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On January 4, Honda China released its latest sales figures. According to the data, Honda's terminal sales volume in China in December was 165798 vehicles, with a year-on-year growth of 19.70% and a month-on-month growth of 55.45%, which is also the seventh time in the year that Honda sold more than 100,000 vehicles.

According to the sales situation in December, although Honda China achieved double-digit growth in December compared with the previous month and year-on-year, there is still a downward trend from the analysis of accumulated sales volume of the whole year. Data show that in 2023, Honda's cumulative sales volume in China was 1234181 vehicles, down 10.12% year-on-year. Among them, the two joint venture brands declined year-on-year, GAC Honda fell 13.91% year-on-year to 620469 vehicles; Dongfeng Honda fell 4.90% year-on-year to 613712 vehicles.

As for the reasons for the decline in sales,"Auto Industry Concern" believes that it is related to the rapid rise of the current domestic new energy market, while Honda China has not yet had strong products in this field.

At present, fuel vehicles are still the main source of Honda's sales in China. According to official data, the cumulative sales volume of CR-V, Accord, Civic, Haoying and Model in 2023 was 213,515,178,812,177,721,128,115 and 119174 respectively. In the pure electric vehicle market, the official did not announce the model sales.

Up to now, Honda has arranged e: NP1/e: NS1 two pure electric cars in the domestic market, but the sales volume of the two models has been depressed since they were launched. According to the data, the cumulative retail sales volume of Dongfeng Honda e: NS1 in November was 1162, and the cumulative sales volume in the first November was 7042; the cumulative sales volume of GAC Honda e: NP1 was 56, and the cumulative sales volume in the first November was 4471.

In addition to the e: NP1/e: NS1 pure electric models, Dongfeng Honda e: NS2 production version and GAC Honda e: NP2 production version were officially released at Guangzhou Auto Show in 2023. The two models are sister cars to each other. They are built based on Honda pure electric vehicle exclusive intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture "e:N Architecture F." They are the second model of Honda e:N series and are expected to be launched in 2024.

Honda is accelerating its electric transformation. Honda China has previously advanced the time point of "stopping selling fuel vehicles" from 2030 to 2027, that is, after 2027, all Honda models launched in China are hybrid models and pure electric vehicles, and no new pure fuel models will be launched; by 2035, Honda China will achieve 100% sales of pure electric vehicles. According to the specific joint venture company, GAC Honda will no longer launch new pure fuel models from 2027, and all models sold by Honda in China will be 100% electric from 2035. As for Dongfeng Honda, the proportion of electrification will reach more than 50% by 2025, no new fuel vehicles will be launched after 2027, and more than 10 pure electric vehicles will be launched accumulatively by 2030. In addition, in September 2023, Dongfeng Honda has launched a brand-new independent pure electric brand_Lingxi, which will have independent brand LOGO, and the first model "Lingxi L" concept car will be launched in mass production in 2024.

However, although Honda's two joint venture brands in China have made a lot of changes and plan to launch more pure electric cars, from the current situation of the automobile market, the independent brand has an absolute leading advantage in the field of new energy, thus increasing the overall market share.

In fact, Honda's decline in sales in China is only a microcosm of Japanese car companies. Since entering 2023, the development of Japanese automobile enterprises in China has not been smooth. In the first three quarters of this year, cumulative sales of Japanese brands fell 15.4 per cent year-on-year to 2,612,700 vehicles, accounting for 17.2 per cent of China's market share, compared with 20.0 per cent of China's market share in 2022, according to the association.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, once said: "Japanese cars have shortcomings in the pure electric vehicle market, mainly because Japanese car companies are unwilling to change. "This also puts Japanese joint-venture brands under unprecedented pressure in China. Obviously, under the background of the strong rise of domestic new energy and the continuous squeeze of market share of joint-venture automobile enterprises, it is not easy for Honda China to turn against the wind.

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