A sudden epidemic has disrupted the established plans of many companies, but also made the already low sales of the car market worse, but a closer look at the performance of the market segments, you will find that there is a category of models are bucking the trend of soaring.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), in July this year, the total sales of the domestic wide-body light passenger industry was 14,784 units, up 49.9% year-on-year. At the same time, China's European light passenger market in the first half of this year, total sales of 85,600 units, an increase of 26.38% over the same period last year.
On the one hand, during the epidemic everyone stayed at home, boosting the capacity of the city distribution logistics, and the increased demand for emergency vehicles has also become the main direction of the light bus conversion; on the other hand, the rise of the "stalls economy" has also allowed light buses to join the urban youth entrepreneurial army, becoming a new growth point.
It must be said that the epidemic is also quietly affecting people's consumption habits and choices.
Special period of strong growth? Niche independent beyond joint venture
European wide-body light passenger generally refers to the vehicle width of 2 meters of light buses, which Iveco, JLF, JAC, SAIC Datsun, BAIC Foton and other series of light buses belong to this type of model.
In the past, the domestic market sales of wide-body light bus market is occupied by JZ Ford Transit and Iveco and other models, independent car companies have been difficult to surpass, and this situation is expected to be broken.
From the perspective of the overall light passenger market, in July this year, light passenger vehicle sales of the top 5 companies in turn for Jiangling Motors, SAIC Datsun, Chongqing Changan, Foton and Nanjing Iveco.
But in the segment of wide-body light buses, SAIC Datsun has topped the sales list for 3 consecutive months, with sales of 4,579 units in July this year, a year-on-year increase of 165.91%, and a market share of 31%.
Wang Rui, general manager of SAIC Datsun, revealed that SAIC Datsun actually started as a wide-body light passenger, and the first product V80 has accumulated sales of 190,000 units, and this year it has made adjustments to both price and configuration, and has "increased its market share by 7 percent," which is a significant effect.
So on August 28, SAIC Datsun even released four wide-body light passenger products in a row, hoping that in this segment through a variety of product layout, to maintain the leading edge just taken. "SAIC Datsun in terms of products, the need to quickly occupy the absolute advantage, the entire industry's technical level significantly, synchronized to push up the market capacity to improve." Wang Rui said.
But competitors are also stepping up their game, with JLF's light-vehicle products racking up sales of 40,500 units in the first half of this year, up 16.3 percent year-on-year, while its light-vehicle sales of 8,902 units in June saw year-on-year growth reach 40.3 percent.
Jiangling Ford currently has three products in the field of wide-body light buses, including a high-end product, the New Generation Transit, which was also converted into a negative-pressure ambulance during the epidemic, and its monthly sales in the first half of the year also exceeded 2,000 units.
While Jiangling Ford is not as aggressive as SAIC Datsun in terms of product layout, they are now mainly doing internal management processes to improve, hoping to save costs from optimizing production efficiency to improve profitability.
"We try to various links to control operating costs to have now, especially in the first quarter of the overall sale of cars than last year is still less than 20,000, but the profit than last year increased by 1.7 times, the total **** should be 2.7 times." ? Jin Wenhui, first executive vice president of Jiangling Motors Co. revealed to Tencent Auto.
The new trend of consumption in the post epidemic period? Logistics city distribution into the "new favorite"
This year, during the epidemic, in addition to the medical ambulance outbreak, service vehicles, modified vehicles also improved significantly. "Box Fresh, for example, cold chain fast delivery, the last kilometer are by the European wide-body light bus and Japanese narrow-body car to complete." Yang Honghai, vice president of Brilliance Renault Jinbei Automobile, believes that the change in people's consumption habits will bring a "big outbreak" of wide-body light buses.
He pointed out that the rapid development of fresh city delivery is inseparable from the change in people's consumption habits. "Now people don't need a big refrigerator, because they all want to eat fresh food, I order the same day the same day delivery on the line."
While the annual market capacity for wide-body light buses is only about 150,000 units in total, as an important product for the urban logistics and passenger transportation industry, he believes the growth rate of this segment will increase rapidly.
