AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)04/09 Report--

On April 8th, Guangzhou Automobile Honda and Guangzhou Automobile Acura announced in a notice on their website that Guangzhou Automobile Honda will no longer produce and sell existing products of Guangzhou Automobile Acura brand from 2023, and relevant channels of Guangzhou Automobile Honda will continue to provide honorable services to Guangzhou Automobile Acura owners and always protect the rights and interests of car owners. It also means that Acura, a high-end Honda brand, will officially withdraw from the Chinese market from 2023.

In early March, several media reported that Guangzhou Auto Acura Beijing Jingang Store, Acura's only 4S store in Beijing, had stopped selling and would become McLaren's 4S store in the future. Acura also has four exhibition halls in Beijing, all of which are set up in the GAC Honda 4S store, and are still in the state of digesting the inventory of cars. at present, there are a number of GAC Honda 4S selling Acura products with Taiwan sales, which are still in the state of digesting the inventory of cars. but no longer order new cars from manufacturers. According to the dealer sales staff, the factory of GAC Acura has stopped production.

In order to digest the inventory, some dealers began to sell cars at sharply reduced prices. According to pictures posted by @ Wu Pei, a well-known car blogger, Acura CDX and RDX have reduced prices by 60,000 to 70,000, with CDX starting at 169800 yuan and RDX starting at 258000 yuan. Of course, under the background of selling cars at reduced prices, the relevant models still enjoy the promotion policies of "free of 5-year maintenance", "exemption of 5-year warranty" and "exemption of 5-year compulsory insurance".

In fact, it is not too late for Acura to enter the Chinese market. In 2006, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the birth of the brand, Acura announced to enter the Chinese market. At that time, three cars such as ILX, TLX, RLX and three SUV of RDX, MDX and ZDX were introduced by way of import. However, due to the low awareness, the sense of existence in the Chinese market has been very low. As a result, in 2016, Guangzhou Auto Honda established a wholly owned subsidiary, Guangzhou Automobile Honda Automobile sales Co., Ltd., and set up a new Beijing branch to set up the business headquarters of the Acura brand, with the Beijing branch as the core. responsible for selling Acura domestic and imported models, officially "taking root" in the Chinese market.

Acura's first domestic model is the CDX, which is tailor-made for Chinese consumers, in other words, "special car". For multinational car companies, in order to quickly open the market, they often take the lead in introducing well-known global models, and are positioned above medium-sized cars, while Acura's first domestic car CDX is a compact SUV, and it is a "special car" for the Chinese market. Acura's development in the Chinese market is destined to be very bumpy. Statistics show that Acura sold 16300 vehicles in China in 2017, setting a peak since Acura entered China. However, compared with other luxury brands, Acura also performed poorly, with Infiniti, also a Japanese luxury brand, with 29100 vehicles, while Lexus sold 132900.

After the defeat of Acura CDX, Acura launched a second SUV model, Acura RDX, which is significantly higher than Acura CDX and is also a well-known model in overseas markets. However, Acura didn't make it home until the end of 2018, missing the best period for the rapid rise of the luxury SUV market, and Acura CDX left a bad impact on Chinese consumers, so RDX sales are still poor. Before RDX, Acura also introduced a medium-sized sedan, the TLX, which is very popular in North America. Acura made the TLX-L by lengthening its body and wheelbase for the Chinese market, but the car was discontinued after only two years of domestic sales. Due to market pressure, Acura stopped the imported car business and car business in 2020, leaving only the production and sales of CDX and RDX SUV.

It is worth mentioning that in 2015, Acura set an annual sales target of 100000 vehicles by 2020, but Acura sold only 11200 vehicles in China in 2020, only 1/10 of that goal. Acura sold a total of 5762 new cars in China in 2021, down 48.6 percent from a year earlier, including 2810 CDX and 2952 RDX, compared with 157400 in the United States in the same period, according to Acura.

According to the attention of the automobile industry, Acura has entered the Chinese market for a long time, but it has ended up in an awkward position of withdrawing from the Chinese market for three main reasons: first, the lack of brand power and the poor popularity and influence of Acura as a luxury brand. After domestic production, it did not change this situation, without its own brand identity, and had a more adverse impact on long-term sales with Guangzhou Automobile and Honda. The second is the lack of product power, product lineup is thin, lack of competitiveness, want to rely on two or three cars to support sales is too difficult; finally, the lack of investment, many are borrowlism, localization is not very good.

Of course, the current development difficulties faced by the Acura brand are not unique in the second-tier luxury brand market. For example, Infiniti, which is also a Japanese brand, is also not optimistic. Data show that Infiniti, a luxury car brand under Nissan, was born in the North American market in 1989, officially landed in China in 2007, and achieved domestic sales in 2014. 2022 is the seventh year of Infiniti. However, after localization, Infiniti did not develop as fast as expected. until today, Infiniti only has three domestic models, Q50L, QX50 and QX60, with a slow pace of product update, and the speed of model introduction and renewal lags behind compared with other luxury brands. According to data disclosed by Dongfeng Automobile Group, Dongfeng Infiniti sales from 2016 to 2019 were 26131, 27766, 28868 and 35035 respectively, down 26.66% from the same period last year to 25695 in 2020 and 66.15% to 8697 in 2021. It is not difficult to see from the data that although Dongfeng Infiniti has maintained its growth before 2020, it has not been able to achieve a major breakthrough. It has launched only two domestic models in the six years since it entered China. Brand influence, product competitiveness and brand service are far inferior to the same level of luxury brands, or even hovering on the edge of the luxury market.

Acura's sales are not good, and there is great pressure on both sides of the joint venture, so it is helpless to withdraw from the Chinese market, but considering the importance of the Chinese market, the Acura brand may be introduced as an imported car and continue to sell in Guangzhou Auto Honda related channels.

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