In the automobile market, known as the "Golden September and Silver October", the automobile sales indicators in September have a clear weather vane. As October has passed halfway through, major manufacturers and the China Passenger Car Association have also released relevant auto market data. However, unlike in the past, Zhichepai has discovered some different places from the data this time.
Toyota Corolla
First of all, the data of the China Passenger Car Association was put on. According to statistics from the China Passenger Car Association, the retail sales of the domestic passenger car market in September reached 1.922 million units, and increased by 21.5% year-on-year. Among them, the retail sales of new energy passenger cars in September reached 611,000 units, an increase of 82.9% year-on-year. Overall, domestic sales performance in September was pretty good, but if you look at the sales performance of car companies, you will find a surprising fact: Japanese cars have seen a significant decline in both sales and market share.
September 2022 Domestic passenger car sales
Japanese "fuel-saving myth" collapsed
The reason why Japanese cars can achieve good sales in the domestic automobile market is fuel saving is an important factor. Due to the characteristics of Japan's island countries, most of its energy resources rely on imports. In the oil crisis in the 1970s, international energy prices rose sharply. In order to alleviate the increase in vehicle use costs caused by rising fuel prices, Japanese car companies had to speed up the development of high-efficiency engines and use this to "become a god". Not only did they win the title of fuel-saving for Japanese cars around the world, but they also entered the US market with this feature and gained a foothold in this huge automobile market.
In the era of fuel vehicles, the "fuel-saving myth" of Japanese cars has indeed attracted many domestic consumers, especially at that time, due to the disadvantages of independent brand car companies in engine technology, Japanese brands of the same class generally had a fuel consumption of 2-3L 100 kilometers lower than domestic cars. It would be fine if the price of gasoline is not expensive, but once the price of gasoline rises, the advantages of Japanese cars in car use will undoubtedly be revealed. This has also become an important magic weapon for Japanese cars to sell well in China.
Honda Civic
However, with the emergence and rapid development of new energy vehicles, the advantages of Japanese cars in fuel economy have gradually disappeared. Since the Japanese car cannot beat the pure fuel car track, the independent brand has chosen a new track - the new energy field.
In recent years, with the support of national policies, the development speed of domestic new energy vehicle companies can be said to be obvious to all, especially BYD , which is the most outstanding. Putting aside the leading position of domestic automakers in pure electric models. Take hybrid models as an example. The domestic hybrid vehicle market was basically dominated by Toyota and Honda "two fields". Whether it is the former dual-engine model or the latter Hybrid model, they all occupy an important position in the domestic hybrid vehicle market. However, with the emergence of BYD DM-i hybrid technology, the hybrid technology of Liangtian no longer monopolizes the domestic market. With BYD's years of polishing in the field of electric vehicles and , DM-i hybrid technology is not inferior to "Two Tian" in efficiency, and even its fuel economy performance in some models is better than "Two Tian".
BYD DM-i hybrid technology
In addition to BYD, independent brands such as Changan , Geely , Chery , and Chery have also launched their own oil-electric hybrid systems, which has also made domestic independent brands' models make rapid progress in fuel performance. Moreover, compared with the price difference between the "Two Tian" fuel version and the hybrid version, the price difference between the "Two Tian" fuel version and the hybrid version of the car is often more than tens of thousands of yuan, both domestic brands have kept the price at a lower level, which has also made the Japanese brand known for its fuel savings lose a large part of its competitiveness.
, do you want to preserve your value or survive?
Another reason for the decline in sales of Japanese cars may also be related to the fact that Japanese cars no longer maintain their value as before.Due to the influence of the living environment at that time, in the minds of many older and older consumers, joint venture brands such as Japanese and German were far better than domestic cars in terms of quality, so they had a longer service life, which also brought higher market recognition and better value retention rate. Previously, an institution had counted the three-year average retention rate of domestic joint venture cars companies in the first half of 2022. "Two Tians" ranked the top four on the list, and Nissan and Mazda also ranked the top ten. It can be seen that Japanese cars were still popular in the second-hand car market at that time.
