AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/05 Report--

On March 5, Honda China announced terminal car sales in February 2024. Honda sold 45498 terminal cars in China in February, down 38.63 per cent from a year earlier, according to data. Among them, Guangzhou Auto Honda was 24162, down 32.56% from the same period last year; Dongfeng Honda was 21336, down 44.31% from the same period last year.

Honda sold 146458 terminal cars in China from January to February 2024, compared with 105.9 per cent in the same period (down 5.87 per cent from the same period a year earlier). Among them, GAC Honda sold 78243 vehicles, up 2.80 per cent from the same period last year, while Dongfeng Honda sold 68215 vehicles, up 9.64 per cent from the same period last year.

Judging from the sales in February, Honda's sales in China all showed double-digit declines compared with the same period last year. Honda Chinese officials did not explain the decline in sales. Auto Industry concern believes that it may be related to the Spring Festival in February this year, while the Spring Festival last year in January, affected by the Spring Festival holiday, sales generally declined.

At present, Honda is accelerating the electric transformation, but fuel vehicles are still the unshakable sales base of Honda in China. Take January retail sales as an example. Honda's top five models in China are Honda CR-V, Civic, Accord, Haoying and styling, with sales of 26900, 21200, 15500, 13200 and 13000 respectively.

In terms of pure electric models, as early as April 2022, Honda launched two pure electric models, the e:NP1/e:NS1, which are sister models under the EVR N brand in China, the former being produced by Dongfeng Honda and the latter by GAC Honda, positioning as a small pure electric SUV, but sales of the two models have been depressed since their launch. Honda sold 943 e:NS1 vehicles in January, compared with 23 for e:NP1, according to retail data. The sales of the two models are far from the mainstream new energy vehicles at present.

It should be noted that with the strong rise of domestic new energy, the market share of Japanese brands, which lack popular style products, is constantly being squeezed in China. According to the Federation of passengers, retail sales of mainstream joint venture brands were 670000 vehicles in January, of which the retail share of Japanese brands was 16.7%, unchanged from the same period last year. It is worth mentioning that January last year was the Spring Festival, while this year the Spring Festival was in February.

In an effort to reverse the decline, Honda China has made big changes to its original "electrification transformation plan", including advancing the suspension of the sale of fuel vehicles from 2030 to 2027 and launching more electric products. Honda is scheduled to launch two e:NS2 and e:NP2 models this year, which are sister cars to each other. At present, Dongfeng Honda e:NS2 mass production version and Guangzhou Auto Honda e:NP2 mass production version have been officially launched at the 2023 Guangzhou Motor Show. The two models are based on Honda's exclusive intelligent and efficient pure electric architecture of Honda's pure electric vehicles, and are the second model of Honda's en Architecture series.

On February 26th, Dongfeng Honda announced its new product plan for 2024. Dongfeng Honda will launch three new pure electric models this year, including the e:NS2 model in June, the L model in September and the new SUV in December. In addition, the mid-term version of the Civic will also be launched in December. Under the layout of a number of new cars, Dongfeng Honda reiterated that by 2025, 50% of Dongfeng Honda will no longer put fuel vehicles into operation in 2027, and more than 10 pure electric models will be launched in 2030.

In fact, under the background of the shrinking fuel vehicle market and the strong rise of domestic new energy, not only Honda, but also Japanese brands such as Toyota and Nissan are having a hard time in China. The reason for the decline in sales of Japanese brands is that in addition to the slow upgrading of products and the conservative introduction of new technologies, what is more important is the lack of pure electricity popular products.

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