Thanks to the price reduction strategy of dozens of car companies such as Ideal, Tesla, NIO, AVATR and BBA, the auto market in January this year performed reasonably and basically achieved a good start.
In January, the production and sales of domestic automobiles declined month-on-month, but continued to grow year-on-year. Specifically, the output of automobiles was 2.41 million units, a year-on-year increase of 512%, down 217%；Car sales were 24390,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 479%, but down 227%。
The field of new energy vehicles has performed more brilliantly under the stimulation of a new round of war. In January, the output of new energy vehicles reached 7870,000 units, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year3%, down 329%；Sales of new energy vehicles were 7290,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 788%, a decrease of 388%, and the market penetration rate of new energy vehicles continued to maintain a high level of 299%。
As the off-season of the traditional auto market, January has always been the low point of production and sales in the domestic auto market, and in the past two years, there has been an embarrassing situation of year-on-year decline in auto sales in January (auto sales in January 2023 and January 2022 fell by 35% year-on-year and barely flat, respectively). But this January was different, and the auto market had a rare off-season start.
Wall Street Insight Research believes that there are several reasons behind it:
First, the working days in January this year are longer than in previous years, 4 working days longer than in January 2023, which is conducive to the release of consumers' demand for car purchases before the holiday, and also makes the consumption of the auto market in January more fully driven.
Second, the car companies participating in the first-class war set off by Tesla in January 2023 are mainly new car-making forces such as Xpeng, Wenjie, GAC Aion, Leap and Nezha. In January this year, not only new car manufacturers, but also luxury car brands such as BMW, Mercedes-Benz and Audi also put down their bodies and joined the army of price cuts, and the overall auto market was significantly more preferential than in previous years.
Third, at the beginning of this year, there was no negative impact of the decline of subsidies for new energy vehicles, and the tone of the purchase tax for new energy vehicles has also been determined, so there will be no demand overdrawn in advance at the beginning of the year.
Fourth, in January 2023, due to the impact of the epidemic and insufficient transportation capacity, the export volume of automobile exports will only be 300,000 units, and the year-on-year growth rate is the lowest in the whole year. In January this year, automobile exports continued the high growth trend of last year, with an export volume of 4430,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 474%, which greatly strengthened the overall car sales level.
In the past, the sales list of new car-making forces was dominated by Wei Xiaoli, Nezha, and Leap, but now not only did Ideal lose its sales crown for the first time, but other new car-making forces were collectively overtaken by the traditional "second generation", and there was no trace in the top five sales rankings.
Specifically, in January this year, the top five sales of new car-making forces were Wenjie, Ideal, Aion, Deep Blue and Extreme Krypton, in addition to Ideal, the other four have the shadow of Cialis (Huawei), GAC, Changan and Geely.
The traditional "second generation" has begun to rise, and it is not weaker than Wei Xiaoli and other new car-making forces in terms of product models and services. In January this year, the ideal of few price reductions gave a preferential policy of 40,000 yuan to stabilize the sales champion, but in the end it was still defeated.
At present, Wei Xiaoli and other new car-making forces have begun to find another way, hoping to continue to lead the traditional "second generation" in the field of intelligence and maintain a dominant position. In addition to the high-end intelligent driving of the NCA in urban areas, which has received the blessing of Huawei's intelligent driving system, GAC Aion, Changan Deep Blue and Geely Zeekrypton have not yet performed well in the field of intelligent driving.
NIO and XPeng are betting that the era of standard intelligent driving has arrived, and the main brand of NIO will not even launch new models in 2024, choosing to accelerate in terms of urban NOA. In 2024, NIO will cover 606 cities and more than 650,000 kilometers in urban areas. Xpeng's XNGP has added 191 cities on the basis of the 52 cities that have been fully released, and the total number of cities covered will reach 243 cities.
However, it is worth noting that the increasing competitive pressure among new automakers has made many new automakers cautious about their sales targets for 2024.
Compared with the 2024 sales targets of 600,000 and 450,000 units of the traditional "second generation" Wenjie and Deep Blue, as well as the sales growth targets of 436% and 220%, new car-making forces such as NIO, Xpeng and Leapmotor are quite conservative, with sales targets of only 230,000, 280,000 and 300,000 units, a year-on-year increase of only % and 108%.
Of course, this is not a special case of new car manufacturers, even Tesla, a leading new energy vehicle company, said this year that "the growth rate of production, delivery, and shipments in 2024 may be significantly lower than in 2023". It can be seen that the competitive pressure in the field of new energy vehicles is still increasing.
To sum up, it is not easy to awaken the vitality of the auto market in January this year in the form of a long-lost good start, but it is more important whether the follow-up can continue to be prosperous.
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