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Japanese cars can't be sold in the Chinese market? A few days ago, Toyota China, Honda China, Nissan China and Mazda China have successively announced their sales in China in 2022. Four Japanese car companies have all declined to varying degrees in the Chinese market, of which Toyota's sales in China fell for the first time in a decade compared with the same period last year. Honda China and Nissan China fell by more than double digits compared with the same period last year, and Mazda China was even more appalling, declining for five consecutive years.

Data show that Toyota sold 1.9406 million new cars in China in 2022, down 0.2% from a year earlier, the first year-on-year decline in Toyota in a decade. Toyota said the epidemic led to a significant reduction in the number of people arriving at stores, which in turn seriously affected the performance of sales.

Specifically, Guangzhou Auto Toyota sold a total of 1.005 million new cars in 2022, an increase of 21.4% over the same period last year, making it one of the few joint venture car companies that can reach millions of production and sales in 2022. FAW-Toyota, by contrast, performed relatively poorly, with sales of 834600 vehicles in 2022, up 0.3% from a year earlier, roughly the same as in the same period.

Toyota's decline in China is mainly due to luxury brand Lexus. Data show that Lexus terminal sales in China in 2022 were 184000, down 16.06% from the same period last year, the first decline in the 16 years since Lexus entered China. For the reasons for the decline in sales, the market is generally attributed to the epidemic and chip shortage, as an imported brand of Lexus, its production and transportation are indeed threatened. The deeper reason is that with the rise of domestic luxury brands and new car manufacturers, Lexus no longer has an advantage and its market share has been carved up. In 2022, the best-selling models ES series and NX series have gone from price increase to parity to price reduction, and the era of Lexus is no longer.

Honda is more serious than Toyota. Honda's cumulative sales of terminal cars in China in 2022 were 1.3731 million, down 12.07 per cent from a year earlier, according to data. Among them, Guangzhou Auto Honda sold 720700 vehicles, down 6.19% from the same period last year, while Dongfeng Honda sold 652400 vehicles, down 17.76% from the same period last year. It can be seen that Honda's sales decline is not due to the problems of a joint venture car company. This problem is still attributed to the Honda brand itself.

In 2022, Honda launched a number of blockbuster models in the Chinese market, including ZR-V, new generation XR-V, new generation colorful wisdom, new generation CR-V, new generation Haoying, Civic TYPE-R, Civic HATCHBACK and so on, but these new cars failed to promote the recovery of Honda brand sales in the Chinese market. Honda explained that Geopolitics has led to varying degrees of impact on the energy and raw materials supplied by some countries for the production of auto parts, which has had an impact on the supply chain of chips and power batteries. However, in the face of the impact of parts supply, the sales of many Chinese brands are booming, and Japanese car companies blame the decline in sales on the "parts supply" is obviously one-sided.

Among the three mainstream Japanese car companies, Toyota, Honda and Nissan, Nissan's crisis is the biggest. According to the data, Nissan China (including passenger / commercial vehicles) sold 1.045 million vehicles in 2022, down 22.1% from the same period last year, of which Dongfeng Nissan (Nissan, Qichen and Infiniti brands) sold 920900 vehicles, down 14.8% from the same period last year. It is understood that this is the first time that Dongfeng Nissan has fallen below 1 million vehicles since 2014, including 1.133 million in 2020 and 1.135 million in 2021.

As we all know, Dongfeng Nissan passenger cars mainly operate three major brands: Nissan, Infiniti and Qichen, among which the Nissan brand accounts for the majority of Nissan's sales in China, including Xuanyi, Teana and Haoke. All of these three models declined to varying degrees in 2022, including 19.0% in 2022, 6.5% in Xiaoke, and the top three B-class cars in the joint venture brand. Prior to this, Qijun is also the main sales model of Dongfeng Nissan, but since the replacement of three-cylinder engine, sales have fallen again and again, is no longer one of the main sales products of Dongfeng Nissan.

Why does Nissan have the biggest crisis? Nissan derives 90 per cent of its sales in China from Dongfeng Nissan, while most of Dongfeng Nissan's sales come from Xuanyi, which sold 420700 vehicles in 2022, 150600 for Xiaoke and 146000 for Teana. In other words, if there is a big change in Xuanyi's sales, it will directly affect the market pattern of Dongfeng Nissan and even Nissan in China, and this is not alarmist talk. At present, Chinese brands are constantly encroaching on the joint venture brand market. Including Carola, Lang Yi and Bora are also beginning to be affected, and how long can Xuanyi sell in the same house last?

As for Mazda, its volume in the Chinese market cannot be compared with Toyota and Honda. Data show that the annual sales of Changan Mazda in 2022 were 104032, down 21.43% from the same period last year. The highest selling model was Mazda 3 Oncella, with annual sales of 63100, followed by CX-5 with 17400 and CX-30 with 10700.

Zhang Jing, president of Changan Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd., said, "China is the most important overseas market for Mazda, and Mazda will continue to dig deep." According to officials, Mazda will launch new models in the Chinese market every year from 2023. This year, Changan Mazda will launch the CX-50, the first car to be launched after the merger of North and South Mazda. In terms of power, CX-50 is equipped with 2.0L and 2.5L power options, and transmission is equipped with 6AT gearbox. In addition to CX-50, CX-90 is also expected to achieve domestic production this year. Of course, it remains to be seen that these two new cars can lead to a revival of Mazda.

Finally, there is Mitsubishi, which has a very low sense of presence in the Chinese market. In fact, the current situation of GAC-Mitsubishi is very similar to that of GAC-Fick, which has just been delisted. 90 per cent of its sales come from one model. In 2022, GAC-Mitsubishi sold 33600 vehicles for the year, of which 31200 were sold by Euroland. At the same time, GAC-Mitsubishi's debt ratio is extremely high. GAC Fick's debt ratio was 107% before delisting, seriously insolvent, while GAC-Mitsubishi's debt ratio was 80% as of the first half of 2022.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation of passengers, said that the decline in sales of Japanese cars is related to the development trend of the automobile industry. The market share of fuel vehicles is shrinking sharply, and independent brands are accelerating to seize part of the market of joint venture brands with new energy vehicles. However, the new energy vehicles of Japanese car companies are in a weak position, and the market share of Japanese cars has declined.

In fact, it is not only Japanese brands, at present, many joint venture brands are facing many challenges. on the one hand, in the era of stock competition, most of the dividends brought by consumption upgrading are occupied by luxury brands, while independent brands continue to impact the high end. Many joint venture brands are affected. On the other hand, the joint venture car enterprises started relatively late in the electrified transformation and are in the stage of accelerating catch-up, but they are generally faced with the problems of insufficient accumulation of pure electric vehicles and weak industrial chain. How to renew their ideas and actively transform need to be considered.

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