The auto market is sluggish, seeing recovery in October

With the downturn in the auto market, the “Golden September” cannot be saved. September auto sales and passenger car sales fell 1.75% and 0.30% year-on-year, marking a full year-on-year sales growth for the seventh consecutive month. Affected by the huge decline in sales of Japanese cars, sales of self-owned passenger cars increased year-on-year, month-on-month, and market share. When will the status quo of the downturn in the auto market be solved?

In the first three quarters of this year, the Chinese auto market entered the corner in the fourth quarter. How to revitalize the brand consumer confidence and sprint the sales target in the fourth quarter has long been an urgent issue for many Japanese car companies. Fortunately, Japanese car companies that have almost completely suspended relevant marketing campaigns for more than a month have recently begun to make low-profile successes, including the listing of GAC Mitsubishi, the care of Japanese cars being beaten, and the change of Lexus LS 460L. The listing and FAW Toyota’s “Enjoyment Action” all revealed that Japanese companies have been trying to rediscover consumers’ recognition of their brands, regain those markets lost in the past month, and restore market confidence. Or as a Japanese joint-venture vehicle company public relations said: "If the Japanese cars sit still, competitors will be idle." And this for the downturn in the auto market, October may see the dawn of recovery.

1

The monthly sales volume for this year saw the second year of negative growth year-on-year. In September of this year, the production and sales of automobiles were 16.606 million and 1.167 million, respectively, which represented an increase of 10.62% and 8.17% from the previous quarter. The year-on-year increase was 3.67% and -1.75%. Most notably, car sales fell for the first time since February of this year, ending the year-on-year positive growth record for the seventh consecutive month in 2-8 months.

In the first eight months of this year, the year-on-year growth of automobile production and sales has increased by 0.35 and 0.56 percentage points over the previous seven months, and it has begun to show a steady upward trend. However, the “Golden September” that was originally hoped for has not expanded its results, resulting in the first nine The month-on-year growth in production and sales fell to 4.98% and 3.37%, respectively, compared with 0.2 and 0.7% in the previous eight months.

The passenger car is basically in line with the overall sales situation of the car, and sales have also declined for the first time since February of this year. Passenger cars produced and sold 1,352,800 units and 1,135,600 units respectively, an increase of 10.12% and 7.93% month-on-month, and an increase of 6.10% and -0.30% respectively. Sales of passenger vehicles in the first nine months of this year were down 6.94% year-on-year, dragged down by sales of passenger vehicles in September. The growth rate fell by about 1 percentage point from the previous August.

2

The sales of “Jin 9” for the first time in the past three years have seen a year-on-year decline. From the longitudinal comparison of the data, the year-on-year decline in sales in September this year was the first time in sales statistics for “Jin 9” in the past three years. It is reported that in September 2010, the sales volume was 1.5566 million units, an increase of 16.88% year-on-year. In September 2011, the sales volume was 1.6461 million units, an increase of 5.74% year-on-year. Until September this year, the sales volume was negative year-on-year, down 1.75% year-on-year.

3

Dealer's pressure on inventory in September increased Due to deviations in manufacturers' estimates of sales in September this year, the gap between production and sales in September widened, from 64,200 units in August to 43,500 units. It is reported that dealer stockpiles have been declining continuously in July and August after the stock factor of distributors reached a high point in June this year. The increase in the gap between production and sales in September will cause dealer stockpiles coefficients to rise again.

4

Japanese Sales Declined by 40.82% YoY in September

The main reason for the poor sales in September this year was the impact of the situation in the Diaoyu Islands. Japanese car production and sales have dropped significantly. In addition, the second-largest German-owned brand in passenger car sales also saw a slight drop. The monthly passenger car sales share was 19.28%, a drop of 1.56 percentage points from the previous month. According to the data of the association, FAW-Volkswagen fell 4.6% in September.

