AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/10 Report--

As the domestic epidemic is gradually brought under control, China's auto market has also ushered in slight signs of a "rebound". Today, the China Automobile Circulation Association released a survey report on "car Dealer inventory" in April 2020, which showed that dealer inventory shrank significantly to 1.76 in April.

According to the association's report, the comprehensive inventory coefficient of car dealers in April was 1.76, which was significantly lower than the market in February and March after the epidemic, but higher than the market in January this year, down 12.0% from the same period last year and 34.3% from the previous month. Inventory levels are still above the warning line. In other words, the overall market showed obvious signs of decline in April, but the market did not show retaliatory consumption performance.

The association pointed out that the automobile market showed obvious signs of recovery in April, thanks to the phased progress of the domestic epidemic, coupled with the introduction of a number of automobile consumption policies and the performance of increased market activities, so that consumer demand has been released to a certain extent. However, due to the continuing impact of the epidemic, the car purchase plans of domestic consumers have not been fully restored, so that underconsumption still exists, even into May.

Specifically, the inventory index of high-end luxury brands and imported models fell most significantly in April, falling to 1.33, down 47% from the same ratio, becoming the only market segment below the average inventory warning line and level. The joint venture market and independent market are higher than the average inventory warning line, 1.83 and 2.31 respectively, down 33.9% and 10.8% respectively from the same period last year, and the independent market performance is relatively poor.

It is not difficult to see that the market performance after the impact of the epidemic, the positioning of more high-end luxury brands and imported models have a more prominent market reflection. After all, after the car market suffered the impact of the epidemic, the major luxury brand manufacturers have increased their support to dealers, not only expanding the terminal concessions to stimulate consumers' desire to buy cars. It also continues to provide liquidity support to dealers, extend the interest-free period of inventory financing, cancel or lower the assessment target of new car sales, and so on.

To this end, in an environment where the prices of luxury brands are gradually falling, they have seized the market of many joint venture brands, not to mention that after being affected by the epidemic, most consumers who choose luxury brands are consumers with stronger risk resistance. will not lead to a decline in the level of consumption as a result of the epidemic. In addition, the low inventory of luxury brands is also due to the insufficient supply of some models due to the impact of the overseas epidemic.

As for the performance of the independent market is worse than that of the joint venture market, it is also because the self-brand market is more affected by the epidemic, after all, consumers in this market have not fully recovered from car purchase delays and financial capacity. so more consumers cancel or postpone their car purchase plans. At the same time, the differentiation of independent brands is further increased, and the Matthew effect of dominant brands is more obvious.

According to the association, there were seven brands with inventory depth of more than 2.5 months in April, ranking as follows: Skoda, GAC MOTOR, Roewe, SAIC Volkswagen, Jaguar Land Rover, Beijing Hyundai and Dongfeng Yueda Kia.

Although the performance of car sales in April this year has not yet been announced, the sales data disclosed by a number of car companies show that there is an obvious trend of narrowing and slightly increasing. In addition, many car companies have also experienced double-digit growth. So it also proves that the market finally rebounded slightly in April when it encountered the market squeeze line of a few months ago, but it may not be able to maintain a more optimistic view of the performance in the future. After all, the recovery of the automobile market needs to wait for the recovery of the overall economic rate before it can be pulled.

China's auto industry is expected to sell 2 million vehicles in April, up 0.9 per cent from a year earlier, according to KuaiBao, a key enterprise sales statistics from the China Automobile Association.

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