AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/25 Report--

Affected by the Spring Festival holiday, the COVID-19 epidemic and two consecutive years of market decline, the overall car market got off to a weak start in 2020, falling by more than 20% compared with the same period last year. Although in the overall slowing market, the always strong luxury brands have also been affected to a certain extent, but from the specific performance, the luxury market can still maintain the trend of reverse growth.

After a 20 per cent decline in passenger car sales this year, the luxury car market grew 4.1 per cent to 212400 units in January, while more than 300000 of the models were more popular, with cumulative sales of more than 162000 vehicles that month, up 13.7 per cent from a year earlier, according to the federation of passengers. This also shows that the performance of luxury cars is still strong.

As Mercedes-Benz and BMW brands have not yet released January production and sales figures, only the Audi brand reported sales of 64000 vehicles in China, up 0.2 per cent from a year earlier. But Peter, CFO of BMW, said in an interview with foreign media: "We got off to a good start in January and our sales in China have increased." Comprehensive sales of Mercedes-Benz passenger cars in Beijing rose 18.8% in January from a year earlier, according to data disclosed by the Federation of passengers. It can be seen that the performance of the BBA brand is a growth trend in January this year, and the best performance is the Mercedes-Benz brand. Beijing Mercedes-Benz has increased by nearly 20% against the trend, and has undoubtedly become one of the best car companies in January this year.

Compared with first-tier luxury brands, second-tier luxury brands are somewhat inferior. Toyota has yet to report Lexus sales in January, but Lexus ES sales in January are still up from a year earlier, with cumulative sales of 6134 vehicles, accounting for nearly 35 per cent of total sales. Cadillac fell 27% in January, mainly due to the suspension of production of ATSL and XTS, as well as CT5 wait-and-see, with varying degrees of increase in sales of models such as XT5 and CT6.

However, compared with the former Volvo and other second-tier brands performed slightly poorly in January this year, the Chinese market of Volvo fell by 16.2% in January this year, and the two leading models, the S90 and the XC60, both dropped sharply, falling by 30.3% and 33.2% respectively. If Volvo, which maintained growth in 2019, was also affected. So it is only natural that second-tier brands such as Jaguar, Land Rover and Infiniti, which performed moderately in 2019, did not sell well in January, but it is worth noting that Infiniti QX50 grew 16.4% in January from a year earlier.

"the growth of sales in the luxury car market is a normal phenomenon," Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the passenger Association, once explained. "at present, the quality of life of our people is getting better and better, and there are more and more rich people. therefore, the more people buy cars, the more people prefer luxury car brands. at the same time, another reason for the growth in sales is that the luxury car market has ushered in a wave of swapping." As a result, Cui Dongshu expects that the trend of luxury cars this year is still strong.

Since China's auto market entered a period of rapid growth in 2002, it has experienced 18 years of rapid growth. By 2019, the number of cars in China has reached 260 million, and most families own at least one car. According to a survey conducted by the Federation of passengers, the average cycle for new car owners to renew their vehicles is more than 5 years, so it is estimated that the proportion of new car replacement in 2020 will be more than 95%.

It is just that from January to February this year, car companies affected by the epidemic stopped production on a large scale, and many car companies gradually resumed work recently. Even if they resume work, they cannot fully resume work at present. On the one hand, due to the limited demand in the current automobile market, many automobile manufacturers are more cautious in production; on the other hand, the shortage caused by the supply of spare parts still exists.

What's more, Hubei, as the main affected area of the epidemic area, is not expected to resume work until March 10, and Hubei, as a large automobile industry area in China, is greatly affected. According to the data of the Hubei Automobile Industry Association, at present, there are more than 1300 auto parts enterprises in Hubei Province, while according to the statistics of the China Automobile Association, there are more than 13000 auto parts enterprises in China, which means that the auto parts enterprises above the scale in Hubei Province account for about 1/10 of the country.

According to the calculation of about 10,000 to 20,000 undetachable independent parts of a car, Hubei plays an important role in China's automobile supply chain and is bound to be affected to a certain extent, so there is not only sales pressure in February, there is also a lot of pressure on vehicle delivery.

After the epidemic, the industry has been optimistic about the automobile industry, in addition or will introduce new policies, then the always strong luxury market is bound to become the first market to counter the trend.

Dutenhoff, a famous German automobile economic expert and professor at Duisburg-Essen University, who is known as the "godfather of cars," also inferred earlier that car sales in China may decline significantly in the first quarter of this year, but this is only a temporary and controllable "labor pains".

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