Being beaten back by Chinese car companies, the president of Honda is really anxious

In the era of electrified cars, Japanese car companies have changed from attackers to beaters.

Honda, which has the honor of "engine expert" on its head, wakes up and finds itself beaten back by Chinese car companies. The shadow of decline is still clouding overhead, and even the president of Honda is in a hurry.

1. Is the president of Honda in a hurry?

Since entering the Chinese market, Japanese cars have been smooth sailing, winning the hearts of hundreds of millions of Chinese with their advantages such as fuel saving and durability.

Two or three years ago, Japanese cars accounted for about 25% of the market share in China, and once overtook German cars to become the best-selling joint venture segment. However, the market share of Japanese cars in China has plummeted to about 17%, far exceeding that of German and American automakers.

In the past few decades, Japanese cars, which have been in full swing in China's auto market, have finally ushered in an inflection point. It has become a consensus in the industry that Japanese cars are becoming more and more unsellable.

Japanese cars were not only sniped by Chinese car companies in China, but also attacked by Chinese car companies in their home base camps in Japan.

At the Tokyo Motor Show earlier, the most popular booth was not Toyota, Honda, Nissan, Mitsubishi and other giants, but China's new energy vehicle brand BYD.

Before the auto show, Honda President Toshihiro Mibe personally went to China to understand the situation of China's new energy market. Talking about the feeling of the Chinese market, the senior management from Guangqi Honda said bluntly: "The president feels a sense of crisis!" "Behind the president's sense of crisis and anxiety is Honda's decline in the Chinese and global markets.

2. Honda is losing ground?

The past year or two has not been easy for Honda. According to the data, in 2021, Honda's global sales will reach 4.48 million units, ranking the seventh largest car company in the world.

In 2022, Honda's global sales plummeted to 3.74 million units, a year-on-year drop of 19.9%. Among them, the stall in the Chinese market is the most important reason for the sharp decline in Honda's sales.

In 2021, Honda sold 1.57 million units in China, accounting for about one-third of its global sales. However, in 2022, Honda sold only 1.37 million units in China, a year-on-year decline of 12.1%, and its share of global sales fell to a quarter.

Obviously, Honda has lost too much blood in the Chinese market, which has seriously dragged down its global sales performance. To make matters worse, this situation is still intensifying.

In the first half of this year, Honda's sales in China were about 530,000 units, compared with 680,000 units in the same period last year, a significant "shrinkage" of 150,000 units, a year-on-year decline of 22%.

Honda's sales woes in the Chinese market are getting deeper and deeper like a quagmire. In such a severe situation, it is easy to understand the sense of crisis of President Honda.

Everyone who has seen Honda's glory may think about a question: Does Honda have a future in China?

3. The beginning of the decline?

Regardless of whether there is a future or not, it is an indisputable fact that Honda has begun to decline in China compared with China's new energy vehicle companies.

First of all, under the erosion of new energy vehicles, the core selling point of Honda's fuel vehicles has gradually disappeared, and the once fragrant and sweet potato has become a hot potato, and consumers are no longer willing to pay. In the face of new electrified products, Honda's fuel vehicles are like "old antiques" and have suffered a dimensionality reduction blow.

Honda, the "engine specialist," wakes up to find himself at a loss because consumers don't need gasoline engines anymore.

Secondly, Honda's plug-in hybrid products are not easy to sell, and they can't enjoy much of the dividends of the outbreak of China's plug-in hybrid market.

In May this year, the 11th-generation Accord was launched in China. In order to curry favor with Chinese consumers, the new Accord launched a plug-in hybrid version and canceled the oil-mixed version. However, Chinese consumers still did not buy it, and the monthly sales of Accord continued to fall below 10,000 units since then. It wasn't until the terminal gave a discount of 40,000 yuan in September that the sales of Accord picked up.

But how far can we go in this way? Chinese car companies represented by BYD have established first-mover advantages in the plug-in hybrid market such as brand and price, and Honda's plug-in hybrid products that follow the trend do not take much advantage.

Finally, Toyota, Honda and other Japanese car companies bet on hydrogen energy, and their electrification transformation road is full of fog.

Honda has done little in the EV market, and the e:N series has not performed well. Dongfeng Honda e:NS1 and Guangqi Honda e:NP1 are very marginalized in the car market, and many consumers are very unfamiliar with them, let alone buy them with real money.

In desperation, Honda launched a new new energy vehicle brand "Lingxi" in China. But can this action, with strong trial and error intentions, really pull Honda out of the quagmire? Probably Honda itself doesn't have much confidence.