AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/09 Report--

On March 8, Nissan announced its sales results for February in China. Sales of passenger vehicles and light commercial vehicles in February were 41824, down 30.1% from a year earlier. Of this total, Dongfeng Nissan (including Nissan, Qichen and Infiniti brands) sold 38918 units, down 31.4% from a year earlier. In addition, Nissan sold 107377 vehicles in China from January to February 2024.

In terms of specific models, Xuanyi is still responsible for the sales of the Nissan brand, with 19878 vehicles, which is the only model under Dongfeng Nissan that has sold more than 10,000 units. Xiaoke, Teana and Qijun (17.99-269900 yuan) sold 6680, 4764 and 2427 respectively, while Xunda sold 1200, while other models all sold less than 1,000.

Two days ago, Dongfeng Nissan Tanlu officially went on the market with a price range of 21.28-274800 yuan. It is understood that Land Exploration is the first medium-and large-scale SUV under Dongfeng Nissan, and it is also the model with the highest starting price of Dongfeng Nissan at present. The length of the car is 5130mm, the wheelbase 2900mm, and it adopts a layout of six seats and seven seats. In terms of power, Nissan Land Exploration will be equipped with a 2.0T engine produced by Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., code-named KR20, which is homologous to Infiniti QX60, with a maximum power of 252hp and a peak torque of 376Nm, matched with a 9AT gearbox from Zaifu.

According to the official website, the SUV currently on sale under Nissan includes the new Qijun (Compact SUV), Xiaoke (Compact SUV) and Guike (small SUV). Data show that in 2023, Haoke sales 113600, Qijun for 53700, and land exploration although the highest price of Dongfeng Nissan model, but compared to other large and medium-sized SUV has advantages, Rituang, patrol, range nearly 300000 yuan, while Nissan land exploration only needs a little more than 210000 yuan, but whether this will affect Qijun's market, after all, plus 30, 000 or so can be upgraded to land exploration, larger size and stronger power.

In addition to Nissan, other Japanese brands also fell sharply from a year earlier, mainly due to the impact of the Spring Festival holiday. Honda suffered the worst decline among Japanese brands in February, with sales of 45498 vehicles at the end of the Chinese market, down 38.63 per cent from a year earlier. 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.

In terms of specific models, none of the Honda models sold more than 10,000 cars in February, and the highest-selling model was the Civic, with 7420 vehicles, followed by CR-V and Accord with 7046 and 6519 respectively. In addition, the styling and Haoying are 5691 and 5341 respectively, while other models are less than 5000, while the once popular models such as Feido, XR-V and colorful Zhi are only a little over a thousand.

The same is true of Toyota, which has been playing the leading role of Japanese joint ventures. GAC Toyota has 43271 vehicles, down 35.4 per cent from a year earlier, while FAW Toyota has 29131 vehicles, down 41.7 per cent from a year earlier. In February, there were only two Toyota models, namely, the Carola Ruifang from FAW Toyota and Fenglanda from Guangzhou Automobile Toyota, with sales of 11017 and 10774 respectively, while Weilanda, Leiling, Camry and RAV4 all had more than 5000, of which the Camry was 6971.

Camry's poor performance in recent months is mainly due to market differences brought about by product upgrades. The 9th generation Camry of Guangzhou Auto Toyota officially launched on March 6, with a total of nine models, including four 2.0L gasoline models and five 2.0L smart electric hybrid dual-engine models, of which the gasoline version sells for 17.18-196800 yuan and the intelligent hybrid dual-engine version sells for 17.98-206800 yuan. Compared with the previous generation of models, the 9th generation Camry has a multi-dimensional and multi-faceted improvement. Both the powertrain and the smart driving experience have been fully ahead of the joint venture Class B cars, and they can also wrestle with mainstream new power products. however, whether it can retain the only remaining market advantage in the electric car era is also an issue that GAC Toyota needs to pay attention to.

According to the latest data from the Federation, retail sales of 330000 mainstream joint venture brands fell 31 per cent in February from a year earlier, 51 per cent from a month earlier, and Japanese brands fell 3.4 per cent from a year earlier, with retail share falling to 14.4 per cent. I have to admit that the life of the joint venture brand in the Chinese market is becoming more and more difficult. After the year of the Dragon, BYD took the lead in announcing a price reduction, of which Qin PLUS and destroyer 05 only 79800 yuan, directly to Xuanyi, Lang Yi, Carola and other low-cost joint venture fuel vehicles to carry out a comprehensive attack, and then more and more domestic new energy car companies to join the price reduction camp, but also aggravated the sales dilemma of joint venture car companies, many joint venture manufacturers have to follow the price reduction, or launch more entry-level models to retain the market trend.

Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation of passengers, wrote that 2024 is a key year for new energy vehicle companies to gain a firm foothold, and the competition is destined to be very fierce. With the rapid improvement of the penetration of new energy vehicles, the scale of the traditional fuel vehicle market is gradually shrinking, and the contradiction between the huge traditional production capacity and the shrinking fuel vehicle market brings a more fierce price war. The scale determines the cost and the survival state of the enterprise, and most manufacturers give priority to the share, which is bound to further aggravate the price competition.

2024-2025 will be a fierce survival knockout stage for Chinese car companies, the competition pattern is expected to further intensify, and some players will be eliminated gradually. In the future, the life of the traditional joint venture brand will be more and more difficult, the game between Chinese and foreign sides, they will not be able to reduce prices as brazenly as their own brands, but for them, if they want to retain the dignity of the market as much as possible, it may be the only way to reduce the price.

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