In the past two years, independent brands have not only been superior in products, but also frequently out of the circle in terms of marketing, especially with the entry of Huawei and Xiaomi, the automobile market has become a training ground for technology companies. On the other hand, except for Volkswagen, which is firmly catching up with China's speed, other joint venture brands do not have much noise, and Honda has also begun to shrink strategically in the face of the impact of its own brands.
A few days ago, according to the Nihon Keizai Shimbun, Honda's China headquarters minister Masayuki Igarashi said in an interview that it will implement large-scale personnel optimization in China, reduce fixed costs, and accelerate preparations for the transformation of pure electric vehicles.
Although Honda China's public relations department quickly refuted the rumors, the domestic translation was inaccurate, and Honda's enterprises in China did not plan to lay off employees, and in fact, they would no longer make up for employees who left naturally. However, in the face of the serious involution of the Chinese auto market, the life of joint venture brands is indeed not easy.
The impact of independent brands is too great
In 2023, China's automobile production and sales will complete 301610,000 and 300940,000 units, up 11. y/y6% and 12%, and the production and sales volume have ranked first in the world for 15 consecutive years. Among them, the production and sales of new energy were completed 95870,000 and 94950,000 units, an increase of 358% and 379%, with a market share of 316%。
Among them, the market share of independent brands continues to increase.
According to the data, in 2023, a total of 1,459 Chinese brand passenger cars will be sold60,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 241%, with a market share of 56%, an increase of 6 compared with the previous year1 percentage point. In the 2023 passenger car retail sales ranking of the Passenger Car Association, five of the top ten are Chinese auto brands, namely BYD, Geely, Changan, Chery, etc.
The annual sales of major joint venture automakers fell most of the year-on-year periods, with SAIC-GM, Dongfeng Nissan, and Guangqi Honda all declining by double digits; Many joint venture brands have withdrawn from the Chinese market, such as GAC Mitsubishi, GAC FCA, etc.; In addition, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen, Beijing Hyundai, are already in a precarious situation, GAC Mitsubishi completely faded out of the Chinese market.
In the current new energy market, a clear ranking has been formed, such as the mid-to-high-end market is firmly occupied by new forces such as Weilai and Ideal, and the low-end market has a strong system of independent brands harvesting.
In addition to BYD's dynasty family, Geely also brought the main cost-effective Galaxy series, and Aion has also achieved outstanding results through high cost performance. However, the joint venture brands have not performed particularly well in various market segments, and have failed to keep up with the rapid growth of new energy vehicles, which is an important reason for the continuous loss of market share of joint venture car companies.
In the face of an increasingly involuted market and the impact of electrification, Honda China's performance in 2023 has been greatly affected. According to official data, Honda's cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in the Chinese market in 2023 will be 1234181 units, a decrease of 10% from 20221%。
Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars has been increasing in the past two years. On the other hand, the export market with strong performance is dominated by Chinese brands. In addition, in the process of exploring experience, Chinese brands have established a complete and controllable industrial chain.
**It is difficult to make a profit under the war
In 2023, which has experienced extreme involution, the products of many joint venture brands have almost been reconstructed, and the profit cows of joint venture brands have been carried out to varying degrees. At present, Passat, Magotan, Camry, Accord and other models all have different discounts, and they are tens of thousands of yuan cheaper than before the war.
Taking the former B-class car sales champion Guangqi Honda Accord as an example, before 2023, the low-profile version of the fuel model will be about 200,000 yuan, after the impact of the new energy of the independent brand and the first battle, the landing ** directly came to 16-170,000 yuan, although the current **model** has risen some, but the overall ** has been far from the previous high premium era, for the joint venture brand, the money in the Chinese market is becoming more and more difficult to earn.
In the face of the general trend of new energy, the joint venture brand also hopes to quickly transform in order to catch up with the speed of China's new energy market, and the head of Honda China also emphasized that in 2024, it will continue to transform to new energy vehicles and compete with price cuts, and revealed that due to the impact of price reductions, it is difficult for fuel vehicles, including hybrid models, to make profits, and will make full use of the previous profits and fuel vehicle profits to survive before full electrification.
For China, the world's largest electric vehicle market, Honda doubles down on its bets.
In 2021, Honda launched its new all-electric vehicle brand "e:n", plans to launch 10 e:n series electric vehicles in China within five years, and plans to build dedicated electric vehicle factories in Guangzhou and Wuhan. According to the plan, all new models launched by Honda in China after 2030 will be electrified models such as pure electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles, and no new fuel vehicles will be introduced.
In order to fully embrace electrification, Guangqi Honda will build a new electrification plant, which will be put into operation in 2024 with a total investment of 34900 million RMB. In addition, in terms of channels, Guangqi Honda will rely on digital platforms such as the new offline e-center, e-space, more than 600 franchised stores nationwide, and online APP to provide maintenance services for e:NP users.
The transformation of electrification is easy to say, but the real implementation is the investment of real money, research and development of electric technology and new products, the construction of new factories, upgrade channels, etc., which require a lot of capital investment, and these investments can not guarantee whether these joint venture brands can catch up with the speed of their own brands in the future, so the transformation of joint venture brands is really too difficult, and Honda China's decision to optimize personnel is also a helpless move.
For joint venture brands, they were unwilling to firm up their new energy strategy in the past, and they couldn't let go of the high profit margins of fuel vehicles. Obviously, at the moment when the penetration rate of new energy is getting higher and higher, the joint venture brand is no longer able to retreat.