It is reported that Japanese passenger cars sold 160,000 vehicles in September, a month-on-month decrease of 29.49% and a year-on-year decrease of 40.82%, accounting for 12.16% of the total sales of passenger cars. The occupancy rate decreased by 6.46 percentage points from the previous month and was down from the same period of last year. 8.33 percentage points. The German, U.S., Korean, and French passenger cars sold 253,700 units, 168,200 units, 127,700 units, and 42,700 units in September, respectively, with the exception of German sales, which was 300 cars less than last month. Sales volume of the U.S. Department of Korea, Korean System, and Law Department have all increased significantly. Compared with the previous month, sales volume has increased by 12.13%, 15.25%, and 31.79% respectively. In September, the sales of passenger cars accounted for 12.78% and 9.71%, respectively. And 3.25%, an increase of 0.47 percentage points, 0.62 percentage points, 0.59 percentage points from the previous month.

5

Sales of Autonomous Passenger Vehicles increased year-on-year, month-on-month, and market share. According to data from China Motor Association, in September this year, the sales volume of self-owned brand passenger vehicles was 561,900, which was the second highest record for sales this year, second only to that in March. It increased by 26.55%, an increase of 7.51% over the same period of last year. In terms of market share, self-owned brands accounted for 42.72% of the total passenger car sales, and the occupancy rate increased by 6.29 percentage points from the previous month and 3.11 percentage points from the same period of last year, reversing the trend of continuous decrease in market share.

According to the data of the Federation of Travel Unions, Chery, Geely, Great Wall, and FAW Xiali won the seventh, nineth, eleventh and sixteenth sales of the car in September. Among them, FAW Xiali led the September sales of the top 16 with a month-on-month increase of 51.6%. Geely increased by 38.7% in September and the Great Wall increased by 16.3% in September.

However, from an overall point of view, the market share of self-owned brands in the field of passenger vehicles this year has still shrunk compared with the same period last year. In the first nine months of this year, a total of 4.5701 million self-owned brand passenger vehicles were sold, an increase of 2.63% year-on-year, accounting for 40.55% of the total passenger vehicle sales, and the share of the passenger vehicles decreased by 1.71 percentage points from the same period of last year.

Japanese car companies have low-key to rebuild consumer confidence. The decline in Japanese cars has caused the Chinese car market to stop abruptly. However, from the end performance, there are still days when car companies are making low-key efforts to rebuild consumer confidence. Everything is developing in the right direction. The reporter visited the Guangzhou market in the past few days and found that the current traffic flow to the Japanese car 4S shop is not much in the past, but due to the characteristics of the Japanese car's economy and durability, it has been deeply rooted in southern China, and many consumers are actually holding their money. The Japanese auto makers said that manufacturers and distributors no longer wait passively, but jointly take a more proactive market initiative to revitalize consumer confidence, such as the suspension of some basic resume advertising, marketing activities will also gradually unfold .

The reporter learned that starting from October 8, several Japanese joint ventures such as FAW Toyota, GAC Toyota, Guangzhou Automobile Honda, and Dongfeng Nissan also started to resume production, but they all slowed down significantly in terms of production cycle time. At the same time, what deserves to be mentioned is that the two Toyota joint ventures that were unintentionally exposed by the media have not only won the praise of many consumers, but also attracted the attention of other Japanese competitors. Launch related care programs to maximize consumer confidence. Similarly, all imported Japanese brands have also followed the example of joint venture brands and launched compensation programs. Lexus also introduced a new variant LS460L on October 15th, and announced that it did not completely stop the supply of imported cars as rumors from outside.

Phenomenon 1

Guangzhou Automobile Mitsubishi will enter the micro-growth era when China's auto market is the oldest SUV in five years. How should the new automakers come up with a killer?

On the 12th, Guangqi Mitsubishi Motors Co., Ltd. announced the establishment of the first new car ASX Jin Hyun on the same day off the assembly line. The killer of GAC Mitsubishi is focused on the SUV market and strives to become the largest SUV manufacturer in China within five years.

As a car company with a lot of fate, all indications are that Mitsubishi’s China strategy is speeding up and Guangzhou Automobile’s Mitsubishi has high hopes for both Mitsubishi and Guangzhou Automobile.

