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

At a media briefing held in Japan on May 9, Mitsubishi President Takao Kato said in response to recent rumors that Mitsubishi Motors had withdrawn from the Chinese market that the company had no plans to withdraw from the Chinese market at present. At the same time, it also said that although the company faces difficulties in China, the Changsha plant will restart production in June as planned.

It is worth noting that since the beginning of this year, GAC-Mitsubishi has been repeatedly reported to stop production and will withdraw from the Chinese market and other news. In March this year, an automobile self-media released a revelation that a certain day-to-day joint venture brand is about to withdraw from the Chinese market, and the production capacity of the production line will be transferred to the OEM of the same group's own brand. Earlier, there was market news that GAC-Mitsubishi, a joint venture brand, would sell the Changsha plant to produce GAC-Ean electric cars, and the Mitsubishi brand might withdraw from the Chinese market. The Ean working group has arrived in Changsha GAC-Mitsubishi and is about to revamp the production line. Therefore, as soon as the content was issued, it immediately attracted the attention of the majority of netizens, and many netizens speculated that the Japanese brand was probably GAC-Mitsubishi.

At that time, in response to netizens' speculation, GAC-Mitsubishi immediately came forward to refute the rumor and said: this is false news, everything is normal at present. GAC-Mitsubishi operates normally and does not quit, and the factory is also in normal operation. However, one wave of rumors is not flat, another rumor arises again. In April, Mitsubishi Motors temporarily suspended new car production in China due to persistent sluggish sales, which will be adjusted according to inventory and sales environment, and is expected to resume production in June, Nikkei Chinese website reported in April.

On May 7, GAC GROUP announced the production and marketing of KuaiBao in April. the biggest difference between the production and marketing of KuaiBao and the past is that Mitsubishi Motors was removed from KuaiBao, a move that led many industry insiders to speculate that GAC-Mitsubishi might withdraw from the Chinese market. Of course, in response to the fact that Mitsubishi Motors did not appear in GAC GROUP and KuaiBao, GAC GROUP responded: Mitsubishi's production figures only account for a small part of the total, so they are classified as' other "categories.

Although GAC-Mitsubishi has repeatedly denied withdrawing from the Chinese market, it is indeed inadequate in the Chinese market according to its current market performance. Relevant data show that Mitsubishi Motors (Mitsubishi Motors) is a well-known multinational automaker in Japan, established in 1970, headquartered in the Tokyo port area. In 1970, Mitsubishi Motors became independent from the automatic vehicle manufacturing department of Mitsubishi heavy Industry and became a Japanese automobile manufacturing company. After the establishment of the company, Mitsubishi also ushered in a moment of glory, achieving the fifth largest Japanese automaker in output in 2009 and the 15th largest automaker in the world. In 2012, GAC GROUP, Mitsubishi Motor and Mitsubishi Corporation formed a joint venture, GAC-Mitsubishi Motor. According to the auto industry's website, GAC-Mitsubishi currently has six models on sale, namely, the pure electric SUV Artuco, the new Outlander, Olander, Xinjingxuan, Yige and L200.

Judging from the relevant data, the main sales volume of GAC-Mitsubishi is Orande. Relevant data show that in 2016, GAC-Mitsubishi Outlander was officially listed in China, and the new car was favored by the market as soon as it was launched. GAC-Mitsubishi sold 117388 vehicles in 2017, up 110.04% from the same period last year, while GAC-Mitsubishi sold 144018 vehicles in 2018, up 22.69% from the same period last year. However, the good times did not last long, because of the single product, its own channel layout and other reasons, GAC-Mitsubishi began to show a decline in sales since 2019. Although GAC-Mitsubishi also made adjustments and successively introduced products such as Yige and Jinxuan, the increase in the number of models did not make GAC-Mitsubishi's sales better.

According to the data, sales from 2019 to 2021 were 133016, 75001 and 66006 respectively, down 7.64%, 43.62% and 11.99% from the same period last year. After entering 2022, GAC-Mitsubishi's annual sales nearly halved, with sales of only 33600 vehicles in 2022, down 49.13% from the same period last year.

Sales are not good natural financial report data is not ideal, according to GAC GROUP released the latest financial data show: by the end of 2022, GAC-Mitsubishi total assets of 5.961 billion yuan, total liabilities of 5.953 billion yuan, asset-liability ratio of 99%, has been on the brink of insolvency. Last year, GAC GROUP gave 1 billion yuan of emergency blood transfusion to GAC-Mitsubishi to improve cash flow, but so far, GAC-Mitsubishi has not improved.

On April 25, Mitsubishi Motors issued a confirmation notice of non-operating expenses and special losses. Mitsubishi Motors said that GAC-Mitsubishi Motor Co., Ltd. launched the new Euroland in December 2022, but sales targets continued to fall short as competition in the Chinese market intensified. as a result, it is expected to include an abnormal loss of 22.6 billion yen in its consolidated results for the fiscal year 2022, including 12.1 billion yen in non-operating expenses and a special loss of 10.5 billion yen (544 million yuan).

In addition, according to the March production and sales data disclosed by Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., Ltd., GAC-Mitsubishi sold a total of 3969 vehicles in the first quarter of 2023, down 57.95% from the same period last year, making it the group's biggest decline. New Outlander, the backbone of GAC-Mitsubishi sales, sold only 3689 vehicles in the first quarter. Sales of other models are also in the doldrums, with 169 electric cars sold in the Atuco, 90 in Yige and 21 in the cool. Judging from the performance of Mitsubishi Motors in China at the present stage, it can be said that it is difficult step by step. How big a storm can such sales and financial data cause even if they do not withdraw from the Chinese market?

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