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Under the stock competition, the market concentration is increasing, as consumers pay more and more attention to the advantages such as brand image and product reputation, automobile consumption also tends to be more rational, which makes the "Matthew effect" of the car market more and more obvious. In this environment, the market performance of Japanese brands is particularly outstanding this year, and has gradually caught up with German brands.

According to the latest statistics of the China Automobile Association, the annual sales of passenger cars in 2020 was 20.178 million, down 6% from the same period last year, mainly affected by the superimposed epidemic situation in the cold winter of the car market. However, market sales exceeded expectations in the second half of the year, and the industry rebounded steadily after two consecutive years of decline.

In terms of market share of major car series, Chinese brand passenger car sales still rank first, but market share continues to decline compared with the same period last year. Germany, which has maintained a strong position in the past year, has also experienced a large decline, only Japanese and American brands are on the rise, of which Japanese performance is the most prominent.

Specifically, a total of 7.749 million Chinese brand passenger cars were sold in 2020, down 8.1% from the same period last year, which is significantly larger than the industry level. It accounted for 38.4% of total passenger car sales, down 0.8 percentage points from the same period last year. Although the decline was small, it was still at a low point. The share of Chinese brand passenger cars continues to decline, mainly due to the fact that weak brands have almost withdrawn from the market competition.

Chinese brands present a situation of "the strong are stable and the weak are eliminated". Specifically, the head of Chinese brands Geely Motor, Great Wall Automobile, Changan Automobile and so on, only Geely did not achieve sales growth in 2020, but outperformed the market as a whole. While Shangqi passenger cars, BYD, GAC MOTOR and so on are in the recovery of sales. In contrast, the backward brands are in operational difficulties, and their sales have repeatedly dropped sharply or even stopped production, almost withdrawing from the market competition, further aggravating the decline of Chinese brand passenger car market share.

Since 2018, China's auto market has declined for two consecutive years, the knockout stages of the auto market has intensified, and some car companies have been knocked out, also because there are too many independent car companies in China, there are nearly 100 independent car enterprises, but the market is only so big. Moreover, the normal survival of the fittest in the market, the structural adjustment of the automobile market and moving towards the road of high-quality development is the law of the industry. with the sudden attack of the epidemic, it has accelerated the reshuffle of the automobile industry.

In contrast, German and Japanese brands do not have as many domestic brands as independent brands, but they also reach a cumulative market share of nearly 50%. For a long time, the performance of German brands has been significantly higher than that of Japanese brands, but the market share of Japanese brands has been equal to that of German brands this year. Among them, German brands fell from 24.2% to 23.9% in 2020, a drop of 0.3 percentage points, which is not significant, but it is also mainly due to the decline of SAIC-Volkswagen brand. While FAW-Volkswagen has been in a growing trend, it can be seen that under the trend of increasing and decreasing, it can not make up for the decline of SAIC-Volkswagen.

In 2020, the market share of Japanese brands increased from 21.3% to 23.1%, an overall increase of 1.8 percentage points, becoming the strongest growth performance of all joint venture brands, with a 23% market share together with German brands. It is worth mentioning that the market share of Japanese brands has surpassed that of German brands in October last year. The market share of Japanese brands reached 23.9 per cent in October, higher than that of German brands, which was 23.7 per cent, the federation said.

Thanks to the collective rise of Japanese mainstream joint venture car companies. Among them, Toyota accelerated the listing of new products in 2019, successively invested in a new generation of Corolla / Leiling sedans, the sales of the new domestic model Asian Dragon are good, resulting in Toyota sales growth, Toyota plans to gradually increase the sales of TNGA models in the future, at the same time, continue to expand the two-car strategy.

While Honda in the new Feido, Haoying new car sales increment, as well as Accord, Civic, C-RV and other models continue to develop, the two joint ventures also ushered in continuous double-digit growth, and even exceeded Toyota's monthly sales performance. Mainly because Honda, as a car company with great influence under the epidemic this year, fell into a state of production and shutdown for a long time, the brand returned to normal production capacity in the second half of the year, but the cumulative sales for the whole year became regular, which can be seen the strong return of Honda.

From the perspective of other series, the market share of American, Korean and French cars has declined to varying degrees except for the growth of American cars. Among them, the market share of American cars increased to 9.6% from 8.9% last year, mainly due to the growth in sales of brand Ford and Buick, including Buick's transformation to high-end and the return of four-cylinder machines. South Korea has expanded its decline again this year, from 4.7% to 3.5%. As for the French brand, the withdrawal of the Renault brand further fell to the bottom.

Generally speaking, car sales in China continue to decline, and the rise of Japanese cars against the trend reflects consumers' recognition of Japanese brands. From the analysis of the market share of each department, we can also predict the market trend of each brand, and the brand differentiation is more obvious in the market environment of stock competition. From the perspective of the industry pattern, the concentration of the market is increasing, and weak brands are facing elimination.

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