2012 auto market outlook: luxury cars rejoice their own brands

The ups and downs of the auto market in 2011 made the auto market trend suspense this year.

For the overall trend of the auto market this year, all parties are generally more optimistic. In 2011, the production and sales of automobiles were 18,419,900 and 18,505,100 respectively. From the perspective of the growth rate, production and sales increased by 0.84% ​​and 2.45%, respectively, which was the lowest in 13 years.

Taking last year as the standard, An Qingheng, president of the Beijing Automotive Industry Association, predicts that the auto market growth rate will be about 7% this year and will not exceed 10%. The increase of around 10% has become a common view of the industry.

Gu Xianghua, deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, believes that the rapid growth of the auto market in previous years has led people to develop a bad attitude. Therefore, the industry needs to adjust its mentality and realize that the future of the auto market is good.

The China Association of Automobile Manufacturers believes that as the Chinese government relaxes its economic policy, car sales may rebound this year.

Luxury car makers believe that this year is still a year of great success. Lexus, which has not published its sales data habits, announced in uncharacteristic terms that in 2011 it had completed a total of 56,000 new vehicle deliveries. It plans to achieve growth of more than 50% in 2012, reaching 88,000 vehicles, with a planned increase of 56.3%.

BMW's sales in individual months last year exceeded Audi's luxury segment market champion Audi. Xu Zhijun, president of BMW China Automotive Trading Co., Ltd., said in an interview with China Business News that although the policy environment is not good, the mentality of luxury car buyers is affected. Relatively small, on the other hand, luxury car segment market itself now accounts for a relatively low percentage of the entire car market, so there is still relatively large room for growth.

Audi is also setting new car targets for launching more than seven new models and more than ten models in the year. It has spared no effort to complete the goal of selling one million new cars in three years.

However, not all car companies are so optimistic. Most of the self-owned car companies that have suffered hardships last year are still in a period of self-repair. Some joint-brand car companies have already reduced the number of parts and components purchased in the first quarter of this year to avoid unknown market risks.

The National Development and Reform Commission price monitoring center yesterday issued a report that macroeconomics will continue to operate steadily in 2012, and that the automobile industry policy will not introduce comprehensive and vigorous stimulus and restriction policies under the guiding ideology of steady progress and moderate adjustment. The oversupply of the market will not change in the short term. Therefore, nearly 2 million inventories will need to be digested by the market.

Experts from various parties believe that, judging from the current market situation, it is highly probable that slow growth will continue in 2012, and there will be few opportunities for spurt development. "Apart from the numerous subsidies policies that have exited the market, the new travel tax policy is a new blow to self-owned brands. Therefore, self-owned brands that are under pressure from joint-venture and autonomous vehicles will face more severe tests this year." Deputy Secretary-General, China Automobile Industry Association Xiong Chuanlin thinks.

In this regard, Xu Changming, director of the Information Resources Development Department of the National Information Center, suggested that automobile manufacturers, as industries and economies shift to second- and third-tier cities, will become the dominant force in the development of the nation’s automobiles.

"In the future, the market share of the three-tier cities will be 55%, 30% for the second line, and 15% for the first line. It is recommended that manufacturers pay attention to the distribution of dealer networks," Xu Changming said.

As for the price trend of the terminal market, the National Development and Reform Commission price monitoring center Cheng Xiaodong (microblogging), which has studied the trend of vehicle prices for a long time, believes that the factors of the increase and decrease of automobile prices in 2012 will co-exist, and the factors that will influence the price drop due to overcapacity and oversupply will play a leading role. .

“But under the rising production cost and strong support of demand, there is little possibility that prices will drop sharply, and stable and falling operating conditions will become the main characteristics of the whole year,” says Cheng Xiaodong.