How Can SAIC Group Win The Market?

At the "cloud summit of 2020 world Artificial Intelligence Conference" held on July 9, SAIC Group is a representative vehicle enterprise in the application of artificial intelligence cutting-edge technology in the automotive field. Wang Xiaoqiu, the group's president, shared SAIC's layout and experience in intelligent networked vehicles and intelligent driving at the summit.

As a traditional automobile enterprise, SAIC Group is relatively active in embracing the new trend of the automobile industry, and has made many achievements in the fields of Internet automobile and shared travel. However, as the largest auto group in China, SAIC is now facing more intuitive challenges.

SAIC has always been the wind vane of China's automobile industry, but this year, under the influence of new crown epidemic and other factors, SAIC's performance is weaker than that of the industry as a whole. Data show that in the first half of this year, SAIC Group sold 2.049 million vehicles, down 30.24% year-on-year. However, according to the data of China Automobile Industry Association, the sales of 10.257 million vehicles in the same period of the same period, a decrease of 16.9% year-on-year.

The gap mainly fell in the first quarter. Since the second quarter, with the gradual recovery of domestic consumption, SAIC Group's auto sales are also rising. According to the more detailed data provided by SAIC, the group's terminal retail sales volume in April has turned positive year-on-year, and the domestic sales volume has turned positive year-on-year in May. According to the latest production and sales announcement, the full caliber sales volume of SAIC in June finally turned positive year-on-year.

However, the poor sales performance in the past five months has brought great pressure on SAIC. As a matter of fact, before this year's annual report, Chen Hong didn't even strive for the "conservative target" of SAIC Group before this year's annual report.

In the annual report's business plan, SAIC said it would strive to achieve a total vehicle sales of about 6 million vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of about 3.8%, which is better than the overall market. According to the prediction of the China Automobile Association, the sales volume of the whole year will drop by 10% - 20%.

Objectively speaking, it is relatively difficult for SAIC, which has a huge volume, to adjust and recover quickly in time. However, scale is also SAIC's advantage. To win the market is obviously the company's goal to guarantee the bottom of this year.

Behind the worries

SAIC's sales volume in the first half of the year fell by 30% year-on-year, and its performance in several large state-owned automobile groups was unsatisfactory. According to the data, FAW Group's sales volume in the first half of the year was 1.6309 million, a slight increase of 2.3% against the market; the sales of Dongfeng Motor in the first half of the year was 1.4 million, a year-on-year decrease of about 17%.

From the data point of view, SAIC Group's sales fell more, mainly due to the particularly weak first quarter. In the first quarter of this year, SAIC Group sold 679000 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 55.7%. In terms of months, the sales volume of the first three months decreased by 34.6%, 86.9% and 58.6% respectively. In the second quarter, SAIC Group's sales volume improved significantly year-on-year, and the sales volume of the three months in that quarter decreased by 8.6%, 1.6% and increased by 2.8% respectively. It is worth mentioning that in May and June of last year, many large auto sales markets were in the last node of "national five year plan" vehicle inventory clearing, and the sales base was not low. It was relatively difficult to achieve a slight decrease and positive growth year on year.

There are many reasons for SAIC Group's poor sales in the first quarter. Intuitively, several major auto companies recovered slowly. In the first quarter of this year, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC GM had 183000 and 179000 vehicles, respectively, down 60.9% and 58% year-on-year, including SAIC-GM Wuling, which at that time sold 165000 vehicles, down 61.5% year-on-year.

The sharp decline in sales of these large-scale automobile enterprises is not only due to the big environment, but also related to its own situation. For example, SAIC Volkswagen suffered from the impact of collision test of China Insurance Research Institute at the beginning of this year, and SAIC GM has not fully recovered from the trauma of the three cylinder engine.

Chen Hong has responded to this at the general meeting of shareholders. On the one hand, despite the poor performance of SAIC Volkswagen on a year-on-year basis, it is largely due to the problem of Skoda brand positioning. The Volkswagen brand is still the single brand with the highest sales volume in China. In the second half of the year, with the production of MEB plant of SAIC Volkswagen New Energy Vehicle factory, the sales volume is expected to further improve; on the other hand, SAIC GM's three cylinder The aircraft strategy is also in the process of adjustment. Many of its models have added four cylinder engine versions, and sales have rebounded significantly.

