Introduction |
2022/01/14
Stimulated by the wave of electrification, BMW's moves and styles are quite thrilling.
Author 丨 Luo Chao
Responsible editor 丨 Cao Jiadong
Edit 丨 Chic
The struggle between BMW and Mercedes-Benz and Audi has always been a needle to Mai Mang, under the layout of many years of operation, they all have an unshakable territory of influence, stimulated by the wave of electrification, the moves between the three are quite thrilling, and this time, it seems that BMW is better.
The king of the traditional era
"We are delighted to announce that the BMW brand has taken the number one spot in the global luxury car market in 2021. This is the result of BMW's excellent product lineup and operating performance. A few days ago, BMW's head of sales, Pieter Nota, was eager to "show off" BMW's achievements over the past year on social networking sites.
From the perspective of the global market, the BMW Group delivered a total of 2.522 million new vehicles (including BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce) worldwide in 2021, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year. Among them, the global sales of the BMW brand reached 2.214 million units, an increase of 9.1% year-on-year, once again setting a record high.
At this point, after 5 years of hidden tolerance, BMW finally surpassed Mercedes-Benz in "a snow shame" and once again stood on the throne of the global sales champion. Among them, China, as BMW's largest single regional market, undoubtedly plays a key cornerstone role.
In fact, under the haze of the continuous impact of lack of cores, the capriciousness of the epidemic and the high cost of raw materials, BMW is the only brand in the "Top Three Ashkenazi Luxury" to achieve year-on-year growth in China. According to official data, BMW delivered a total of 846,000 new cars in China in 2021, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year and accounting for nearly 34% of global sales.
Throughout the year, the high-end demand for consumption upgrades is still strong, which is one of the main market driving forces to boost the luxury car market, and also makes the market structure of luxury cars continue to remain stable. The reason why BMW can stand out under such a general trend is that many important revamped models in BMW's layout in recent years have passed through the climbing period and burst out a strong market impetus last year.
The redesigned BMW 5 Series, BMW X3, the replacement of the 4 Series and the new M series related models and BMW iX3 and other models have successively landed on the BMW IX3 and other models to continue BMW's strong product strategy in the past 3 years, so that BMW's product matrix has been further strengthened, coupled with Mercedes-Benz's strict defense against sales quality last year, but also let BMW occupy a certain degree of advantage in the price of the market terminal.
From the perspective of market segmentation, BMW 3 Series and 5 Series staged a "joint rule", retail sales have exceeded the 170,000 mark, an increase of 12.1% and 8.3% year-on-year, bmw X3 also from the Mercedes-Benz GLC and Audi Q5 surrounded by a strong breakout, contributing nearly 150,000 sales results, an increase of 11.6% year-on-year.
In addition, BMW X5 and BMW X7 also achieved breakthroughs, of which bmw X5 annual sales exceeded 50,000 units for the first time, and BMW X7 also delivered more than 10,000 vehicles together with BMW 4 Series.
Of course, we say that a competitive car brand, the model lineup is always indispensable to the following roles: flagship, halo car is on top, hero car takes into account the scale and premium, profit cow is unique, the main car impacts sales, and the entry car cultivates the fan base.
As the main models created a sales base, the sales of the BMW M brand also continued to rise, up 38.9% over the same period last year. The number is not important, the important point is that the M model uses an upward curve to show that it still carries bmw's soul and faith high, and continues to empower BMW's brand power.
However, since the beginning of this year, BMW's struggle with Mercedes-Benz and Audi is largely based on the distribution structure of chips, and the actual sales volume is directly linked to production, and its relatively perfect and flexible product supply chain is the second important reason why BMW can achieve such results.
Under the urgent situation of the global "chip shortage", the lack of core is the main theme of the giants, and no one can be alone, but how to deal with the challenges that ensued in the transformation has divided them into different shapes. BMW's advantage is that it has established a relatively stable supplier system and logistics system in Germany, the United States, Eastern Europe and Mexico, so that it can still maintain a certain market flexibility in the face of the pressure of lack of cores, and relatively flexible planning and distribution.
In other words, BMW's strength is not that the opponent has become weaker, but that the opponent is limited, and once BMW has a little slackness, or shows a sense of weakness, then the competitors will hear the noise and quickly seize market share.
"A year ago we thought that the transformation was taking place in the coexistence of growing demand and current demand, and now it proves that this demand is more diverse." On the one hand, it is required that BMW's traditional product line must continue to polish itself and further improve product competitiveness, and the bmw X3 with a medium-term redesign will increase the standard to more than 30 is a successful attempt; on the other hand, it also requires that BMW need to further improve the transition mechanism, strengthen the market share of new energy products in the transformation process, and provide sufficient follow-up support for BMW's traditional models.
