AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/07 Report--

Affected by the car winter that has been declining for two consecutive years and the traditional Chinese New year holiday, the automobile industry has suffered a big blow at the beginning of this year, so that the early warning index of domestic car dealers has soared again. The China Automobile Circulation Association today released a report on the inventory early warning Index of Automobile Dealers in China. The inventory early warning index of automobile dealers in January 2020 was 62.7%, up 6.3% from the previous month and 6.5% from the same period last year. The inventory early warning index is above the warning line.

According to the association, January 2020 entered the traditional Spring Festival holiday in China, so it is also a traditional off-season. Affected by the peak of returning home during the Spring Festival, passenger flow has declined, market demand has decreased, coupled with the market overdraft of marketing activities in December, and most consumers have gone out to travel or visit relatives, resulting in a slowdown in car purchases by some residents after the Spring Festival, and a further decline in new car transactions.

In fact, judging from the past market performance, the Spring Festival has a certain impact on the domestic automobile market, so the performance in that month has always been mediocre, while this year's Spring Festival holiday is earlier than last year, and last year's Spring Festival holiday was in February. Therefore, compared with February last year, the inventory warning index of Chinese car dealers is more similar. In February 2019, the inventory early warning index was the highest for the year, 63.6%, down from 2020, but still above the warning line, indicating that the difficult situation of car sales has not abated.

Although the outbreak of COVID-19 's epidemic occurred in China in late January this year, the association believes that the market is in the Spring Festival holiday and is also a vacuum period for car sales, so overall car sales in January this year were not greatly affected by the epidemic.

However, the association said that the impact of the epidemic will quickly become apparent after the Spring Festival. Affected by the epidemic, the General Office of the State Council issued a notice on January 27 to extend the 2020 Spring Festival holiday to February 2. However, with the intensification of the epidemic, the holiday plans of various provinces and cities continue to be extended, so that a number of car companies and dealers have to continue to postpone their business plans.

The delay in the start of construction in most provinces had a greater impact on the market in February, and dealers generally believed that sales in February would decline by more than 50% from a year earlier, which would be even more than the previous month. If the start time of most provinces is no longer delayed on February 10th, car sales are expected to fall by about 20% from January to February compared with the same period a year earlier.

Therefore, the China Automobile Circulation Association suggests that dealers should put blocking the spread of the epidemic in the first place during the epidemic, strengthen online marketing, do a good job in disinfection of sales and service places and protection of staff, and strictly implement the relevant processes and norms of epidemic prevention in the process of service to ensure the safety of consumers. At the same time, do a good job in fund management, control costs and expenses, and reduce operational risks.

But the impact on the epidemic is not only negative, but also will have some positive effects. In the view of Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation of passengers, affected by the epidemic, the original idea of some consumers counting on online car-hailing to solve the travel problem will be shaken, and the enthusiasm for buying private cars will increase, so car sales will rebound after the epidemic.

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