Domestic joint venture car companies' value retention rate ranking
But this performance may change soon. On the one hand, due to the decline in sales, Toyota, which had been strong in prices and even needed to increase prices, could no longer sit still and started the strategy of "using prices to sell". According to the quotation of the 4S store, Toyota's popular model Corolla has been discounted a lot in recent times. Some dealers even lowered the price by 23,000 yuan, making the starting price of Corolla directly within 100,000 yuan. This was unimaginable in the past two years. The large price discount of the terminal has also caused many used car dealers who previously bought cars at high prices to suffer heavy losses, and also affected Toyota's value retention rate among the people.
Corolla's recent price changes
Thanks to Toyota's strategy of sacrificing value retention rate for sales, Toyota still achieved good sales performance in September. Data shows that Toyota's sales in China were 173,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 50%, but it fell slightly by 3% compared with 179,000 units in the same period in 2020. Compared with the other two Japanese "brothers" Nissan and Honda, Toyota's performance in a slight decline is already considered very outstanding. Nissan's sales in China in September were 92,000 units, a 35% drop from 141,600 units in 2020, while Honda's sales in September fell by 40% compared with 168,000 units two years ago. In addition to facing competition from domestic cars, Nissan and Honda also face pressure from Toyota's price cut. Will the Japanese system become the next Korean/French system?
Due to the poor performance of Japanese systems in recent years, many "Japanese blacklists" have begun to criticize Japanese cars, saying that in the near future, the Japanese will become the former Korean and French cars, and will slowly disappear from the Chinese market and become "others". However, as of now, this situation may not happen in the short term.
On the one hand, although according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the market share of Japanese-style brand passenger cars was 19.5% from January to August, falling below 20% for the first time, it still ranks third, second only to domestic and German cars, and the market share gap with German cars is only 0.7 percentage points. It still has considerable influence in the domestic market.
China Association of Automobile Manufacturers' Automobile Manufacturers' Automobile Manufacturers' Car Market from January to August 2022 to
In addition, the sharp drop in sales of Honda and Nissan this time may also be affected by the decline in production capacity due to insufficient chip supply. Due to the previous impact of the global semiconductor industry, many automakers have had to cut production capacity. to protect vulnerable supply chains. Among them, the three Japanese companies have also been affected to a certain extent. "A clever woman can't cook without rice." The weak performance on the production side is also one of the important reasons for the decline in sales.
If it is just because of the recent decline, it is also an irresponsible manifestation to say that Japanese cars are about to be marginalized in the domestic market. Although Japanese cars have indeed encountered some problems in the domestic market, relying on so many years of deep cultivation in the Chinese market, Japanese brands still have many fans in China. In addition, there is another big killer for Japanese that has not been fully used, that is, the price reduction strategy mentioned above.
The rise of domestic automobile brands has made the domestic automobile market very fierce. German and American cars have previously chosen to give up their joint venture status and defend their domestic market through large-scale terminal discounts. This is a testament to most Chinese consumers who pursue cost-effectiveness. After Toyota used this strategy, its sales have also stabilized recently. Honda's current price is stronger than Toyota, and it also has more room to seize the market through price reduction promotions.
written at the end
The decrease in the sales share of Japanese cars also indirectly reflects the rapid rise of my country's independent brand car companies in recent years. Especially in the field of new energy vehicles, domestic automobile brands such as BYD, , Wuling , and GAC Aion are almost at the forefront of the list. Not only Japanese, but other joint venture brands such as German and American are gradually shrinking under the impact of domestic brands. As independent brands begin to advance from cost-effectiveness to high-end, those joint venture luxury brands will also be under increasing pressure in the future.
9 September domestic automaker ranking
However, at present, joint venture car companies such as Japanese and German still account for a considerable proportion in the domestic market, and it is not realistic to expect them to become the next Korean/French system in the short term. However, if the joint venture brands cannot keep up with the innovation of their own brands in their products and show sincerity in terms of price, the future of joint venture brands including Japanese may have a harder life.
