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"Today's Chinese brands have changed so much that I didn't dare to think about it ten years ago." During the conversation, Gu Huanyu, a well-known brand expert, said to the car market story: "At that time, we brand workers based on our car consumption country, based on our market, consumption potential did do a lot of Chinese brand upward development related planning, but did not expect all this to come so early, so good." ”
According to his understanding, there are many reasons for the upward movement of Chinese brands, thanks to the promotion and support of relevant departments, thanks to the efforts of car companies, thanks to changes in the pattern of China's passenger car market, thanks to social and economic development, and progress in related technical fields. But there is only one dimension to measure whether Chinese brands are upward – the price of the product. "The price is to make consumers pay real money, which cannot be faked."
From the perspective of the price of Chinese brand products, In the past few years, Chinese brands have indeed undergone earth-shaking changes. On May 10, 2017, with the approval of the State Council, China Brand Day was officially established. In the four months before its establishment, the Chinese passenger car market launched a total of 86 new Chinese brand products, and the average selling price of each entry-level model was 106,200 yuan. Among them, the products with a starting price of less than 100,000 yuan account for 53 models, and only 13 products with a price of more than 150,000 yuan.
From January to April 2022, Chinese brands launched a total of 90 new products in the field of passenger cars, and the average price of entry-level models of each product has reached 143,500 yuan, of which only 24 models with a starting price of less than 100,000 yuan and 30 models with a price of more than 150,000 yuan have reached 30. It can be said that after 5 years of hard work, the Image of Chinese brands has been greatly improved, and the previous "cheap" label has been gradually torn off.
5 years to increase 37,300 yuan, this figure looks inconspicuous, but in the eyes of the head Of Chinese brand car companies, this is exchanged for countless blood and sweat, countless trial and error lessons. Taking Geely Automobile as an example, between 2015 and 2021, it took the company 7 years of hard work to increase the average selling price of bicycles by 30,000 yuan.
While Chinese brands have exchanged hardships for achievements, the entire market has come to the peak of the most intense change and the strongest uncertainty. The reshaping of the market pattern, the crisis in the supply chain, and the change in consumer demand have driven all automobile brands out of the safe zone. For Chinese brands, the challenge of continuing to move upward in the future may be much greater than in the past.
#上
Multiple rounds of trial and error on the way up
No one is born to be low-end, especially Chinese car brands. Since its birth, Chinese brands have been constantly trying to break through upwards. If you look at it from the current perspective, there is no shortage of "absurd" elements in these attempts.
The Dongfeng coupe that fell on the eve of mass production was once affectionately known as "Erkang"
Around 2007, Chinese brands set off a sports car fever, but unlike the Geely Beauty Leopard, which previously launched the main cost-effective, the sports car products launched by BYD, Brilliance, Dongfeng and other manufacturers were all aimed at the high-end crowd of their respective brands at that time. For example, The China Cool Treasure priced at 123,900-169,500 yuan, the BYD S8 priced at 165,800-206,800 yuan, and the Dongfeng coupe with a pre-sale price range of 200,000-300,000 yuan but ultimately not produced.
From the original intention of the launch of the above models, these Chinese brands really want to take advantage of the listing of sports car products to further enhance the brand's premium ability. However, from the perspective of practical effects, Chinese brands that lacked independent technology, original ability and brand accumulation at that time did not have the ability to interpret this type of model well. Under the poor market feedback, these sports cars quickly fell out of view, and the first upward attempt of the Chinese brand failed.
Since then, Chinese brands that are not willing to be low-end have opened several rounds of different attempts, including the upward movement with new brands as the carrier, such as the Ruiqi launched by Chery in 2009 and Qoros launched in 2011; as well as the rapid overtaking through the acquisition of overseas brands and technical assets, such as the BAIC Shenbao brand established by BAIC Group after acquiring Saab's vehicle platform, engine, gearbox and other technologies in 2009, and the Borgward brand acquired by Beiqi Foton There are also high-end models launched in inherent brands in order to raise the brand image, such as Geely Borui listed in 2015, Dongfeng A9 and Trumpchi GA8 listed in 2016, but without exception, these attempts have ended in failure.
It was not until the end of 2016 that the upward attempts of Chinese brands finally had some achievements, and these achievements were also thanks to the SUV market. In October 2016, the medium-sized SUV Trumpchi GS8 priced at 16.38-259,800 yuan was listed, and this car was immediately sought after after its launch, and the monthly sales once exceeded 10,000, so the sales performance even caught the official by surprise.
"At that time, we didn't expect to sell so much, and the supply chain was not prepared for this magnitude." Talking about the upward breakthrough of this car, a GAC passenger car insider once issued the above exclamation to the car market story. Subsequently, due to the limitation of transmission capacity, the sales volume of Trumpchi GS8 gradually cooled down. But this attempt at least made the Chinese brand understand that if the brand wants to hit up, the best bearing object is still the SUV.
