Expert opinion: Development of the automotive market

It is understood that China's auto market in 2012 can be described as such, high inventory, price war highlights. At present, the development of the automotive market has received more and more attention.

On November 28 th , thousands of economists and business investors and professional managers of the entire industry chain of the automobile circulation industry gathered at the summit forum held by the China Automobile Dealers Association on the theme of “Collecting a new chapter”, and analyzed calmly. , Brainstorming for the development of China's auto market.

I. Current: Entering a low-speed growth period Since 2011, China's auto market has entered a period of low-speed growth from high-speed development. This year's auto market continues its slump last year. In the first 10 months, China's automobile production and sales reached 15.72 million and 15.7 million, which was a year-on-year increase of 4.56% and 3.56% respectively. With imported cars, the growth rate also decreased month by month.

Faced with the slow growth of the entire new car market this year, He Liming, chairman of the China Automobile Dealers Association, believes that the first is that the market is not booming. Mainly in 2009 and 2010, the country’s policy of stimulating auto consumption early released the consumer’s purchasing power for cars, causing a “blowout” in the auto market and overdrawing the market this year. In the past two years, out of the pressure on environmental protection and transportation, first-tier cities have adopted measures such as restricted access and restricted purchases, which have also inhibited the realization of some purchasing power. He Liming said that an overdraft and a limited purchase had a greater impact on the automotive market. It is worth noting that other large and medium-sized cities in the future will not rule out the possibility of restriction. Second, domestic production companies and imported brand suppliers have overestimated the Chinese auto market, resulting in excess supply. As a result, the inventory level remained high, the price war between brands broke out, the financial costs of distributors surged, and the company’s efficiency was severely declining, facing large-area losses. As a result, it is difficult for manufacturers to establish a harmonious relationship, and even some dealers have caused network exit due to overwhelming burdens. The competitive price cuts between various brands that began at the beginning of the year and even the phenomenon of malicious competition have not yet subsided, of which the phenomenon of looting the market of imported cars is particularly prominent. At the same time, distributor stocks have continued to rise since the first half of this year and have caused great concern in the industry and even the community. Third, the endogenous power of the automotive market is insufficient. At present, there are two wheels to promote the steady development of the Chinese auto market. One is to increase the volume of used vehicles and to invigorate the circulation of used cars; the other is to do auto financial services including automobile consumer credit and auto finance lease. . He said that in China, due to the incomplete policies and regulations, tax inequality, unclear information, lack of integrity and other factors, the used car dealers (operating companies) are difficult to form, seriously restricting the trading and circulation of used cars. The contribution to pulling new car sales is very small, and the driving force for China's auto market has not been revealed. Compared with the United States and other developed countries, the gap is very large. In the same way, automotive financial services such as auto consumption credit and auto finance leasing have little impact on China's auto market. At present, only about 14% of vehicles in China are purchased through auto consumption loans, while the proportion of vehicles financed by leasing sales is even smaller, and the gap between 60 to 70% of auto consumption in developed countries depends on automotive financial services. Automobile financial services, such as auto consumer credit and auto finance leasing, are still at an exploratory stage of development in China, lagging behind the development of the auto market.

Second, the future: Unbalanced growth has become the norm in the face of current low-speed growth. Xu Changming, director of the Information Resources Department of the National Information Center, predicted that the automobile market will return to the double-digit growth era next year. He believes that the average annual growth rate of about 10% will continue for 10 years, and it will continue until 2023.

Xu Changming believes that the future automobile market will continue to maintain a non-balanced growth trend. The first is the shift in the passenger car market. From a period of rapid growth to a period of steady and rapid growth, it is expected that the growth in demand will fall back to 20 percentage points. The second is the transformation of consumer demand. Xu Changming said that the increase in the popularity of automobiles and the rapid increase in demand for renewal will lead consumers to increase their internal quality requirements. The future will enter the car renewal phase and their quality requirements for the second car will increase. In addition, the per capita GDP in the future will reach 11,000 U.S. dollars by 2020. The above three changes will lead to an unbalanced growth in the auto market.

Xu Changming also judged that the future automobile growth center will shift to the midwest and the third-line markets. He said that the current average growth rate of the three lines is the fastest. The reason is that because the economic development is shifting to the central and western regions, this shift will enable people who originally did not have the ability to buy cars to have the ability to buy cars, which will certainly stimulate the development of the automobile market.

III. Response: How should diversified innovation respond to the current changes in the automotive market? It is a problem that many participants care about and discuss.

Ren Xingzhou, director of the Institute of Market Economy of the Development Research Center of the State Council, believes that there should be overall consideration. First of all, from the national level, it is necessary to improve and adjust industrial policies, market systems, regulations and standards, industrial organizations, consumer policies, and early warning systems during the adjustment period so as to solve the various problems and contradictions covered by the rapid growth of the auto industry; Integrate and upgrade network functions, streamline channel relationships, and enhance product competitiveness; dealers should speed up the pace of circulation innovation and increase their capacity for development in the low market.

Ren Xingzhou said that dealers' response and innovation can be considered from four aspects: First, the innovation and development of sales terminals. Development of agglomerative clusters of brand resources and markets; symbiosis of multi-business development, development of secondary dealerships focusing on sales and information services, and urban commercial complexes based on automobiles; integration development, ie, vehicles, used cars, and aftermarket , inspection and other public services, experience, leisure and other business integration; intensive, terminal sharing, effective integration of resources, rational use of land; business diversification. Stores have diversified profitable channels, used cars, refitting, quality products, and extended business in the back-end market; they have enhanced services and improved service levels. The second is the grouping of sales companies. The development advantages of supply channels, internal source allocation and cross-subsidization are increasingly evident, with the growth of large-scale sales groups and the development of diversified businesses. The third is the emphasis on e-commerce. The realization of online transactions in complete vehicles cannot become the mainstream model in the short term. However, B2B parts, auto parts B2C, and online and offline business models for vehicle sales will grow faster. Fourth, we must strengthen the network layout. Ren Xingzhou said that in the future, the regional market structure will be adjusted and promoted in the east, the west will expand steadily, and the central region will accelerate development. The secondary sales network extends to small towns, and the integrated development model of sales, service, and post-market is more clear.