No matter how serious the topic is, it can also be dispelled by paragraphs, which is the cleverness and helplessness of contemporary netizens. Behind the flying jokes, many people have forgotten and don't even know what it means.
Only people in this industry will feel more deeply that the incident of "lifting the table in Wuhan" is tantamount to an "earthquake" for the whole automobile industry, and the domino it overthrew has triggered a chain reaction: after Wuhan gave high subsidies to local enterprises, Jilin announced that it would join hands with FAW to subsidize 65.438+0.5 billion yuan, and Chevrolet shouted "up to 70,000 yuan, national subsidy". Changan also directly subsidized 22,000 yuan in cash for its best-selling model, Changan Deep Blue SL03, with a comprehensive subsidy of 42,000 yuan. After the subsidy, the starting price was less than 1.5 million yuan. ...
Coupled with the internal purchase prices of Dongfeng Nissan and SAIC Audi, the auto market can be said to have "a river of blood". In addition, some people who are afraid of chaos spread rumors on the Internet, such as "Audi A6220,000 yuan", "BMW X65 438+0 65 438+0 600,000 yuan" and "Mercedes-Benz plunged 65 438+0 65 438+0 000 million yuan", which made people panic.
As a practitioner, I receive various related inquiries from many friends every day: "Is it true to reduce the price by * * 10,000 yuan?" "Is it a good time to buy a car?" ..... and some friends who bought auto stocks were even more depressed by this wave of blood loss, complaining to me every day: "What happened to your auto industry?" "* * The net assets per share of enterprises are so much higher than the stock price, why do they keep falling?" ……
Frankly speaking, although I have been in business for nearly 20 years, I am somewhat puzzled by this round of price stampede.
As the saying goes, "Make the past serve the present". If I remember correctly, there have been three major "price wars" in the history of China's automobile industry for more than 20 years-
The first time was "Black May" in 2004. At that time, China's automobile industry was just in the early stage of vigorous development. After sustained high-speed growth of nearly 65,438+000% in 2002 and 2003, the growth rate in 2004 plummeted to 65,438+05%. At that time, the North and South Volkswagen launched a price war on the eve of the Beijing Auto Show, which was called "Black May". The "Black May" of that year became the turning point of the domestic automobile market from "blowout" to steady growth, and also the watershed of the domestic automobile industry from adolescence to maturity.
The second time was caused by the 2008 financial crisis. I'm afraid many people can't bear to look back at the tragic situation of that year. It was that year that I bought a house in Beijing. At that time, the house in Wangjing, Beijing was only in its early 10,000 s. In retrospect, I can say "Duran Peanut". After the price scuffle in that year, the auto market still failed to reach the expected 100000 vehicles, with an increase of only 6.7%, which was the first time that the growth rate of production and sales was lower than 10% since 1999. ?
The third time was 20 19, which many front-line car marketers may still remember clearly. At that time, the emission standard was switched from national five to national six. In order to clean up the inventory, the price war was fierce. It was also this year that the entire automobile market fell by more than 8%, which was the first negative growth in sales in 28 years since 20 18, and the annual production and sales volume fell again.
See, the price war in the automobile market is generally not without origin, either related to the economic cycle or related to policies.
The same is true this year. On the one hand, the "tail-jumping phenomenon" that was not obvious before the fuel vehicle purchase tax was halved at the end of last year and the new energy subsidy policy retreated has already predicted that the sales volume in the first quarter of this year is definitely not optimistic; On the other hand, the high inventory and the switch of 1 guoliu b in July this year became the last straw to overwhelm the camel.
If it is only the automatic adjustment of the market, I think it is harmless. Originally, there were too many brands and products in China automobile market, which required a process of survival of the fittest. But the current situation is that the market is already jittery and precarious, and the "tangible hand" of the government has added fuel to the flames, making this 100-foot dangerous building fall directly to the ground.
Whether this kind of local government subsidizes enterprises to fight price wars with real money or not is suspected of unfair competition. At present, no relevant management department has come forward to draw a conclusion. But its destructive power to the market has just begun to appear.
First of all, local brand dealers and consumers in Wuhan are really happy, but this is obviously unfair to other brands and consumers who have no government subsidies or less subsidies. Moreover, more and more consumers in other cities choose to hold money for purchase because of uncertainty. This is very destructive to the market.
Secondly, in many cases, the price war only increases the involution, but it can't expand the demand, which is why in 2004, 2008 and 20 19, the most intense price war was the lowest market.
