Don't Just Watch Sales Decline The sedan market is still full of vitality!

The car market is still falling. In the first half of this year, the sales of domestic cars fell by 3.30% year-on-year, and the market share in the narrow passenger car market also fell below 50%. The sales volume of cars and SUVs came close to 1:0.84 in the history of the first half of this year.

However, there is a new trend in the car market. In the past, the larger-sized medium-sized, medium-sized, and large-sized cars have gradually shifted from an “executive business” style to a “fashion sports” style, and their potential consumer groups are also becoming younger, including physiology. And the psychological rejuvenation, combined with the trend of consumption upgrade, the entire mid-to-high-class car market can be pulled.

It is true that under the halo of high-growth SUVs for many years, the low or even negative growth of the car market seems to be a bit of a downfall. In particular, in the first half of this year, driven by the medium-sized SUV, the SUV’s share in the narrow passenger car market exceeded its 40% for the first time. Correspondingly, the market share of cars with sales volume falling by 3.30% fell below 50%.

However, the significance of the car market has not disappeared for car companies. With the exception of a few hard-core off-road vehicles, most of the carrying SUVs and cars are developed on the same platform. The versatility of platform architecture, powertrains, and components determines that there will be no replacement of who in the car and SUV market.

Of course, the sedan market is not dead. In fact, the change that the car market is making now is a microcosm of the current trend of the entire consumer group rejuvenating and escalating.

Today, “Tong Jiren Automotive Review” will interpret the car market structure in the first half of 2017.

Mainstream family sedans still occupy the largest share and VW has an absolute advantage

In the first half of this year, compact cars accounted for nearly 2/3 of the sedan market, which is actually reflected in the best-selling models. By listing domestic sales of cars in the first half of this year, it will be found that all cars are compact cars.

North and South Volkswagen's advantages in the combination of the car market, for the time being, no car companies can shake. In the first half of the year, the volume of Volkswagen's sedan accounted for half of the top 10 sales. The remaining half of the China-US Department and the Japanese Group each occupy two seats. Geely Dorsett, as the only seed of its own brand, ranks tenth in sales of cars in the first half of the year.

If subdivision is further carried out, in the first half of the year, five of the top 10 sedan cars are targeted at the mainstream joint venture compact car market, three are targeted at the entry-level joint venture compact car market, and the remaining one is the high-end joint venture compact car positioning. Among the mainstream compact cars, apart from the slight decline in the largest volume of Langyi, the remaining four models are still growing. Jetta, Santana, and Forrester's three entry-level compact cars all experienced declines.

In China, about 100,000 yuan for start-up joint-venture compact vehicles sold in China are mostly "localized" models developed specifically for the Chinese market. From the perspective of sales volume and product trends in this market segment, endogenous capacity is not strong. In the case of a similar decline in the small SUV market, the entry-introduced compact car also failed to take this opportunity to grow. Combined with the growth of the mainstream joint venture compact car, it can reflect the overall migration of consumer trends.

In the same period, there were also high-end joint-venture compact vehicles. The three models of Sagitar and Lingdu fell 17.30% and 6.03% in the first half of this year. Weilang also had almost zero growth compared with the same period of last year. The decline in the prices of medium-sized cars, compact SUVs, and even some medium-sized SUVs, and young fashion trends are the main reasons for the erosion of the high-end compact car market.

The intersection between different market segments precisely reflects the era in which the auto market is entering stocks and slow growth. Consumers' purchases will no longer be compared with similar models, but will be combined in a price range with individual needs. Comprehensive comparison.

Different brands have different attitudes towards the car market

Compared with the top 10 in the SUV market in the first half, TOP 10 still has a considerable distance from the joint venture brand in the car market. In the first half of the year, the sales volume of TOP 10 was only a self-owned brand, and there were only two models in TOP 20, and it was not until TOP 30's own brand was increased to 5, namely, Geely Emgrand, Baojun 310, Geely Vision, BYD F3 and Chery Ariza 5 , And all 5 models are concentrated in the following 100,000 yuan market.

However, if the sales volume of cars and SUVs is compared to the major autonomous car companies, problems can be more clearly identified. Among the 8 automakers with the largest market share, only Geely and BYD have sales of more cars than SUVs, and 4 independent car dealers have sold less than half of SUVs. Great Wall and GAC passenger vehicles are almost all in the market. Rely on SUV support.

In the autonomous car companies, Geely’s car base is the best. In addition to such hot models as Di Hao and Yuanjing, the launch of the Emgrand GL has opened up the market segment for compact cars with its own brand, and the Borui target for the launch of the modified models in the second half of the year is Remodeling the benchmark of its own brand medium car. In the long run, Geely’s product line is still the most balanced among its own brands.

