in Taikoo Li, Chengdu was also withdrawn some time ago.
As for why Gaohe stores continue to close, in Gaohe's own words, it is an internal adjustment.
According to the staff of the property management office of Guangzhou Gaode Land Plaza, the real reason for the timely closure of the Gaohe Auto store was that the rent was not paid, so the mall stopped providing services to it.
In addition to the closure of stores, it was also rumored on the Internet that Gaohe included the suspension of wages, the cessation of new project development, etc., but for these news, Gaohe soon came out to refute the rumors, which was completely out of nowhere, and Gaohe Automobile is still in normal operation, but there are indeed some last elimination systems, which is just the normal business behavior of the enterprise.
Having said that, there is an undeniable fact that Gaohe's sales in the past two years are indeed not too optimistic.
From the very beginning, Gaohe Automobile has positioned high-end cars, and its pricing is relatively expensive, and a single car can reach between 300,000 and 800,000 yuan, and the corresponding sales volume is not so large.
4,237 units were sold in 2021 and 4,520 units were sold in 2022, as for what the sales volume of Gaohe cars will be in 2023, we have not seen their official data, but judging from the data of third-party statistics, the sales volume in a single month is also not very much.
Among them, the total sales volume of the three models of Gaohe Automobile in November 2023 is only 696 units, and according to the data released by the Passenger Association, the cumulative sales of all models of Gaohe Automobile in December 2023 are only 564 units, according to which it is estimated that the annual sales volume of Gaohe Automobile should be between 6,000 and 8,000 units.
Judging from the sales volume of Gaohe Automobile, it is not profitable at all. For new energy vehicle manufacturers, 100,000 is a break-even point, and if the annual sales volume does not reach more than 100,000, it is difficult to achieve profitability.
Although the unit price of Gaohe Automobile is relatively high, and the sales volume to achieve the break-even point is relatively low, it is difficult to achieve profitability without an estimated sales volume of more than 30,000 units, and the only way to maintain operations is to maintain operations through external financing.
However, in the past two years, the competition in the new energy vehicle industry has been fierce, and the financing is obviously not as good as before.
For example, WM Motor, which was once very hot, has fallen in 2023, at the beginning, for the news of the collapse of WM Motor, WM Motor also refuted the rumors many times, but then all the rumors became true, in addition to WM Motor, Reading Motor also went out of business, Singularity Car also went out of business, and some unknown cars fell more.
If the time period is extended to five years, the new forces that have fallen in the last five years will be one after another. At present, there are about 40 new energy vehicle brands that are still in normal operation, and more than 400 new energy vehicle brands have disappeared from the market in the past few years, and some have fallen before they even made a car.
Seeing the competitive situation of new energy vehicles today, have you thought of the competition pattern of mobile phones in the past?
In the years when mobile phones were transforming from feature phones to smart phones, many mobile phone brands suddenly appeared on the market for a while, and many people wanted to seize this outlet and take off.
According to research data from more than 70 major countries around the world, at its peak in 2017, there were 720 active smartphone brands in the world; However, by 2023, there will only be 250 active smartphone brands left in the world, which is equivalent to more than 65% of mobile phone brands disappearing compared to their peak.
In China, there are also many mobile phone brands that have disappeared, and the familiar LETV mobile phones, hammer mobile phones, Meitu mobile phones, 360 mobile phones, 8848 titanium mobile phones, and Gionee mobile phones have been difficult to find in the market.
Even if there are some mobile phone brands that have not disappeared, there is basically no big market space, and the current global mobile phone market is basically occupied by a few head manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung, OPPO, vivo, Xiaomi, and Transsion.
According to the "Global Mobile Phone Quarterly Tracking Report" released by IDC, the five brands with the largest global mobile phone market share in 2023 are Apple (201%), Samsung (194%), Xiaomi (125%），oppo（8.8%), Transsion (81%), these 5 brands account for 69% of the global mobile phone market share, and the remaining 200 brands need to share the remaining 31%.
According to this development trend of the mobile phone market, more market share will be tilted towards the head manufacturers in the future, and some small manufacturers will go bankrupt sooner or later.
Mobile phones are like this, and new energy vehicles are estimated to be not far away.
The current pattern of new energy vehicles is like the mobile phone in previous years, many manufacturers want to get a piece of the pie, but many manufacturers do not have any core technology or core competitiveness, most manufacturers are from the first business to purchase parts for assembly, and then package and sell.
This kind of assembly may lead to some sales in the short term, but in the long run, it will soon become problematic.
On the contrary, those leading manufacturers with strong scientific research strength and many core technologies will be recognized by more and more consumers.
The recognition of consumers can bring more sales to these leading car manufacturers, so that they have more funds for research and development, thereby further widening the gap with other brands.
According to this development trend, the Matthew effect in the automotive industry will become more and more obvious, and more new energy vehicle brands will go out of business in the future, and eventually most of the market share of new energy vehicles will be divided by the top 20 or even the top 10 car manufacturers.