Third, as long as the price goes down, it will be difficult to return to the original, which will do great harm to the brand. I'm not sure. After the huge subsidy, how about the car sales of these brands under Dongfeng in the second quarter and the second half of this year? How to revalue used cars? Old car owners and second-hand car dealers encounter "backstab" and become innocent victims.
Of course, some people will say that you stand from the perspective of automobile manufacturers and industries, but if you stand from the perspective of consumers, the fiercer the price war, the better. Consumers can buy cheap cars.
That's true in the short term. But as we all know, businessmen can't afford to get up early without profit, and the business at a loss won't last long. This is especially true for cars. The automobile industry chain is long and wide, and the gross profit margin of automobile enterprises is very low, which is not difficult to see from the annual financial reports of various enterprises.
Even in the heyday of BYD, the operating income last year exceeded 420 billion yuan, and the net profit attributable to shareholders of listed companies was only 654.38+06 billion yuan to 654.38+07 billion yuan. Last year, BYD's state compensation income may be as high as 654.38+03 billion yuan. In other words, even if the sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 6.5438+0.86 million last year, BYD's profit margin after deducting subsidies is not large.
But BYD's goal this year is 4 million vehicles. In order to achieve this goal, BYD not only drives its rivals to death, but also drives itself crazy-the champion version of Qinjia DM-i 2023, which was listed on 10 in February this year, directly reduced the starting price to 99,800 yuan, truly achieving "the same price of oil and electricity". Song Jia DM-i and Tang DM-i, which will be listed this week, are said to continue to cut prices and continue to "hunt" the same class models.
This practice is actually risky, and there are many lessons. Many enterprises, including Shenlong Automobile and Changan Ford, have crushed the system in order to hit the sales target.
From this point of view, this year's fierce price war has completely overdrawn the profit space of enterprises, so there are only a few results: First, some enterprises reduce distribution and reduce costs and increase efficiency in invisible places; The second is to speed up the elimination of some enterprises.
For consumers, neither situation is a good thing, and the situation of "greedy for small and cheap, eating big losses" occurs from time to time in all walks of life. For example, in order to recharge at a discount, as a result, the merchant ran away; Bought a bunch of unnecessary things to make up the bill ...
A situation worthy of reflection is that, in fact, before this round of government-enterprise joint subsidies, the price of Dongfeng Citroen C6 has dropped to 6.5438+0.4 million yuan, but no one has been interested. This time, many people rushed to grab C6 of 6.5438+0.2 million yuan, not only to pay 90,000 yuan that can be repaid later, but also to get stock cars or futures that I don't know when to get.
Is it "rob"? Does it smell good? This kind of consumption psychology is also worthy of reflection.
It can be said that as a pillar industry of the national economy, the healthy and sustainable development of the automobile industry is related to the vital interests of every enterprise and even everyone in the whole industrial chain. "Before the competition pattern is reshaped and stereotyped, there will be a process of extinction, tragic!" In the view of Zhu Huarong, Chairman of Changan Automobile, if the government wants to encourage consumption, it should not directly subsidize local enterprises. Instead, it proposes to halve the vehicle consumption tax rate with a displacement of less than 2.0L, and at the same time, merge the vehicle purchase tax with the vehicle consumption tax, keep one tax, and increase the proportion of local fiscal retention.
In the view of these self-owned brand car companies, the current market is far from the point of "life and death", whether from the inventory index or the consumer demand index. So this price war is somewhat puzzling.
Of course, the situation of different enterprises is not the same. For example, some weak joint ventures, including Shenlong, have a low sense of existence. It can be said that returning to consumers' sight through this price war is the biggest beneficiary. As Feng Mu, president of Great Wall Motor, said when talking about the current price war: "Some people may smash the table with real money, some people may smash the table for some business problems, and some people may smash the table for better financing and valuation, but this behavior will not last long."
Others say, will this price war accelerate the substitution of new energy vehicles for fuel vehicles?
This is actually worrying. At present, the vast majority of new energy brands are more painful than fuel car companies, because fuel car companies have at least profit support, and this price war can only be regarded as profit-taking or value return at most, while new energy car companies that have already lost money will accelerate the reshuffle, and the capital market will be more cautious in investing in the entire automobile industry. The recent continuous decline of all auto stocks is the embodiment of capital flight.
Don't "flip the table" easily, everyone is at the same table.
So, it's no use crying over spilt milk. How to break it?
I think, from the policy level, we should immediately stop the government subsidies in Hubei and strictly limit this kind of market disruption; The second is to reduce taxes and burdens for the automobile industry; Third, this article must come from the author Hao of Huashan on Sword, and the copyright belongs to the author. Please contact the author if reproduced in any form. The content only represents the author's point of view and has nothing to do with the car reform.