AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)10/15 Report--

All three major Japanese car companies reported new car sales in China in July.

Toyota sold 152100 new cars in China in July, down 13.5 per cent from a year earlier, while Nissan fell 24.2 per cent to 49204, according to the data. Honda's sales in china plunged 44.3% in august to 56959 vehicles. It is understood that Toyota and Honda sales have fallen for seven months in a row, and Nissan has also declined for five consecutive months, a series of data highlighting the huge challenges faced by Japanese car companies in the Chinese market.

Japan's Kyodo news agency reported that global supply chain problems and semiconductor shortages have also had a significant impact on the production and sales of Japanese car companies. In addition, the demand for new energy vehicles such as pure electric vehicles continues to expand, Japanese car manufacturers, mainly fuel vehicles, are in an uphill battle, and Internet companies have joined the Chinese auto market one after another, and the competition is becoming increasingly fierce. The share of foreign car companies, including Japanese, is shrinking.

As one of the three giants of the Japanese system, Honda's position in the Chinese market is far more difficult than expected. As we all know, Honda China has two joint ventures, Guangzhou Automobile Honda and Dongfeng Honda. After reaching a sales peak of 1.627 million vehicles in 2020, Honda's sales have declined for three consecutive years. Honda's sales in China from 2021 to 2023 were 1.5615 million, 1.3731 million and 1.2342 million, respectively, down 4.0%, 12.07% and 10.12% respectively from 2021 to 2023. After entering 2024, Honda's sales decline in China has not been alleviated, falling 44.3% year-on-year in the previous August, the biggest decline of all Japanese car companies.

Honda's dilemma in the Chinese market is that fuel cars are becoming more and more difficult to sell and electric cars are difficult to become big, but Honda doesn't seem to have any ingenious ways to deal with it. A few days ago, according to media reports, Dongfeng Honda, one of Honda's joint ventures in China, will lay off 2000 people, and the laid-off employees will receive Nissan compensation ("N" represents working years, "2" refers to two months' salary, and an extra month's bonus). Due to the high standard of compensation, many employees are scrambling to be "laid off".

Nissan is also having a hard time in China, where it has two joint ventures, Dongfeng Co., Ltd. and Zhengzhou Nissan, which operates the Nissan brand, Infiniti brand and Qichen brand. Although it has two joint ventures and three major passenger car brands, Nissan's sales in China do not stand out, falling 24.2 per cent in August from a year earlier to 49204 vehicles, a height that used to be achieved by Xuanyi alone. Today, its models are affected to varying degrees by new energy vehicles, especially those with lower prices.

Toyota's performance in the Chinese market is still sustainable, but it has declined for the seventh month in a row. From the beginning of the year to the present, Toyota has launched only the new Camry and the new Asian Dragon in China, while other models have launched new sales activities, but the severe market environment such as intensified price competition continues and Chinese consumers do not pay the bill. According to retail data, in the previous July, only Fenglanda had more than 100000 models, with 116029, while Corolla Ruifang, Rongfang, Weilanda, Camry and Carola all had more than 50, 000. Hanlanda, Leiling and other models are becoming more and more difficult to describe under the market price war.

From the perspective of product layout, although Toyota's fuel vehicle technology is mature, it seems somewhat inadequate under the general trend of energy transformation, and the field of new energy vehicles is almost blank. With the penetration of new energy vehicles in the Chinese market exceeding 50%, consumers are becoming more and more receptive to new energy vehicles, while Toyota has been unable to launch competitive new energy products for a long time. This makes Toyota's space in the Chinese market getting smaller and smaller, and its competitiveness is gradually weakening. In the face of the fierce competition of new energy vehicles, Toyota has to adopt a price reduction strategy to try to find a chance in the market.

In fact, whether it is Toyota, Nissan or Honda, the situation in the Chinese market is more or less the same, that is, fuel cars are difficult to sell and trams are not popular. If Japanese brands want to stay in the Chinese market, they must do something in the electric car market, but it turns out that there is not much time left, and many Chinese car companies, including BYD, have begun to encroach on the joint venture market. this will bring great pressure and challenges to the electrification of Japanese manufacturers. With the rapid development of electric and intelligent cars in China, Mitsubishi is not the only foreign company that wants to cooperate with Chinese enterprises in the field of electric smart vehicles.

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