The first car to lock ASX Jin Xuan Guangqi Mitsubishi is jointly operated by Guangzhou Automobile Group, Mitsubishi Motors, and Mitsubishi Corporation. The cooperation period is 30 years. The registered capital is RMB 1.7 billion, of which GAC Group holds 50% of the equity and Mitsubishi Motors holds 33% of the shares. Mitsubishi Corporation holds a 17% stake. It is mainly engaged in the research, development, production, and sales of automotive and automotive parts and provides the corresponding after-sales, consulting and technical services. The general manager is Chen Yu Dashun and the executive deputy general manager is Fu Shoujie.

The first vehicle of GAC Mitsubishi Motor Co., Ltd. chose to enter the hottest SUV market in the domestic auto market. ASX Jinxuan is about to step into the highly competitive mid-range SUV market. It is understood that ASX Jin Hyun equipped with a 2.0L engine, the maximum power of 110kw, the maximum torque of 198Nm, matching CVT continuously variable transmission. Then 1.6L and 1.8L models will be introduced and matched with a 5-speed manual transmission.

Compared with the main competitor hackers, ASX Jin Hyun's selling point is higher cost performance. The disadvantage is that Mitsubishi's recognition in the domestic market is slightly inferior to that of Nissan.

Mitsubishi builds the world's largest production and sales base in three years In fact, Mitsubishi Motors wants to quickly open the market in China, the shortest way is to first introduce the domestic most famous Pajero domestically, or to introduce its famous city SUV Outlander. However, GAC Mitsubishi's "first card" in the model strategy has chosen ASX Jin Hyun.

This has a stronger strategic significance for Guangzhou Automobile Mitsubishi. Because its domestic production can not only continue the good reputation of ASX Jin Hyun's imported models, but also rely on the appeal of Mitsubishi Motors in the SUV field and the further improvement of ASX Jin Hyun's market competitiveness, it has achieved the fastest growth in the past two years. The mid-level SUV segment.

The data shows that in the past two years, ASX Jin Xuan has achieved rapid development in the mid-level SUV market. The SUV market in January-August 2012 grew by more than 30% year-on-year, and the growth rate of mid-level SUVs was much higher than that of the overall SUVs. This provided ASX Jinxuan with ample room for development.

According to the plan, Guangzhou Automobile Mitsubishi will gradually put into production a variety of strategic models, including ASX Jin Hyun, Pajero Jin Chang, etc., plans to reach 300,000 production capacity within five years after putting into production. The development goal of GAC Mitsubishi is to build GAC Mitsubishi into the world's largest production and sales base in three years and become China's largest SUV manufacturer within five years.

To cope with the launch of the new car, Guanghe Mitsubishi's channel construction is also intensifying. The sources of GAC Mitsubishi's dealers consist of three components: the original distributors in Guangqi Changfeng Channel, the excellent distributors of imported Mitsubishi and the new distributors recruited from abroad. The first batch of about 40 4S stores were officially opened after the establishment of Guangqi Mitsubishi.

Phenomenon 2

The Japanese car-loving activities that had been smashed had eased with Sino-Japanese disputes from earlier periods. Japanese-based joint ventures represented by Toyota and Honda have privately started to quietly support dealers to start “free maintenance of bedding vehicles”. Customer care action. Among them, FAW Toyota issued a "Customer 0 Burden" care program for the vehicles involved, including compensation for all non-insurance repairs. If the customer proposes to replace the new FAW Toyota car, it can provide 20,000 yuan in subsidies, etc. . The specific range of vehicles that can be compensated is FAW Toyota's domestic vehicles that were smashed from September 10 to September 30. The processing time is from October 8 to October 31.