#中
Three ways of breaking the game
Following this line of thinking, at the end of 2016, geely automobile and Great Wall Motors, two major domestic giants, have successively established their high-end brands Lynk & Co and WEY. In April and August 2017, the WEY brand launched two models, VV7 and VV5, and quickly achieved market success. In less than 8 months, the WEY brand has achieved sales of up to 86,400 vehicles; and the Lynk & Co brand is not far behind, in the first natural year after the launch of the first product Lynk & Co 01, the Lynk & Co brand achieved a cumulative sales of 120,000 vehicles. Through the SUV track that they are best at, Chinese brands began to break through the ceiling of the price of 150,000 yuan and initially mastered the code of brand upwards.
This is the first type of upward breaking idea of Chinese brands in today's passenger car market pattern - traditional car companies incubate new high-end brands and seek breakthroughs in the best market segments. After the above two brands, other car companies have also followed suit, such as the new high-end brand Xingtu released by Chery in November 2018.
The second type of upward breakthrough idea focuses on "changing tracks". From 2017 to 2019, a small number of enterprises such as Weilai, Xiaopeng, Weima, Aichi, Ideal, and Hezhong New Energy passed the "mass production" checkpoint and gradually removed the negative labels of "liar" and "PPT car".
From the perspective of product layout, the products of the new forces of the head are also deeply rooted in the high-end. After launching the ES8 at the end of 2017, NIO has successively launched ES6 and EC6 models in the market of more than 300,000 yuan. In May 2021, Li Bin, founder, chairman and CEO of WEILAI Automobile, made a bold statement, saying that the average selling price of WEILAI Automobile was 434,700 yuan, higher than the average selling price of Audi and BMW, and more than 100,000 yuan more expensive than the average selling price of Tesla China, and has initially become a high-end brand.
Xiaopeng and Ideal, with the launch of their Xiaopeng P7, Ideal ONE and other models, have gradually gained a foothold in the high-end market. In 2020, the capital market's favor for smart electric vehicle companies has made the stock prices of Enterprises such as Weilai, Xiaopeng and Ideal soar, and the market value once exceeded that of traditional giants such as Geely, Great Wall, and SAIC, and people realized the huge value that electrification and intelligence can bring in today's era.
"I really envy them, and I am also jealous of them, a car company that has not been established for a few years, obviously sells tens of thousands of vehicles a year, less than one-tenth of ours, but why is this market value so high?" At a media communication meeting, a car company executive issued the above exclamation, which is very easy to resonate in the traditional car company circle. At the same time of envy, traditional car companies have also begun to follow up, through this way of replacing the track, under the blessing of electrification and intelligence to achieve brand upwards.
As a result, Dongfeng Group's Lantu, Great Wall Motor's Salon, Changan's Avita, SAIC's Zhiji, Geely Automobile's Extreme Kr have been established, from the current delivery of product market volume, have also achieved good results, this second lane change upward route, so far it is considered to be through.
The third way to make an upward breakthrough is to create a new product sequence within the original brand through technical iteration to drive the overall high-end of the brand. Representatives of this are BYD's DM-i series and Geely's "China Star" series.
At the beginning of 2021, BYD released DM-i technology, and the previous DM-I generation, DM-II., DM-III. generation technology is different, DM-i route is mainly economical, the official promotion of vehicles equipped with the system, power loss fuel energy consumption as low as 3.8L/100km. Thanks to the increase brought by DM-i-related models, BYD achieved a double harvest of brand sales and brand value in 2021. From the perspective of sales, the brand's cumulative sales in 2021 will be 603783 vehicles, an increase of 218.3% year-on-year; and from the perspective of brand value, according to the financial report information, the average selling price of BYD brand models in 2021 has reached 153,200 yuan, surpassing the previous joint venture car company benchmark SAIC Volkswagen.
The upward trend of the Geely brand has benefited from the further absorption of Volvo's technical endorsement. In 2016, Geely and Volvo jointly developed and created the CMA super matrix architecture, at first, the architecture was applied to the Lynk & Co brand and some models of the Volvo brand, and from 2021, Geely Automobile began to further delegate the technology, as well as volvo Drive-E series engine technology, to the Geely brand, and the first models equipped with the above two technologies were Geely's "China Star" series models, including Xingyue, Xingrui, Xingyue L, and Xingyue S.
With the support of Volvo technology, although the price of the "China Star" series of models is significantly higher than that of the rest of the Geely brand, consumers' recognition of this part of the premium is also increasing day by day. In 2021, the China Star series composed of Xingrui, Xingyue L and Xingyue S sold about 210,000 vehicles throughout the year, accounting for 20% of the total sales of the Geely brand, and in the first quarter of 2022, the sales proportion of "China Star" expanded again, approaching 24%.
Under the guidance of the above three brands to break the upward trend, the price range of Chinese brands' products has changed significantly. According to the data released by GF Securities, in March 2022, the market share of Chinese brands was 45.4%, an increase of 8.5 percentage points year-on-year, and in terms of product prices, the upward breakthrough of China's brand price center was remarkable, and the market share of Chinese brand passenger cars below 50,000, 50,000-100,000, 100,000-150,000, 150,000-200,000, 200,000,000, 250,000-300,000, and more than 300,000 were respectively 100/76.3/52.3/38.8/27.3/12.0/12.8%, up 0.3/0.4/14/19.5/13.3/8.5/5.8 percentage points year-on-year, respectively.
