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According to the latest figures released on Volkswagen Group's Skoda Automotive website, the Skoda brand sold 866800 vehicles worldwide in 2023, an increase of 18.5 percent over the same period last year.

This is Skoda's first growth after four consecutive years of decline. It reached an all-time high in 2018, with sales of 1.2537 million vehicles for the whole year. Since then, sales have declined continuously. Skoda's global car sales from 2019 to 2022 were 1.2428 million, 1.0048 million, 878200 and 731300 respectively, and the whole year of 2023 was close to the 2021 level, an increase of 18.5% over the same period in 2022.

In terms of specific models, Mingrui is Skoda's best-selling product, with a total sales of 191900 vehicles in 2022 (up 36.00% year on year). In addition, the sales of Komick, Kodiak and Kolok were 116500 (up 20.98%), 105900 (12.06%) and 100100 (14.15%) respectively. Overall, almost all Skoda models have grown.

Although Skoda's global sales grew 18.5 per cent year-on-year, it performed extremely poorly in the Asian market, especially in China. Among them, Skoda's sales in Western Europe increased by 27.4% to 480100 vehicles compared with the same period last year. Germany is the largest single market in the world, with an annual sales increase of 17.6% to 157800 vehicles. China and Europe's annual sales fell by 25.1% to 185000 vehicles, of which the domestic market, the Czech Republic, increased by 23.4% to 87800 vehicles.

Sales in eastern Europe fell 6.2 per cent year-on-year to 46800, while Skoda also fell in India, with full-year sales of 48800 vehicles, down 5.8 per cent from 51900 in 2022. In China, the world's largest car market, Skoda delivered only 22800 vehicles for the year, down 48.9 per cent from 44600 in 2022.

Skoda was revealed at the end of 2022 that it would stop producing cars in the Chinese market, that is, home-made, and the official response was to assess Skoda's position in the Chinese market and adjust its strategy to adapt to the development of the local auto market. Skoda did not stop home-made in 2023, but its annual sales plunged 48.9% to deliver only 22800 vehicles, which is actually significantly lower than the "predecessors" who announced their withdrawal from the Chinese auto market. and if Skoda's sales performance in the Chinese market continues to deteriorate, it may also be a matter of time to stop domestic production.

Retail data show that the top three models sold by SAIC Skoda in 2023 are Cormick, Mingrui and Kodiak, respectively, with sales of 7173, 3820 and 3384 respectively. Within SAIC-Volkswagen, Skoda brand positioning is slightly lower than Volkswagen brand, but the two maintain the same platform production, product functions are not much different, although Skoda continues to create "understand Volkswagen Dumas Kodak" and other images and selling points, but after all, it is subordinate to Volkswagen, and gradually lost its own uniqueness. At the same time, with the rapid rise of independent brands in recent years, with rich configuration and high performance-to-price ratio, the market share continues to expand, seizing the market of minority brands in a number of joint ventures, including Skoda.

In addition, in terms of electrification, Skoda's transformation is particularly slow. In 2023, the penetration rate of China's new energy vehicles has reached 31.6%. Independent brands rely on the dividend of the development of the new energy vehicle market to accelerate the realization of corner overtaking. Even Japanese cars with slow electrification transformation are constantly launching new energy models such as pure electricity while defining the electrification transformation strategy. Skoda has just defined the electrification development strategy at this time, and the relevant new energy model products are few.

According to Skoda's plan, in the next few years, it will allocate another 5.6 billion euros to the development of electric models and 700 million euros to the digital transformation. Skoda will offer a full range of electric products from small cars to seven-seater cars by 2026 and increase its share of electric cars delivered in Europe to more than 70 per cent by 2030. Skoda hopes to help the brand become one of the top five car brands in Europe by 2030 by developing new models and more electric models.

Skoda's existing models are mainly fuel vehicles, and the time planning for electric development is already urgent. there is not much time left if it wants to achieve its established strategic goals. at present, Skoda's road in the Chinese market seems to be getting narrower and narrower. How to break the situation is a difficult problem in front of us.

It is understood that Skoda's focus in the Asian market has begun to shift to Southeast Asia. Skoda has entered the Vietnamese market and plans to sell 40,000 vehicles in the local market by 2030. Subsequently, Skoda plans to launch a series of pure electric Enyaq models in the Indian market. It is reported that Skoda will not sell the new generation of Kodiak models in China, which means that SAIC Skoda Kodiak will stop production and sales in the future.

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