Guangzhou Automobile's caring program shows that manufacturers will redeem them according to the compensation rate of “20,000 yuan/vehicle before valuation”. If the damaged vehicle can be used after being repaired, GAC Toyota can also redeem the goods according to the corresponding compensation standards or bear some maintenance costs other than insurance. According to the certification method announced in the notice, the vehicle that can obtain compensation is defined in principle according to the time of injury on September 10 to 21, and the owner of the vehicle must also provide an alarm certificate, customer service call record, or insurance company record. It was confirmed by both GAC Toyota and distributors. In addition, the reporter learned that Honda and Nissan have begun to provide necessary support to those dealers who suffered serious losses and help them tide over the difficulties.

Phenomenon 3

Dongfeng Nissan Launches "Guangzhou Strategy"

In response to the positive response of the Guangzhou New Deal, Dongfeng Nissan also released the "Guangzhou Strategy" and introduced the implementation details.

The core contents include "Guangba", which helps dealers to solve practical problems, and the "Easy Plan" to provide Guangzhou consumers with humanized, all-round, quick and convenient car purchase services. The reporter learned that Dongfeng Nissan’s focus on “Guangba” is to stabilize the dealer’s military. Including the limited purchase in Guangzhou, Dongfeng Nissan will adjust the sales volume of dealers in Guangzhou. In addition to the assessment of distributor sales in July-August, the sales rebates for various distributors in the Guangzhou region have been adjusted to the free-disbursed funds of the franchise stores. To cope with the New Deal's pressure on distributors' funds and inventory, Dongfeng Nissan also communicated with the banks to ease pressure on distributors' funds, and at the same time launched a more competitive financial car-buying service program for consumers.

Phenomenon 4

Lexus changes LS 460L landing in China On the 15th, Lexus officially announced that the new flagship model LS460L will be launched on the Chinese market. The market price will be 149 million yuan for the LS460L and 1.638 million yuan for the LS460L. The LS460L will be extended for a long time. All-wheel drive version of 1.798 million yuan.

According to reports, the new LS460L on the market has more than 3,000 improvements. It not only uses Lexus' new family front-faced spindle-shaped grille design, but also includes three world-first-use forward-looking technologies and the first-ever application of over 12 Lexus models. Functions and technological innovations, etc., all continue the LS from the birth of Lexus was given the concept of manufacturing cars - the production of "the world's best luxury car."

Yang Lin, the head of Lexus’s China PR, told reporters that Lexus did adjust the import volume of some models according to market conditions, but it did not completely stop the supply of imported cars as rumors. In addition, the same as a Japanese luxury brand, Infiniti public relations director Ge Ran also told the media: "At present, imports are still carried out as usual, but the quantity will be adjusted according to the amount of orders." Meanwhile, according to Ge Ran, Infiniti JX still as planned in the fall of the original plan It has not been affected.

Phenomenon 5

FAW Toyota promoted the “Enjoy Purchase Action” service card to meet the Guangzhou purchase restriction policy. FAW Toyota also officially launched a “special supply” market initiative for Guangzhou on Monday, mainly from the purchase of new cars, used car replacement, car loans, and Four aspects of after-sales service have designed the easiest and quickest way for consumers to purchase cars, and have played a big service brand.

According to Tian Wei, regional director of FAW Toyota's South China Branch, FAW Toyota first started with the source of the car, providing consumers with one-on-one services in the three phases of the shake, number plate auction, and after the index is awarded. It is reported that all FAW Toyota 4S stores have special personnel to organize the Yaohao information for the car buyers, guide the entire process and assist in participating in the number plate auction, etc. In terms of products, FAW Toyota also has a strong advantage, from the small low-end Vios, the middle of the corolla. Corolla, to the top of the crown and 10 models such as SUV, MPV, are enough to cover consumer demand. At the same time, in response to the used vehicle replacement requirements in the restricted license policy, FAW Toyota Motor Co., Ltd. not only provided one-stop service for consumers in the sales of used cars, new car purchases, and application of new car indicators, but also in October. Customers who have used a replacement car before the 31st can also get 2,000 yuan (free limit) and 500 yuan maintenance time vouchers for free; in addition, purchase financial services, 3A insurance services, and seamless docking after-sales service points are all consumption. Providers provide the best quality car purchases.