Compared with 5 years ago, the development of Chinese brands is not what it used to be, but at the same time, the uncertainty of the development of China's passenger car market has suddenly intensified, and supply chain problems are torturing all enterprises. And what challenges will Chinese brands that have just achieved some results face?
#下
Challenges after grades
"Chinese brands are indeed upward, and the data related to the price and sales volume can also prove this, but in my opinion, most Chinese brands still have not been able to escape the vice of the old era of 'pile configuration', and still take the cost-effective route, but before the pile was the material and configuration, now the pile is chips, lidar, whether consumers use it or not, anyway, the car company is 'Leng' piled up, first roll up and then say."
Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155, the "net red" in the field of vehicle-level cockpit chips
When talking about the upward development route of today's Chinese brands, auto analyst Li Hua (pseudonym) said. According to him, MG5, which is now as low as more than 100,000, and as high as more than half a million, weilai ET7, are all equipped with "net red chip" Qualcomm Snapdragon 8155. "Behind this exposes a big problem, the upward development of Chinese brands today, many of them rely on similar piles of materials, looking at the price is high, but the profits behind it are getting lower and lower." Under the previous round of supply chain crisis, many Chinese brand models have increased prices, not only the price of electric vehicles, but even fuel vehicles have begun to rise. First, can the long-term low-profit route continue? Second, when overseas brands see the outlet and also begin to 'roll chips' and 'roll radar', will Chinese car companies be able to roll them up at that time? ”
This is true from the perspective of profits, but from the perspective of brand building, different people have different opinions, and Gu Huanyu, who has been engaged in brand work for many years, does not recognize the above statement. In his view, the cost of Chinese brands in terms of intelligence and electrification is also part of the barriers to building brands, and this step is indispensable on the way to becoming a strong brand.
"In the era of traditional fuel vehicles, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, Volkswagen, Toyota... These brands are leaders and defenders, and have long shaped a brand philosophy for consumers that consumers are willing to believe and willing to follow their products. In the era of intelligent electric vehicles, Wei Xiaoli, as well as traditional Chinese brands in transition, are also shaping this brand concept for consumers, and when the brand building is successful, they have become the leaders and defenders of the new era, while the traditional overseas brands that have transformed late have become attackers. To know the brand building, most of them are easy to defend and difficult to attack. ”
In Gu Huanyu's view, the challenges for Chinese brands to further rise in the future are in the following aspects:
The first is the leadership of the brand. Although with efforts, traditional Chinese brands and new power brands have successfully achieved certain results in the intelligent and electrified track, and have created corresponding brand labels. However, if we look at the absolute leadership of the brand, the charm of the brand founder, and the absolute value of the brand, there is still a gap between Chinese brands and international first-class brands.
A dance can make headlines, and Musk's appeal is unstoppable
"Why do people like Tesla? Because the Tesla brand represents intelligence, represents the future travel mode of mankind, represents the trendy culture, this brand advanced and brand equity, is what Chinese brands lack today, and Musk's own leadership charm is even more lacking in Chinese automakers. Wei Xiaoli has made a certain breakthrough, but there is still a big gap with Tesla. Gu Huanyu said.
The second point is uncertainty, according to Gu Huanyu's understanding, we are now in the "post-epidemic era", the industry is not known. "There will always be new outlets, new travel patterns popping up, like 'camping.'" According to Gu Huanyu, camping is a typical outlet brought about by uncertainties in the post-epidemic era. According to ai media consulting data, as of October 15, 2021, there are more than 30,000 campground enterprises in China, and more than 8,000 and more than 15,000 campground enterprises will be added in 2020 and 2021, respectively. In 2020, the size of China's camping market will be about 700 billion, with an annual growth rate of 40%, and it is expected that the market size will reach 2 trillion yuan in the future in 5-10 years.
"There is a good combination of camping and travel, and we can also see that some car companies have been playing this concept recently." But most car companies are not yet aware. In the post-epidemic era, this kind of outlet that everyone could not imagine before will be more and more sudden, more and more suddenly, which brand can seize the opportunity for a long time and continue to meet the needs of consumers, which brand can continue to grow red. ”
Some car companies have begun to explore the camping travel scene
Gu Huanyu's view can be seen as a positive understanding of the uncertainty of the future automotive industry, while Li Hua is relatively negative. In his view, the world's major events, long-term must be combined, long-term must be divided, in the current situation of such a big uncertainty, it is time to consider the vertical integration ability of car companies.
"In the future era, it is not whose car is good, whose brand is good, but who can build a car, who can sell." You see in April, BYD sales soared, Wei Xiaoli sales plummeted, is it really BETTER THAN BYD than the ideal product, strong technology? Not necessarily, it is just that BYD has batteries, chips, strong vertical integration capabilities, and can build cars, while the ideal is greatly affected by the supply chain, and cannot build cars, that's all. And these Chinese brands that have achieved brilliant upward results, who has BYD's vertical integration strength? ”
End
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