The eighth batch of energy-saving vehicles announced the loss of their own brand "protection umbrella"

On July 11, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (hereinafter referred to as “China Automobile Association”) released its auto production and sales report for the first half of 2012. The report shows that the market share of independent brands continues to decline, and the overall advantages of foreign investment are even more pronounced.

On the same day, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the Ministry of Finance jointly announced the eighth batch of energy-saving vehicle promotion catalogues. In this policy that originally favored self-owned brands, foreign brands occupied 50 of the 148 models, while in the seventh batch 49 Among the models, foreign investment still holds the majority of 27 seats. This means that foreign brands are gradually becoming the "darlings" of policies.

In this regard, Dong Yang, Secretary-General of China Automobile Association, said that in the next three years, the survival status of self-owned brands will be at a low level, and some companies will surely not survive this period of time.

According to the report from China Automobile Association, the sales of self-owned brands in the first half of the year have resulted in a total of 3.151 million self-owned brands sold by passenger cars, down 0.16% year-on-year, accounting for 41.39% of the total sales of passenger cars, and the occupancy rate has dropped by 3% year-on-year. Sales of self-owned brand cars were 1,423,300, down 6.8% year-on-year, accounting for 27.2% of the total sales of cars, and the occupancy rate was down 3.6 percentage points year-on-year. The data shows that there is a certain gap between the comprehensive competitiveness of China's self-owned brand passenger vehicles and foreign brands.

In addition, the self-owned brands also face a common difficulty, that is, the business-level trend is grim. At the end of May, the accounts receivable of key enterprises (groups) of the automobile industry amounted to 132.531 billion yuan, a growth rate of 20.7%; the financing costs of enterprises increased and the interest expenses increased exponentially; the short-term borrowings of enterprises increased by 50%, indicating that the company's capital turnover There are certain difficulties; in addition, the labor cost of enterprises has grown too fast, which has increased by more than 20% year-on-year.

In the face of the above trends, the concentration of auto companies will gradually increase their potential for future restructuring. Data show that from January to June, the sales of the top 10 car group companies totaled 8,449,700 vehicles, an increase of 4.5% year-on-year, and accounted for 88.0% of the total car sales, which was an increase of 1.4% over the same period of last year. Among them, the total sales of the top five companies totaled 6.908 million units, accounting for 72.7% of the total; the total sales volume of the first three companies totaled 5.187 million units, and the sales concentration reached 54%.

Some experts said that with the increase in the concentration of the Group's market, the joint venture will release production and sales in the next two or three years, and there will be no significant improvement in the living environment of the independent brands. The possibility of reorganization of the automobile industry in the future will be greater, especially to large groups.

Lost policy "protect umbrella"

The continued decline in the share of independent brands has a great relationship with the withdrawal of various incentive policies in 2011.

Although at the beginning of this year, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the “2012 Catalogue of Selected Vehicles for Official Vehicles of the Party and Government Organs (Consultation Draft)”, the short-listed companies are all self-owned brands. However, the relevant persons of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology had previously indicated that the policy was not intended to exclude foreign brands. Foreign brands do not meet the policy requirements.

It is understood that in the bus procurement policy, there are "1.8 liters of emissions, less than 180,000 yuan" and "in the last two years, corporate research and development expenses accounted for no less than 3% of the main business revenue," two key The requirement, especially the latter, is that it is difficult for foreign-funded enterprises to achieve in the short term. However, with the gradual shift of foreign investment in China before 2015, foreign brands still have opportunities.

In the list of energy-saving models, we can see the market advantage of foreign brands. Although in the two batches of 197 models, foreign brands accounted for only 77 seats, but according to data from the China Automobile Association, in the first five months of this year, 1.0L to 1.6L (energy-saving list of the main models of the displacement range) in the sales ranking, the top ten Five no independent brands.

The person in charge of this Ministry of Finance stated that as long as the national energy-saving requirements are met in the same-level models, they can be selected. This means that foreign brands use technological advantages and gradually occupy the policy space, while independent brands are gradually losing the policy of "protecting the umbrella."

Low-end but not low-quality For the current situation of self-owned brands, Dong Yang said that the days of self-owned brands are sure to be even more sad. There must be no support for the company in the next three years. The current method of self-owned brand is to do what oneself is good at doing, and to practice its own internal strength.

Regardless of whether it is based on energy-saving catalogs or previous market experience, relatively low-end models (such as 1.0-emission or less) have a relatively weak position in foreign brands and are relatively strong in their own brands. However, in the face of low value-added brands and low sales revenue, how independent brands can overcome difficulties.

Li Chunbo, chief analyst of CITIC Securities Automotive Industry, believes that auto companies should learn from home appliance companies, especially low-cost manufacturing, but they must open up quality gaps.

In fact, low-cost manufacturing is the successful experience of Japanese and Korean companies. Li Chunbo said that in the face of so many joint ventures and multinational companies, there is no difference in the manufacturing cost of independent brands, and there is no possibility of winning without differentiated manufacturing and operating costs.

More importantly, low cost does not mean low quality. Li Chunbo said: "At present, whether it is Gree or Haier, the reason they are doing well is not because low-cost manufacturing is good, but because of the low-cost manufacturing, based on the difference between product quality and other independent brands. These companies Will become the winning company in its own brand."