Meanwhile, the layout of the 7-seat or less can be on the small bus license plate, not only the C book can be driven, the holidays on the highway can also be free of charge, a standard parking space can also be stopped normally, become the choice of many private owners.
And this year, the state introduced a new policy to change the 8-9 seat light passenger from M2 category to M1 category, thus reducing the 8-9 seat light passenger highway tolls, but also to a certain extent boosted the development of this field of models.
"With the stabilization of the epidemic, intra-provincial travel as well as inter-provincial travel is gradually recovering in various provinces, and many customized route services have emerged, prompting a gradual increase in the sales of our new Transit business travel models." Jin believes that short-distance travel will usher in a round of small outbreaks, which will drive the sales of light buses in the passenger transportation industry in the second half of the year.
Wang Rui also believes that the passenger transportation market in the nine-seat car is a new market this year, the market SAIC Datsun has already achieved segment leadership, especially in the V90 after last year's listing, and this year launched the Lunjie version, in the driving experience and technological configurations have been improved, and the previous V80 to form a high and low collocation, "Our goal is that each market segment We aim to be the first in every segment."
Modified to have high profits? The ground push channel operation difficulties
Yang Honghai in April this year, before joining Brilliance Renault, has served as SAIC Datsun marketing director, sales director, brand and network director, marketing director, deputy general manager of the MPV business unit, etc., the commercial vehicle market is experienced.
He believes that one-third of the sales of European wide-body light buses will come from the retrofit market, which also has the highest profit prospects. "If it's a standardized product, there's little profit for dealers, but the market doesn't have a standard pricing system after retrofitting."
Creating profit points for dealers, thus ensuring the development of the whole sales channel, while car companies can also get a bigger profit margin from it. That's why Yang Honghai set up an independent tuning department within three months of joining Brilliance Renault Jinbei.
"Brilliance Renault Gold Cup did not do this business independently in the first two years, resulting in a lot of tuning factories in the market do not know us, do not know where our chassis come from, maintenance, maintenance, customer care how to do. This year re-did the whole reorganization, this piece of business independently, the system through."
At this point, his former owner, SAIC Datsun, had to do it earlier and more thoroughly. SAIC Datsun launched the "Spider Intelligent Selection" service as early as 2018, officially opening the automotive industry's C2B large-scale personalized intelligent customization service.
The launch of this feature app, on the one hand, is very suitable for the unique and special needs of different categories of commercial vehicles, on the other hand, also allows consumers to have more price options, the psychological feeling of "choose not to lose".
The above Vehicle Datsun just released the V80 city with the king model as an example, this car focuses on the city within the city distribution logistics vehicle, low fuel consumption operating costs are also lower, if the user in the "spider wisdom to choose" in the lowest price of only 99,900 yuan to choose the configuration.
"We want to take on more consumer upgrades with more cost-effective products. After the epidemic this year the trend is obvious, the more low-end and cheaper car sales shrinking more, but good performance, cost-effective car growth is faster." Wang Rui explained.
On top of that, of course, SAIC Datsun has long made layouts in areas such as ambulance conversion and breakfast truck conversion.
However, although the market outlook is promising, but in the sales channels of the overall industry are generally problematic. SAIC Datsun although the current product line is the most, but the operating costs in the channel sales on the subsequent increase.
"We have always said that the most effective activities in the wide-body light passenger market is to push the ground, go to a variety of markets to do push the ground, but we found that the four cars to run a different four markets, V80?PLUS City Edition to go to the logistics distribution center, the V80 City with the King to run building materials and other professional markets. V90 Yunjie version to run the flower market or high-end wedding market. EV90 is a different market again." Wang Rui pointed out.
And SAIC Datsun from last year is also doing internal structural adjustments, SAIC Datsun pickup truck "special network" this year has opened 65 new, subsequent SAIC Datsun is also considering the passenger cars, light buses, MPVs, and other core key businesses should be divided into stores to do independent dealer network.
This article comes from the author of the automobile home car, does not represent the views of the automobile home position.