On June 16, the headquarters of Jingdong Group, located in Beijing's Yizhuang Economic Development Zone, was lit up, and the atmosphere of the sprint 618 shopping festival has reached a climax.
Walk through the full hung "Fight!" Fight! Only do the first! The hall with red banners has been moved to the conference hall on the 7th floor of Block C of Building 1, and the "616 Automobile Renewal Day" press conference of JD Automobile, Auto Observation and China Automotive News is underway.
Before and after the "616 Automobile Renewal Day" event, a new round of car trade-in policy is being intensively implemented, which continues to add "new" impetus to automobile consumption.
Not long ago, the Ministry of Finance and other 7 departments jointly issued the "Implementation Rules for Automobile Trade-in Subsidy" (hereinafter referred to as the "Detailed Rules"), clarifying that from the date of issuance of the document to December 31, 2024, individual consumers who scrap fuel passenger vehicles with emission standards of China III and below or new energy passenger vehicles registered before April 30, 2018, and purchase new passenger cars that meet the energy-saving requirements can enjoy a one-time fixed subsidy.
At the same time, the financial support from the state finance has also been gradually implemented, and the Ministry of Finance has allocated 6.44 billion yuan of financial discount and subsidy funds invested by the central government for the financial subsidy of car trade-in in 2024. According to the "Detailed Rules", the subsidy funds for car trade-in will be shared by the central and local governments in a ratio of 6:4, which also means that the overall amount of financial subsidies for car trade-in will exceed 10 billion yuan in 2024.
On June 18, the latest news came: Li Chao, spokesman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said at a press conference that the "inter-ministerial joint meeting system for promoting large-scale equipment renewal and trade-in of consumer goods" led by the National Development and Reform Commission and participated by 21 departments and units has also been formally established.
Favorable policies are frequent, Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Hubei and other local governments at all levels have responded positively, and many automobile companies such as BYD, Dongfeng, Xiaopeng, and BAIC have also launched a variety of preferential and subsidy activities. Relevant industry institutions predict that the car trade-in subsidy will bring millions of dollars to the private new car consumption in the auto market, and can also bring more than 100 billion yuan of annual consumption increase.
The launch site of the "616 Automobile Renewal Day" activity
Working together, there is a lot to be done in car trade-in
Automobiles are the main force of bulk consumption. According to public data from the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2023, the production and sales of automobiles in mainland China will reach 30.161 million and 30.094 million respectively, a year-on-year increase of 11.6% and 12%, and the production and sales of automobiles will exceed 30 million for the first time, maintaining the world's first level for 15 consecutive years. The retail sales of automobiles reached 4.86 trillion yuan, accounting for 10.3% of the total retail sales of consumer goods, making an important contribution to the national economic growth. By the end of 2023, the number of passenger cars in mainland China will reach 280 million, of which about 110 million will be in the peak period of core replacement.
According to information from the China Automobile Dealers Association, 40% of the increase in consumption in the passenger car market this year will come from the trade-in, and the number of trade-in cars will reach 10 million in terms of passenger car sales of 26 million last year, and the overall capacity of the trade-in market will be more than one trillion yuan.
"Cars are the backbone of the consumer market, and there is a lot to be done to promote car trade-in." As a representative from national ministries and commissions, Song Yingjie, a researcher from the Automobile Circulation Department of the Department of Market Operation and Consumption of the Ministry of Commerce, repeatedly emphasized the importance of car trade-in at the "616 Automobile Renewal Day".
Wang Junqing, deputy secretary-general of the Automotive Industry Committee of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade, also said that the automobile industry has a large scale and a long industrial chain, which has an obvious role in driving the economy. In the context of the involution of the industry and the intensification of the price war, the old renewal policy can not only further promote the in-depth development of the electrification and intelligent transformation of the automobile industry, bring new opportunities to the automobile sales market, but also effectively improve people's living standards and achieve carbon reduction goals.
From the current point of view, there are still many pain points and difficulties in the market, such as immature and opaque old car evaluation system and valuation model, complex process links, and insufficient consumer awareness, which require the government, industry associations, host manufacturers, platform companies, financial institutions, media organizations and other parties to cooperate and work together.
In recent years, JD.com is stepping up the construction layout of the automobile business. Under the insight of founder Liu Qiangdong that "more than half of the car sales in the next 5 years or so will come from the Internet, rather than traditional 4S stores", JD.com will take automobiles as one of the three key areas of service business in the future, intending to build a one-stop vehicle purchase, car sales, maintenance services and new energy solution platform with JD Automobile as the foreground.
In order to form a joint force in the field of trade-in, at the beginning of this year, JD.com, together with 5 major associations and nearly 50 automobile brands, launched an initiative to promote the consumption of car trade-in, and launched the "JD Automobile trade-in platform", and the holding of "616 Automobile Renewal Day" can be regarded as a further upgrade and landing of JD Automobile in the field of trade-in.