Last year marked the tenth anniversary of the BMW i brand, and the BMW iX3 and BMW iX not only kicked off the second phase of BMW's electrification strategy, but also brought real sales growth to BMW. According to the data, last year, BMW's new energy models sold more than 48,000 units in the Chinese market, an increase of 69.6% year-on-year. Among them, BMW iX3 in the first full sales year of sales of more than 21,000 units, BMW said that since 2014, BMW in the Chinese market has delivered nearly 140,000 new energy vehicles, which is the third key factor supporting BMW sales.
At a time when traditional car companies are stepping on the huge wave of electrification, the stage of new energy has long been inseparable, and to open up a new situation in a new dimension, BMW is bound to be unable to relax.
According to the plan, this year BMW will present 7 new energy products in the Chinese market: including 5 pure electric models, BMW iX, BMW i4, BMW iX3, pure electric 3 series, a pure electric flagship, and 2 plug-in hybrid models. By 2023, BMW plans to offer at least one purely electric model in all core segments of the market, from compact to large luxury vehicles.
Cruel new energy
Accelerating the expansion of the new energy product line and accelerating the electrification process has become an important part of BMW's strategy to deepen China. However, the seemingly turbulent market layout can not stop BMW's current dilemma in the new energy market - most of BMW's sales in the new energy market are mainly from plug-in hybrid models such as BMW 5 Series new energy, but in the field of pure electric in full swing, it is not enough.
"They've had very strong growth by cutting prices, and we're not going to do that because you have to be able to stick with it." Previously, Chiptzer had somewhat "scoffed" at Tesla's price war and said that Tesla was not a major player in the high-end car market.
The embarrassing point is that bmw iX3's seemingly good results also have the "credit" of a sharp price reduction. With the listing of the domestic Model Y, bmw iX3 also immediately lowered the head of "arrogance", and the official announced a price reduction of 70,000, which suddenly pulled the price system to the price range of 400,000 yuan.
Not only that, in the actual investigation of the media, in order to boost the sales of BMW iX3, dealers have discounted 50,000 yuan on the basis of the official price reduction, and the cumulative price reduction of 120,000 has pulled the BMW iX3 into the survival range of Model Y, and even lower than the price of BMW X3, which has barely regained part of the market share, which is tragic.
When BMW launched a charge towards the pure electric highland without hesitation, it should also calmly think about why iX3 failed to continue the shock and thinking brought by i8 and i3 to the industry, and had to survive through a sharp price cut. The BMW IX that has just been listed has also been gradually drowned out by the question of "too expensive"?
Some people say that bmw's second phase of the first electric vehicle market is cold because they are not pure enough, and the modular scalable architecture platform is just a modification of the "oil to electricity" model.
This may be one of the problems, but recall that Tesla and "Wei Xiaoli" can be so subversive, the core factor is not whether it adopts a pure electric positive platform, but that they do give cars unique product attributes in the field of new energy, or unique scientific and technological feelings, or meticulous service systems.
BMW does have an indisputable advantage in manufacturing technology and brand influence, but the times have changed, you have to believe that the times have not only changed BMW, but also changed the standard of market judgment of luxury, "technology" is the key word of this era. The so-called "barriers" that traditional luxury forces are proud of, such as "manufacturing process" and "brand", are no longer so important.
BMW was still too confident before, or it made a mistake in its judgment of the situation in the Chinese market. Whether from the perspective of endurance, automatic driving or intelligent cockpit, BMW's electric model has not formed a corresponding technical advantage, and the lackluster product strength is not enough to support the high product premium, nor has it completely reversed BMW's inherent cognition in the era of fuel vehicles, and it is impossible to adapt to the competitive environment of such an "inner volume" in the Chinese market, which makes BMW gradually throw away the distance by Tesla and others in the field of electrification.
A set of data that BMW does not want to see is that although luxury cars are the first major driving force for the growth of the car market, they are also the only market segments with declining concentration; luxury owners turn to Tesla, resulting in a 30% drop in the residual value of traditional luxury cars; the average transaction price of Weilai is higher than that of BMW; the replacement of ideal BBA user characteristics are obvious, reaching 23% of all brands...
The transformation of the new car-making force has broken the system and pattern of the traditional energy market, and has fully penetrated into the value hinterland of luxury brands, but from the current situation, BMW, which sits on the championship, is full of a sense of powerlessness of "thunder and rain".
Under the wave of new energy, BMW's past glory is no longer indestructible, and the opponents it needs to face are Tesla, China's new car manufacturing forces, and traditional car companies that want to overtake through new energy curves.
| Luo Chao |
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