Before the shuffling of Chinese commercial vehicles collective breakthrough
On August 15, China National Heavy Duty Truck Group Jinan Truck Co., Ltd. issued an announcement saying that Wang Haotao, chairman of the company, resigned from the company’s directors, chairman, members of the strategy committee, and members of the remuneration and assessment committee due to work reasons, and no longer served in the company. . This is the year since the mainstream commercial vehicle company announced the "class" company executives. The media generally speculated that Wang Haotao’s resignation was closely related to the serious decline in the production and sales of Sinotruk in the first half of the year. Custom Sticker Roll,Custom Barcode Labels,Custom Waterproof Labels,Custom Pvc Labels Guangdong Shuangma Technology Co., Ltd. , https://www.soonmarkprinter.com
In fact, senior executives of domestic commercial vehicle companies are now experiencing the test of "winter." Since the macro-economy impact last year, the domestic commercial vehicle market has seen a downward trend this year.
According to the latest statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in the first seven months of this year, the production and sales of commercial vehicles in China were completed 2,183,100 and 2,224,300 vehicles, respectively, 7.8% and 9.4% lower than the same period of last year, and the decline was 0.8 and 1 smaller than the first half of the year. Percentile, but the overall situation is still sluggish.
Heavy trucks
"The second consecutive year saw negative and negative growth. This is the first time China has entered the stage of heavy chemical industrialization." Last year, China's commercial vehicle market fell 6.3% year-on-year, becoming the worst year of sales since the beginning of this century; In the month, this figure has dropped to 9.4%.
Xu Changming, director of the Information Resource Department of the State Information Center, judged that with the deceleration of China's macroeconomic growth this year, fixed investment will be significantly reduced, while the reduction in fixed investment will cause the growth rate of infrastructure investment to drop sharply, and the dump truck and heavy truck market will be severely affected. test.
Yang Jiaqing, a huge group vice chairman with more than 10 years of working experience in commercial vehicle circulation, was the first person to feel the cold wave. According to the sales performance of the Group in the first half of the year, Yang Jiaqing pessimistically predicted that the domestic sales of heavy trucks will not exceed 750,000 units this year.
Yang Jiaqing's viewpoint is quite mainstream in heavy truck companies. China National Heavy Duty Truck Deputy General Manager Yu Youde believes that this year's domestic heavy truck market will decline by 15 to 20 percentage points, sales of about 650,000 to 700,000 or so. The forecast of Zhou Yinchao, general manager of Shaanxi Heavy Duty Truck Sales Co., Ltd., is also about 720,000 vehicles. In normal years, this figure should be around 850,000.
The depression in the heavy truck market reflects the overall downturn in the commercial vehicle market. In the latest performance announcement issued by Sinotruck, Dongfeng and Foton, the decline has become the most compelling keyword for these mainstream commercial vehicle companies. "If this situation continues for about three years, there will be companies that can't stand the "winter" and leave the team. At that time, the domestic commercial vehicle market pattern will undergo major changes," said Zhao Yufeng, assistant to General Manager of Foton Motors.
At this time, major commercial vehicle companies compete not only in the endurance of the harsh market environment, but also in the adversity to seize the opportunity to reverse the current situation of judgment.
In fact, after 10 years of development, the domestic commercial vehicle market structure has basically stabilized. The top 5 commercial vehicle companies have accounted for more than half of the market share, and the market concentration is relatively high. At the product level, the major models of major car companies have almost converged in terms of configuration and quality, and the price war has become a common practice within the industry.
Taking Dongfeng and Foton’s “Leading Debate†as an example, in order to surpass Foton in 2011, Dongfeng sold 500 yuan per light truck at a substantial profit of the Cummins project, and sales increased rapidly; in 2012, Futian returned to Futian. The position of the overlord is also to regain sales in the event of sacrificing profits.
As a result of this low-cost marketing, Foton currently sells 680,000 commercial vehicles, surpassing Mercedes to become the world's number one; but if it is measured by sales revenue, Futian, with an annual sales income of 500 billion yuan, ranks first in the world. One Daimler-Benz has a gap of 150 billion yuan.
