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There is no doubt about the huge decline in sales in February this year. Due to the continuing impact of the epidemic, the Federation has already announced its sales for the first two weeks. Retail sales of domestic passenger car manufacturers fell by 92% compared with the same period last year, the highest decline in history.

After the trend throughout February, the Federation today released the latest factory retail data again, down 80% from the same period last year. Although it is still the highest decline in history, it has increased compared with the decline in the previous two weeks, which also shows that as the epidemic gradually weakens, consumer demand for cars is increasing.

According to market data in the first four weeks, 811, 4100, 5411 and 16000 vehicles were sold, down from 96%, 92%, 83% and 63% respectively compared with the same period last year. It is clear that the performance in the last week is getting more and more normal, but there is still some distance.

Of course, in the face of this trend, all the major car companies will suffer a sharp drop in sales this year. According to the current several major car companies that publish sales data, some are better than the market performance and some are worse than the market. Among them, Toyota announced today that due to the impact of the epidemic, car sales in China fell by 70.2% compared with the same period last year, but the decline is still less than 80% of the overall market, which also reflects that under the influence of the epidemic, even the more powerful Japanese brands can not become the "exception". At the same time, as the market recovers, Japanese brands have become one of the brands that recover faster. According to Toyota's January sales figures, the number of vehicles in China fell 1.2 per cent from a year earlier to 145000, still better than the 20 per cent decline in the passenger car market.

By contrast, seahorse, a long-established carmaker that has been up and down in the Chinese market for three decades, produced 0 passenger cars in February, while passenger car sales fell 92.88 per cent year-on-year to 134. It is worth noting that this has produced 0 hippocampal cars for two months in a row. Although last month's production and sales data show that there are still 630 cars, some media have confirmed that all 630 of them are hippocampal contract manufacturers of Xiaopeng cars. At the same time, it also shows that Haima cars did not help Xiaopeng to produce cars this month.

In the face of the decline in the domestic market, some car companies have turned the market overseas to seek stability. According to Chery's February sales data, Chery Group exported 8419 cars in February, up 39.9 percent from the same period last year, while sales in the domestic market were only 7099, down 80 percent from the same period last year. For the first time, overseas markets performed better than domestic markets. After all, since February, due to the double influence of the advance of the Spring Festival holiday and the epidemic, the sales volume of the domestic automobile market has declined greatly.

In addition, Jiangling Motor disclosed its production and sales of KuaiBao in February. Figures show that Jiangling produced 6076 vehicles this year, down 57.22% from 14202 in the same period last year. Jiangling's sales in February were 4876, down 65.13% from a year earlier, also better than the overall market performance.

However, according to Jiangling's production and sales data, its Ford-branded commercial vehicles sold 2155 vehicles in February, a 13.52 per cent increase against the trend. It is speculated that this is due to the increase in demand for rescue vehicles during the previous epidemic. According to Jiangling Automobile, Jiangling Automobile Group is the largest ambulance manufacturer in China and one of the rescue vehicle manufacturers and suppliers in the prevention and control of the epidemic.

According to the Federation, only some consumers who have a particularly urgent demand for cars will choose to buy cars during the epidemic, coupled with the slow rebound in the number of dealerships in the first three weeks, and the low flow of customers at dealerships, so the first three weeks are the renovation period that is more affected by the epidemic.

It is worth noting that in February this year, the average daily wholesale sales of passenger cars was 5262, down 86% from a year earlier and lower than the average daily retail sales of 7099. However, the Federation said that the current wholesale sales data are not complete.

In fact, regardless of whether the February sales figures are accurate or not, almost all car companies will face a sharp decline under the impact of the epidemic, even if the February-March sales data will gradually pick up, it will not be optimistic in the first quarter of this year. And due to the slow recovery of production capacity, the failure to achieve a balance between production and sales is also an expected result. In addition, under the influence of a major epidemic, the differentiation of domestic car sales will be more severe, especially the car companies without core competence and financial support will face market impact.

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