"JD Motors hopes to discuss with all parties how to better implement the renewal of automobiles, benefit more consumers, stimulate the vitality of automobile consumption, promote the high-quality development of China's automobile industry, and achieve a win-win situation for all parties." As the initiator of the "616 Automobile Renewal Day", Mu Qin, vice president of Jingdong Group and president of Jingdong Automobile Division, solemnly expressed his position.
Precise implementation of policies to benefit consumers in the end
As early as 2009, relevant measures have been introduced, which have played a direct role in promoting automobile consumption, promoting the growth of automobile sales by more than 40% that year, and the overall sales volume ranked first in the world for the first time. After 15 years, in the context of a new industry, what are the new characteristics and expectations of the new round of trade-in policy? How can participants make full use of the favorable policies to promote automobile consumption?
Under the chairmanship of Liu Xiaoyong, founder and editor-in-chief of AutoWatch, representatives from OEMs, e-commerce platforms, second-hand car dealers, and media discussed the above topics.
Xie Rongbin, Secretary of the Party Committee, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief of China Energy Automotive Communication Group, President of China Automotive News and Editor-in-Chief of China Energy News, summarized three characteristics of the trade-in policy: first, the central government coordinates and builds an overall work pattern; Second, car companies and local governments are actively and deeply involved, and nearly 30 provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions have issued relevant policies. Third, the effect is fast, from the introduction of the policy to the subsidy application of more than 10,000 people, it took only 25 days.
Zheng Zhuang, vice president of JD Automobile Division and general manager of the vehicle business department of JD Automobile Division, believes that the e-commerce platform mainly plays the role of information and data interaction, trading platform building, and delivery link docking, etc., and the main purpose is to make consumers have a better experience and higher transaction efficiency.
Based on rich landing experience and omni-channel supply chain capabilities, in the future, JD Automobile will focus on expanding the high-potential sinking market, using JD's brand influence, user base, and multi-format capabilities to open up online and offline, on-site and off-site gameplay, and accelerate the implementation of the "JD Auto Collection" activity. Since the beginning of this year, Jingdong Automobile has held a number of activities in Suqian, Jinan, Kunshan and other places, and the recent two activities will soon land in Langfang, Hebei and Fuqing, Fujian. According to the plan, in 2024, JD.com will hold 30 car fairs across the country, and will increase it to 100 in 2025 to accelerate the layout of car trade-in in the sinking market.
As a representative of vehicle companies, Fan Xin, general manager of user operation and communication of ZEEKR Automobile, believes that in the face of the trade-in policy, car companies and e-commerce can complement each other's advantages. For car companies, there are two major values that value e-commerce platforms the most: one is the data value brought by the huge user base, and the other is the sound transmission value brought by massive traffic. These two values correspond to the life cycle of the car, which can not only empower the product definition in the R&D stage, but also provide support for the user's car purchase path and car purchase cycle analysis in the sales stage, and can also be used as a reference for personalized customization and modification and user service in the after-sales stage.
In the involution market environment, will the trade-in policy calm or promote the price war? Zhao Weidong, CEO of Yijiete New Energy Vehicle, chose the latter. He analyzed: "Because of the support of these policies, some companies or products that are not competitive enough can survive for a longer time. A while ago, I heard friends discussing how painful the volume and competition are, how aggrieved they are, and how their peers are not authentic, but I think it is still more from the perspective of consumers, whether it is through this kind of volume, competition, and whether consumers are ultimately profitable. If so, it should be carried out. ”
Hu Enping, vice president of Nezha Automobile Marketing Company, believes that in addition to following national policies, local governments also need to further return to the essence of trade-in in the formulation of specific measures. For example, he said, there are some regional and cyclical policies that are more chaotic, different cities in the same province have inconsistent subsidy policies, and some policies are designed to be roughly based on the amount of subsidies corresponding to a standard, which is relatively rough and cannot achieve the purpose of upgrading consumption or reducing carbon emissions, and there is still a lot of room for optimization.
Trade-in involves not only the new car market, but also the used car market. Compared with the developed country market, the proportion of second-hand car transactions in the mainland is low, and it is currently in a stage of rapid rise, with huge potential for future development. According to data from the Passenger Association, in March 2024, the national second-hand car transaction volume was 1.71 million, an increase of 9% year-on-year, and the transaction volume was 118 billion yuan, an increase of 19% year-on-year.
As a representative of the second-hand car e-commerce platform, Jiang Dong, CEO of Taocheche, used the words "mixed tastes" to describe the impact of the trade-in policy on the second-hand car market: "For the procurement side, the trade-in policy is absolutely good, which means that more and better cars will come in; But for the sales side, it may be a big negative, which means that the customer base is reduced and the price is falling. At the same time, Jiang Dong also said frankly that the core link of trade-in is "replacement", and the second-hand car platform is mainly to cooperate with the main engine factory to do a good job in service.
"In the face of the huge ownership of more than 300 million vehicles, it is more and more important to activate the stock market and increase the stock. In terms of promoting automobile consumption, car trade-in is another precise policy, and it is hoped that more social forces will participate in it, amplify the actual effect of the policy, and let more consumers benefit from it. Liu Xiaoyong concluded.