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Compared with the overall retail ratio of domestic car companies, which fell by 40% in March this year, retail sales in the luxury market fell only 20% from the same period last year, which is obviously better than the overall market performance, which also means that under the impact of the car market downturn and the epidemic, the demand for high-end purchases of consumer upgrading has picked up more quickly than the new market.

According to the latest data released by the China Automobile Association, retail sales in the passenger car market reached 1.045 million units in March this year, down 40.4% from the same period last year, while the retail ratio of luxury brand models fell by only 20%, and the V-shaped rebound trend at the bottom is more obvious. According to February data, passenger car sales in China were only 252000, with a sharp decline of 77.1 per cent year-on-year, while luxury brands grew at a rate higher than 20 per cent of passenger cars as the car market picked up.

From a brand point of view, the first echelon of luxury brands composed of Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi is still relatively strong. Although none of the three car companies released detailed monthly data, two luxury brands, Beijing Mercedes-Benz and brilliance BMW, performed particularly well, with fifth and tenth places in the top 10, respectively, according to wholesale sales released by the FIFA.

Among them, Beijing Mercedes-Benz continued to rise to fifth place in March after entering the top 10 of narrow passenger car wholesale sales for the first time in February, and its March wholesale sales were almost the same as the same period last year. Brilliance BMW made it into the top 10 for the first time, and according to recent media reports, a number of BMW 4S stores in Shanghai even created the best March sales in history, reflecting the performance of the BMW brand in March this year.

As FAW Audi ranks side by side in FAW-Volkswagen sales, the exact sales are not yet known, but judging from the sales of high-end passenger cars in March, Audi A6 and Q5 also showed a year-on-year single-digit decline, which also means that Audi brand sales were equally good in March. Among the second-tier luxury brands, Volvo alone reported a 16.2 per cent drop in March sales in China, a 40 per cent decline from Cadillac in the first quarter, which was inferior to Lexus's 28 per cent decline in the first quarter, but growth in its Cadillac CT6 and XT5 models meant the recovery in March accelerated.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the ride association, also believes that it is extremely rare for brands such as Beijing Mercedes-Benz and brilliance BMW to perform in the passenger car market in March this year, but it also reflects the strong pressure resistance of luxury brands. Even though a number of luxury brands have stopped production in overseas markets, most luxury brands remain confident that sales targets for 2020 will be met, reflecting the faster resilience of China's luxury market.

In this regard, some senior automobile analysts said that the trend of consumption upgrading in China's automobile market is very obvious, and the market share of luxury cars will also be further expanded. Not only because the product layout of luxury car brands has declined in recent years, prices have also fallen, favored by young consumers and the new middle class; at the same time, under the influence of the epidemic, luxury cars have stepped up preferential promotions, which is very attractive to consumers.

In addition, in the face of the current epidemic, in the face of the impact of the epidemic, many families will more or less cancel their car purchase plans and retain funds to face the impact of their lives in the future. Most of the consumers who choose to buy luxury brands belong to the backbone of all sectors of society, so the epidemic has less impact on their spending power.

Cui Dongshu also believes that the overall anti-risk ability of luxury car consumers is strong, the safety awareness of consumption upgrading under the epidemic is strong, and the purchasing power is strong. Secondly, it reflects that the brand market is undergoing a big reshuffle, and luxury brands have joined the battle with second-tier joint venture brands in terms of scale and volume.

On the whole, although there are signs of recovery in the passenger car market, it is still in a flagging trend of more than 40% decline. In contrast, the faster rebound of luxury brands can only reflect that some of the swap groups and consumers with relatively high anti-risk ability have been restricted due to consumption during the previous epidemic period, and as the epidemic has been gradually brought under control, the luxury market has also been gradually stabilized.

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