Chang’an’s car trumps this year’s sales, which have fallen by 33.7%, directly leading to a 37.1% decline in sales of Chang’an cars. The lack of updating for many years was the reason why once important members of the self-owned brand cars started falling behind. Contrast this with actively promoting the new SAIC-GM-Wuling, the success of the Baojun 310 in the small-car market has directly allowed SAIC-GM-Wuling to achieve more than 5 times growth in the car market.

Even GAC Passenger Vehicles, which only sold more than 18,000 cars in the first half of the year, occupied a 67% share of medium-sized cars, the GA6. In the past two months, sales even exceeded that of the independent midsize car, Geely Borei.

Regarding the attitude toward the car market, all independent car companies have their own plans. Except for the Great Wall’s clear statement that “strategy abandons” the sedan market, other independent brands are still trying their best to make their sedan market full. For example, Geely’s independent car companies with a complete product system and solid foundation are naturally expected to have a balanced development. For automakers with a relatively small scale, such as GAC, the route chosen is first to rely on high-end SUVs for explosive funds. The establishment of a brand image has led to the sales of other SUVs and sedan products.

The joint venture mid-size car market is spurring young fashion trends

The first half of this year was a relatively quiet period for the joint-venture midsize car. The Passat, the king of the past few years, started to decline because of the relatively old product platform. The mainstream mid-size cars such as Camry, Accord, Mondeo and Regal have also experienced quite a long product cycle. In this case, Maiteng, who took the lead in replacing and assembling the latest technology of the Volkswagen Group, seized the opportunity to achieve a 31.2% growth in the first half of the year and became the only medium-sized vehicle that exceeded 100,000 sales for the first half of the year.

The reason why MAGOTAN can succeed is, on the one hand, that it relies on brand-new generations to gain an advantage over its counterparts in vehicle product strength. On the other hand, it also adds some dynamic elements at the design level to allow it to have a larger consumer group age. span.

However, in the second half of the year, more and more young and stylish models in the midsize car market will come one after another. The first is the new Regal that has been completed, and then at the end of the year it will also begin to move toward radical design. The entire Camry and Accord will also be released. The Nissan, which was the most "home" of the past, has also made Tenjin "fierce" under the guidance of the rejuvenation strategy.

In fact, the share of mid-size cars in the sedan market in the first half of this year has increased by 1.2% compared to last year. Where does the excess share come from? It is the medium-sized car market for the new generation. Once the domestic automobile market, "the law of winning the middle of the car", will be amended in the future to "have a new generation of medium-sized cars," the medium-sized car market to the young, fashion, sports direction, it is to regain new life, expand The key to market share.

It can be foreseen that the number of medium-sized cars that will dominate the business administration in the future will be less and less, and will be replaced by highly fashionable and medium-sized midsize cars.

Cross-border sedan began to gradually accept for the people

In the early years, the concept of cars for the Chinese people still remained in the sedan model. Golf, Fox and other models took the lead in market development and cultivation. However, by 2017, the appearance of a number of “cross-border” sedans and their gradual acceptance by the mainstream market indicates that the diversification of cars may take another step.

In the first half of this year, Wei Ling, as a crossover between cars and wagons, had an average monthly sales of more than 5,000 units. In the same way as FAW-Volkswagen, Golf and Journey has a cross-border identity between cars and MPVs, with an average monthly sales of nearly 4,000 vehicles.

Whether it is a station wagon or small and medium-sized MPVs, it used to be a non-mainstream model in the past. However, if manufacturers can truly achieve the precise positioning of potential customer groups and marketing, in line with the increasingly mature domestic car culture, such cross-boundary cars have a good prospect. Judging from the sales volume and market attention of Wei Ling and Golf·Jiayue, they have entered the vision of mainstream consumer groups and realized the diversion of potential customers for non-sedans. This is a good market supplement for FAW-Volkswagen, which currently does not have VW-labeled SUV products.

With such products to open the market, the future will inevitably have more car companies to follow in order to seek to expand the market share in the segment. In August of this year, the Octavia tour wagon is expected to be officially listed. At the end of the year, Yinglang Travel Edition models will also be launched, while the independent brand Zhongbaojun 310W has also been listed in July. Cross-border cars will likely become the new Blue Ocean in the coming years.

As the most “orthodox” automobile market in the traditional sense, the sedan market is not as bright as the SUV in recent years, but its slowing growth rate is determined by its general volume and a relatively full degree of development. The car as a basis for a number of car companies, as well as the trend of continuous young, personalized, and diversified development, precisely shows that the car market is still a vibrant market.

As for the future share of SUVs and cars, the “Tong Jiren Automotive Review” believes that more attention should be paid to how to recognize one’s own strengths and closely combine their own advantages with the needs of potential consumer groups. As for the type of product produced, it is not the most important thing.