In 2021, the impact of multiple factors such as the lifting of the ban on China's pickup truck market in many parts of the country, the release of pickup truck standards, chip shortages, and epidemic prevention and control will continue to release its potential. The annual sales of pickup trucks in the narrow sense ended with 391218 units, continuing to occupy the position of the world's second largest pickup truck market, and the growth potential is at the forefront of the world's major pickup truck markets. While the market as a whole is still in a benign development range, domestic pickup truck products themselves are also constantly evolving, becoming more passenger, high-end, intelligent, and networked, and the product strength and functional richness are gradually moving closer to passenger car standards and in line with international standards.
After more than two years of rapid development, China's pickup truck industry has made great progress, but even so, it is still difficult to cover up the embarrassment of pickup truck models in the objective social environment, which is incompatible with the city and is difficult to conquer the vastst number of passenger car consumers. The main reasons for this contradiction include practical policy resistance, market stereotype restrictions, consumer concept constraints, and uneven product levels, and China does not currently have the soil for the pickup truck market to thrive like the United States.
The world's most demanding management environment, China is very unfriendly to pickup trucks
Whenever it comes to the development of China's pickup truck industry, management policies are a topic that can never be bypassed. China can be called the world's most stringent pickup truck management country, the prohibition of traffic, 15 years of mandatory scrapping, annual inspection and other contradictions led to a serious suppression of consumption potential, while Southeast Asia, Australia, North America and other regions, the production, purchase, use of pickup trucks green light. Policy resistance has led to China's pickup truck market has been in a deformed state, although the product force continues to upgrade, but it has never been able to get rid of the shackles brought by the attributes of trucks, it is difficult to play the true positioning of its own multi-purpose models, and can only exist as a freight vehicle for a long time.
Although the mainland has been promoting the lifting of the ban on pickup trucks since 2016, and has issued a series of policies to improve the environment of the car such as "etc." "USing ETC", "Canceling the Spray/Reflective Strip", "Canceling the Dual Certificate", etc., the stereotype of the market for pickup trucks has long been deeply rooted and cannot be reversed in a short period of time. Moreover, the implementation of policies such as the lifting of the ban on pickup trucks is not smooth, and in some areas, traffic management personnel do not know or are unwilling to perform after the release of the new policy, resulting in users still being investigated and punished in accordance with laws and regulations, and there is a phenomenon of policy regression in some areas, which seriously damages market enthusiasm.
Market stereotypes are deeply entrenched, and it will take time to get rid of the old image
The Chinese auto market has always had a serious stereotype of pickup trucks, which has led to serious differentiation in the Chinese pickup truck market. When it comes to domestic pickup trucks, the vast majority of consumers' cognition is a pure tool freight model applied to agricultural production, engineering construction, and infrastructure projects, which is not compatible with life and leisure. Referring to the High-priced imported models such as the Ford Raptor and Toyota Tantu, they are domineering and powerful luxury cars, which belong to the toys of the rich, ordinary people are not blessed to consume, and the popular models that should be used for both business and passenger in the market are seriously lacking.
There are two main reasons for this stereotype, one is the above-mentioned policy resistance, long-term policy restrictions have led to a serious lag in the development of domestic pickup trucks in the past few decades; the other is the car culture factor, the car is often the representative of "face" in China, is a symbol of wealth and status. Pickup trucks can often not meet the consumer's sense of vanity, and naturally they are at a disadvantage in model competition. Pickup truck products want to get rid of the "low-end" label, there is still a long way to go, need to work from brand building, product design, market guidance and many other aspects.
The change of consumption concept is obviously lagging behind, and the upgrading space is huge
The most direct impact caused by market stereotypes is the solidification of consumption concepts, and the pace of consumption upgrading is relatively lagging behind. Since 2019, domestic pickup trucks have been vigorously developed in the direction of passenger, intelligent, scientific and technological, and high-end, which has indeed changed the market concept to a certain extent, but the main sales models are still dominated by low-end models. Before 2019, new car sales are mainly concentrated in 70,000-100,000 yuan of economic tool pickup trucks, and high-end pickup truck products are relatively niche. In the past two years, under the high-end offensive of pickup truck models, mid-range models of 100,000-140,000 yuan have begun to become hot spots in the market, but 70,000-100,000 yuan tool-type pickup trucks are still the mainstay of the market, and high-end products priced at more than 150,000 yuan have gradually been accepted by consumers.
Therefore, although the current domestic pickup truck has made up for the gap between low-end economic models and luxury imported products in the market at the product level, it has gradually been recognized and supported by more and more consumers. However, the change of consumption concept is obviously lagging behind the pace of product upgrading, commercial demand is still the basic disk of the market, the share of commercial and dual-use demand needs to be further explored, and the share of pure passenger demand still has a lot of room for exploration.
The level of products is uneven and cannot impress mainstream consumers
In addition to the above objective factors, the most basic problem currently existing in domestic pickup trucks is that the product level is uneven. Although a number of high-end passenger products have been born in the market, there are only a few products whose comprehensive product strength can be compared with passenger cars. Most of the so-called high-end passenger models are actually not separated from the truck research and development thinking, and the chassis architecture, ergonomics, and configuration experience are not much different from the old models. These products have only been improved at the level of appearance and configuration that is most easily observed by consumers, and the foundation is still the old technology that has been used for many years, so it is not only unable to impress the discerning mainstream consumer population, but also impossible to attract passenger car consumers.
The main reason for this situation is that the market environment is relatively solidified, and some companies can survive even if they stick to the rules. China's pickup truck market is relatively closed, there are few joint venture brands, and the frequency of emerging brands is extremely low, resulting in the lack of sufficient vitality and catfish effect stimulation in the market, and most enterprises lack innovative awareness and progressive thinking. Therefore, some enterprises have insufficient technical reserves, do not have the strength to match in the face of emerging market trends, and can only be temporarily patched together according to existing technologies, and the products are immature and difficult to meet market requirements.
Write at the end
The high-end and passenger exploration that has been carried out since 2019 is a good start to try to change the status quo of China's pickup truck market, and the progress of China's pickup truck industry is obvious to all. However, whether it is managers, producers or consumers, it is still in the early stage of the "revolution" of China's pickup truck industry, and there is still a long way to go in the face of the thinking obstacles and environmental resistance formed over the past three decades.
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