AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/22 Report--

Affected by the COVID-19 epidemic, the domestic car market suffered a severe setback in the first two months of this year, so that passenger car sales fell by 20% in January and widened to 78.7% in February, the highest in history. By contrast, the decline in exports by Chinese car companies was relatively small, falling 19.4 per cent in the first two months compared with the same period a year earlier.

According to information released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, automobile companies exported a total of 45000 vehicles in February, down 35.1% from the previous month and 22.0% from a year earlier. In terms of specific models, the export of passenger cars this month was 35000, down 4.3% from the same period last year; the export of commercial vehicles was 10, 000, down 52.4% from the same period last year. From January to February, automobile enterprises exported 113000 vehicles, down 19.4 percent from the same period last year; of this total, 86000 were passenger vehicles, down 5 percent from the same period last year; and 27000 commercial vehicles, down 45.3 percent from the same period last year.

It can be seen that in February this year, the impact of passenger car exports of Chinese enterprises is not great, and even many car companies have risen against the trend. Among them, the Great Wall, Chery, SAIC Mingjue and other car companies have achieved good results in export and overseas retail, even if the current domestic car company export volume is still not large, but this is also gratifying news.

SAIC, the auto company with the largest domestic car exports, achieved a cumulative vehicle export and overseas retail volume of more than 21000 vehicles in February, up 32% from January to February, and an increase of about 20% over the same period last year. SAIC Mingjue's cumulative overseas sales exceeded 25000 vehicles. Chery, another independent export giant, exported 8419 cars in February, up 39.9% from a year earlier, for the first time that overseas markets outsold 7099 vehicles in the domestic market.

As the layout of exports has only just been completed, export sales are relatively small, with only 3003 vehicles sold, an increase of 2.0% over the same period last year, but it also shows that exports have achieved growth. Of course, there are also some car companies that have declined to varying degrees, including BAIC, Jianghuai and Geely, as domestic car exports are dominated by auto companies such as SAIC and Chery, which has boosted the performance of overall domestic car export sales.

However, it is only temporary to say that China's automobile export market is better than the domestic market, because since the Spring Festival this year, China has become the hardest hit area of the epidemic, in the domestic environment of positive response to the epidemic prevention and control environment, so that the domestic car can not be released, resulting in a sharp decline in the domestic automobile market. In comparison, car exports are mainly sold in overseas markets and have not been maximized by the epidemic in the first two months of this year, making the development of vehicle exports more stable.

From the current situation that the epidemic is gradually expanding overseas, it is speculated that car exports will also begin to be affected in the future. At present, the overseas "main battlefield" of Chinese automobile enterprises is mainly concentrated in Southeast Asia, the Middle East, North Africa and South America, and some car companies are expanding into the European and North American markets.

With the increasing number of COVID-19 diagnosed in overseas countries and regions, various countries have also opened a variety of control modes, which have had a certain impact on China's automobile-related import and export business.

According to Chen Shihua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, "the commodity inspection of some exports is stagnant, foreign consumers' demand for cars is reduced, and overseas parts imports and other factors may affect China's automobile import and export business." In addition, the overseas epidemic has little impact on domestic automobile-related import and export business in the near future. If the epidemic continues to spread, more automobile brand factories will stop production, which may affect domestic automobile-related import and export business in the next few months.

In response to the impact of the current expanding epidemic in overseas markets, many car companies, such as SAIC and Chery, have previously said that due to the epidemic to March, car export sales and overseas retail volume cannot be predicted for the time being, but a decrease in sales is inevitable.

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