There is no Toyota in the top 10, Akio Toyoda is angry, and Chinese dealers are miserable Japanese cars

Hot micro-comments

2024-06-19 19:32Posted in Guangdong science and technology creators

Text/Wang Xinxi

Toyota collapsed, and in May, there was only one of the three major mothers left, and only Sylphy was in the top 10. In the top 20 list, Toyota did not make the list.

Toyota is now declining in the global market. According to the data, Toyota's global production in April was 756,254 units, a year-on-year decrease of 4%. Global sales edged down to 797,097 units, both of which were below the year-ago level for the third consecutive month.

Overseas production decreased by 2% y/y to 504,769 units. In the Chinese market, Toyota's sales fell sharply, by 27%. This is mainly affected by the price war of local manufacturers, the improvement of the performance of China's new energy vehicles in intelligence, power, fuel consumption, quality and other aspects, as well as the increasing consumer preference for new energy vehicles, and the decline in the competitiveness of Japanese cars, while the Chinese market of Japanese cars continues to decline, and Japanese car companies attribute the reason to the price increase of Chinese dealers.

Some time ago, Akio Toyoda said that he had never increased the price of Alpha exported to China, and now Alpha, which is worth 300,000 yuan in Japan, is sold for 800,000 to 1 million yuan in China. This is the Chinese dealer's own doing.

At a press conference a long time ago, Akio Toyoda said that Japanese cars are ready to increase prices globally, but not the Chinese market, which is already much lower than other countries.

Akio Toyoda harshly criticized the market behavior of Chinese dealers, believing that they maliciously raised prices and harmed the interests of consumers. In addition to Sena, Toyota's Highlander, Alpha, Prado, Crown Land and other models have been sold by dealers at a higher price for a long time. And Toyota's high-end brand Lexus's markup sales behavior is even more outrageous.

Luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW, joint venture brands such as Honda and Volkswagen, and even hot-selling models of domestic brands such as Great Wall and BYD have also been in short supply of hot-selling models and are required to increase prices, but most of them involve a single model.

However, it is very rare for multiple models to increase prices at the same time and act in unison by dealers across the country.

As the performance and price advantages of domestic cars become more and more prominent, one rises and one falls, which also affects the sales of Japanese cars as a whole. In particular, we see that from the current market situation, Toyota Alpha is still selling at a higher price in the domestic market, and the most preferential price in the market is about 200,000 yuan, and the price is 1.06 million 8, which is called the conscience price by dealers.

Some netizens lamented that selling 300,000 cars in Japan and increasing the price by 200,000 in China has become a conscience price when it reaches the price of 1.06 million.

The Elfarex is sold at a higher price, and the cost performance of domestic cars is more prominent, and the reputation and sales of Japanese cars have been affected

The car that can be sold at a higher price shows that the car is really good, and in Toyota's high-end cars, Lexus and Alpha are two typical representatives of the good ones that can still be sold at a higher price. For example, Alpha, judging from the past, in the circle of the rich, everyone recognized this car. This is determined by supply and demand. Toyota Alpha this car, whether it is China or Japan, it takes more than a year to buy a car, and the same is true in Hong Kong, China, if you don't accept a year, you will have to increase the price by about 100,000 yuan in Hong Kong, China.

On the one hand, it is a group of Chinese entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs from Hong Kong and Macao who recognize this car, everyone follows the trend to buy this car, and later found that this car is indeed easy to use, first of all, it retains its value, and secondly, the car is not bad, and it will not have any problems after driving for more than ten years, and the third is that it is economical and fuel-efficient. In addition, many Internet celebrities follow the hype and lead to the shortage of this car, once the supply exceeds demand, it needs to be distributed - it is necessary to sell one or two hundred of these relatively difficult to sell hundreds of thousands of cars before it will be equipped with an Alpha, which also leads to dealers being able to increase prices on demand.

In the past, Japanese cars had good advantages and reputations such as fuel economy, good economy, and no bad driving, but domestic cars were unable to compete with them, and Japanese cars were still sold well at a price increase.

But today, the situation has changed, China's new energy vehicles are rising, and brands such as the M9 are gradually gaining a foothold in China's high-end car market, with sales exceeding 16,000 units in May alone, ranking first in the high-end SUV market. The M9 has won the first place in the weekly sales of luxury models of more than 500,000 yuan in Chinese mainland for 9 consecutive times.

In the high-end luxury car market, domestic cars are getting better and better in terms of quality, performance, intelligence, configuration, etc., so that foreign netizens now know why the United States has made so much effort to stop China, and China's scientific and technological progress is too fast.

However, Chinese dealers of Japanese cars are still alive in the past, including Lexus and Alpha, which are still selling at higher prices. In March this year, the uproar at the Haikou Zhongsheng Lexus 4S store caused an uproar due to the alleged increase in service fees of 100,000 yuan before picking up the car.

From today's point of view, the downward trend of Japanese cars is visible to the naked eye, and Chinese dealers are reflecting. Those joint venture car companies that once had unlimited glory began to feel the severity of the market.

A well-known auto program host once pointed out that Toyota's price increase phenomenon is not a simple market behavior, in which Toyota turns a blind eye to dealer price increases, and even adopts a conniving attitude is an important reason, and Toyota's dealer alliance organization, Toyota Cooperative Association, has too much power to speak is another reason.

After 2004, Toyota cooperation associations were established one after another, and Toyota's dealers were organized to meet together often in the local area to give feedback on market conditions and collectively feedback to manufacturers, and finally developed into an organization that has considerable right to speak on the sales price and marketing plan formulation of a region.

In the end, this kind of organization that controls the pricing power and the right to speak has developed beyond the control of the car companies themselves. The price is no longer Toyota's final say, Toyota has become the black pot, this matter actually unveiled the other side of China's 4S store dealer system - in the face of this strong 4S store dealer system, sometimes even joint ventures, foreign brands do not have the right to speak and dominate, the pricing power is in their hands, because of the intertwined interests of local forces to build a strong force, consumers are in an absolutely weak position, in the past there is no comparison, no choice, the price increase still works.

However, with the rise of China's new energy vehicles, the core selling point of Japanese cars is fuel economy and peace of mind. The new energy is just seven inches to it, under the contrast effect, the overall Japanese car brand, reputation has been affected, especially the high-end car price increase phenomenon is more of an anti-trend behavior, not in line with the current trend of the automobile industry and consumer demands, this dealer behavior has had an impact on its sales and market brand. In the past, Chinese consumers considered Japanese BBA within 200,000 and German BBA with more than 300,000, but now domestic products below 200,000 are the first choice.

Japanese they also know that the current situation is very passive, Chinese dealers have long been pitting consumer behavior has also hurt the reputation of Japanese cars, Japanese cars spent so much money in the early stage to layout, maintaining the status quo and waiting for the market share to be eroded, want to engage in new energy will definitely not be able to catch up. Therefore, finding a way to change the dealer system may become an important part of breaking the situation.

For auto brands, how to avoid the development of this dealer system with absolute control over pricing power will affect the brand and reputation, and then seriously affect sales, China's auto industry may need to think carefully and avoid.

Author: Wang Xinxi, Senior Reviewer of TMT This article is not reproduced without permission

View original image 165K

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•