AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/11 Report--

On April 10, Changan Automobile released its March production and sales report, which showed that Changan Automobile produced and sold 130942 and 139737 vehicles in March, down 33.52% and 28.7% respectively from the same period last year. The cumulative production and sales volume from January to March were 275145 and 303078, down 36.97% and 32.1% respectively from the same period last year.

In terms of independent brands, the March sales of Chongqing Changan, Hebei Changan and Hefei Changan were 53667, 7517 and 16050 respectively, while the cumulative sales of the three major production bases in March were 77234, down 15.96 per cent from the same period last year. Sales from January to March were 122189, 13158 and 39516 respectively, while the cumulative sales of the three major production bases in the first quarter were 174863, down 24.70 per cent from the same period last year.

Changan CS75 models performed well, with sales of 17583 vehicles in March, up 29.0% from a year earlier, according to the Federation of passengers. In addition, Changan CS35 sold 10033 vehicles in March, down 29.5 per cent from a year earlier, while Changan Yiyou sold 10032 cars in March, down 20.9 per cent from a year earlier.

While actively promoting the resumption of work and production, Changan Automobile has also accelerated its strategic layout. On March 5, the new series of Changan Automobile UNI Gravitation debuted live for the first time, and the car will be on the market this year.

In terms of joint venture brands, Changan Ford sold 11009 vehicles in March, down 27.9 per cent from a year earlier, while sales in the first quarter were 30456, down 17.2 per cent from a year earlier.

The decline in Changan Ford sales has a lot to do with this year's epidemic, but the main reason is its own brand. In fact, Changan Ford's sales began to decline before 2017. Last December, Changan Ford launched the new compact SUV-- Ruiji. Due to strong power performance, Changan Ford achieved year-on-year sales growth in January, but Changan Ford could not avoid a decline in sales due to the epidemic. However, with the improvement of the epidemic, Ruiji can still contribute more to Changan Ford.

The sales of Changan Mazda are also not optimistic. Changan Mazda sold 6715 vehicles in March, down 52.8 per cent from a year earlier, while sales in the first quarter were 17340, down 48.1 per cent from a year earlier.

Although Changan Mazda is a Japanese brand, it does not have a strong sense of existence compared to Toyota, Honda and Nissan brands. Changan Mazda has only three models on sale, namely, Mazda 3 Uncella, Mazda CX-5 and Mazda CX-8, which do not sell very much in China, mainly due to single product, lack of product power and iterative lag in product update.

However, Changan Mazda plans to launch a small SUV--CX30 this year, with a 2.0L naturally aspirated engine with a maximum power of 116kW (158hp) and a maximum torque of 200N m. At the same time, Mazda also introduced the SKYACTIV-X compression ignition engine, which will be the first to be carried in the 2021 Mazda 3 Oncella, which is expected to have a certain impact on sales.

According to the China Automobile Association, domestic passenger car sales in March were 1.043 million, down 48.4 per cent from a year earlier to 2.877 million from January to March, down 45.4 per cent from a year earlier.

As the epidemic situation of COVID-19 has been effectively controlled in China, and the production and operation of enterprises have gradually recovered, the current main contradiction in the domestic automobile market reflects that the demand of the consumer market urgently needs to be restored and boosted. With the gradual implementation of relevant national policies, local governments have issued policies to promote automobile consumption and the efforts of enterprises in the automobile industry, the automobile industry will speed up its recovery in the second half of the year. However, affected by the epidemic, the downward pressure on China's automobile market in the future is still great, and the automobile industry is expected to return to the level of the same period last year in the second half of the year, but it is still difficult to make up for the losses in the first quarter and the first half of the year.

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