In Chen Hong's opinion, the main reason why SAIC's sales volume in the first quarter was lower than that of the general market was mainly due to the epidemic. He once said at the shareholders' meeting that the impact of the epidemic on SAIC was greater than that of other enterprises, because SAIC had more dealers than other automobile enterprises, with about 7000, so the recovery was relatively slow. In addition, SAIC also has an important production base in Wuhan, which also affects the company's performance.

In June, SAIC finally recovered its positive growth, and its overall performance in the second quarter was significantly better than that in the first quarter. However, there are still hidden worries. According to sales data, the year-on-year positive sales in June were mainly attributed to SAIC-GM Wuling, which sold 124000 vehicles in the month, an increase of 24%. However, SAIC GM Wuling's sales volume in 2019 has a serious decline, with a low base. Although growth resumed in June, there is still a certain gap compared with previous years.

In addition, the sales of SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC GM and SAIC passenger cars in June still declined. Although the decline rate was narrowed, they continued to underperform the market, with the monthly sales of 143300, 130900 and 48300 vehicles, respectively, down 7%, 6.8% and 3.5% year-on-year.

How to find increment?

It is SAIC's important task in the second half of the year to increase sales growth. In fact, after the epidemic situation was gradually under control, SAIC also carried out a lot of landing in product and marketing in the first half of the year. For example, in early May, SAIC participated in the May 5 Shopping Festival in Shanghai and adopted various new marketing methods such as live broadcasting.

"May 5 Shopping Festival" ignited the flame for SAIC to resume sales. According to SAIC insiders, in just one week, the number of interested customers in Shanghai increased by 75%, and the deposit orders increased by 30%. However, after such large-scale consumption activities as the "May 5 Shopping Festival", how SAIC can find more increment will really test the product and brand strength of its auto enterprises and brands.

According to our reporter's understanding, SAIC Volkswagen's electrified products will be put into production in October, and will have priority over FAW Volkswagen's products on the market, which is expected to win a breakthrough opportunity for SAIC Volkswagen's sales. SAIC General Motors and SAIC GM Wuling will usher in the new year of products this year. It is reported that SAIC General Motors will launch caddy Four new models, including lac cT4, will be launched. Meanwhile, the main models, yinglang, regal and lacrosse, will also come into the market. Wuling has also launched new cars such as Hongguang miniev and xinbaojun E300 / e300plus, which have a good response in the small and micro electric vehicle market.

However, from the aspect of brand building, many brands of SAIC Group are also facing challenges. Among them, within SAIC Volkswagen, Volkswagen brands are trying to upgrade, which may sacrifice part of sales volume. Skoda brand has been suffering for a long time, with vague positioning, and has high overlap and mutual influence with Volkswagen brands. Within SAIC-GM, Cadillac, Buick and Xuexue are the main brands In particular, the three luxury brands need to be further differentiated in terms of luxury brand positioning, and how to further improve the brand positioning of Evonik.

All the subsidiaries of SAIC Group are obviously aware of these situations. In fact, many brands have been announced to be renewed this year. Previously, SAIC Volkswagen Skoda brand has been repositioned, trying to get rid of its low-end image, but more to convey "European blood, German quality"; recently, mingjue brand also said that it would take the opportunity of the 100th anniversary of the establishment of the brand to reorganize its brand strategy, and put forward the goal of annual sales of 1 million vehicles in 2023.

At the same time, it also points out that SAIC should attach great importance to the expansion of its products. In the past few years, SAIC has been widely distributed in overseas markets, and has been the champion of domestic automobile export sales for many times. Now, under the situation that domestic automobile sales are not very optimistic, SAIC pays more attention to the promotion of overseas market on sales volume, and puts forward the name of million sales volume. Meanwhile, it also indicates that it will be "hot selling in 100 regions of the world" in 2023.

We are very confident in the overseas market of SAIC. "From May to now, the sales volume of mingjue has been growing very fast. Last year, the sales volume of mingjue outside China was 139000. This year, it will definitely break through this figure and increase by a large margin." Yu Jingmin, deputy general manager of SAIC passenger car company, said in a recent media exchange.

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