Sacrificing profits in exchange for sales is obviously not a long-term strategy for business survival. For Futian, the effective way to fill the gap with Daimler-Benz is to upgrade the product. This is not only the best way to keep the dominant position of domestic commercial vehicles in Foton, but also the inevitable path for the Chinese car companies to achieve breakthroughs in the international market.
"Now, if we can develop a model that exceeds competing products, even if the price is 20,000 to 30,000 yuan, the domestic commercial vehicle market will achieve a new breakthrough." Zhao Yufeng, who focuses on corporate strategy research, has realized that With the upgrading of consumption in the domestic market and the rise of consumer groups after 80 and 90, the demand for high-end commercial vehicles such as high-end light trucks and medium- and heavy-duty trucks is increasing. However, domestic car companies cannot meet this demand on technology reserves. The emergence of new trends.
In this regard, the solution offered by Foton Motor is, on the one hand, working with Daimler-Benz to obtain technical support; on the other hand, it is patient in the “winter†market, waiting for “quality resources†during the industry reshuffle process. . “Fukuda has never given up the scale effect of mergers and acquisitions, but this requires a favorable time.†Zhao Yufeng’s choice is also an opportunity for other domestic commercial vehicle companies to wait.
90% increase from the second market
For commercial vehicle companies, another driving force for upgrading their product technology comes from the demand for products in the second category of markets.
The so-called second-class market is an emerging market with developing countries as the main focus. It is relative to a market dominated by European and American countries. In the second category of markets, the per capita GDP of each country does not exceed 10,000 U.S. dollars, and the purchasing power varies greatly. Each country has different requirements for products.
"Although China's commercial vehicle market is currently in a declining state, we predict that the global commercial vehicle market will continue to grow in the future. In particular, the second-class market will have rapid growth." According to Zhao Yufeng's survey, the current global commercial vehicle market is undergoing The market shifts to the second market. He predicted that by 2015, the proportion of the second type of market will reach 64%, the current ratio is 57.7%. "In the future, more than 90% of global commercial vehicle increments will come from the second-class market."
Taking medium- and heavy-duty trucks as an example, currently 70% of medium- and heavy-duty card sales come from the second-class market, while the contribution of one-class market is only 30%. Due to the high prices of European, American and Japanese products, there is almost no competitiveness in the second category of markets. This makes the medium and low-end products represented by China and India have great potential for growth in this type of regional market, and Chinese auto companies also occupy a mid-range advantage.
This is undoubtedly a good news for Chinese commercial vehicle companies that are now suffering from sales difficulties. According to the survey data of Foton Motor, the market share and technology level of Chinese auto companies in the second-class market are higher than those of Indian and Russian auto companies. However, in terms of growth space, auto companies in India are higher than China.
“Although the demand in the Indian market is mainly concentrated on low-end products, there are also certain technical thresholds, such as emission standards and requirements for car chassis, etc.; the product requirements in the Russian market are low-end standards; and the Brazilian market is basically high-end. "The product is the world." Zhao Yufeng believes that in order to meet the technical standards of the second-class market, China's commercial vehicle companies must also complete the upgrade and transformation.
According to Futian's strategic plan, commercial vehicle enterprises that will participate in global competition in the future will be mainly killed in the high-growth market. Specifically, in the low-end and mid-range products, Chinese commercial vehicle companies represented by Foton and FAW will likely have an advantage; Indian Tata Motors will be the main force of low-end products; while Mercedes-Benz and Volvo and other European car companies will still Monopoly high-end product market.
“In fact, even if we sell products in the second market, our competitors still come from China. Because the models of India and Europe and the United States are not in the same competition areas, we should take technical advantages as much as possible in the middle and low-end product areas. It will also determine the position of the company in the domestic market," said Zhao Yufeng.
Mark International
However, the secondary market is not the ultimate safe haven for Chinese commercial vehicle companies. "Facts show that if you rely on the Chinese alone, it will be difficult to persevere in the path of internationalization."
Zhao Yufeng told reporters that the average domestic commercial vehicle use period is three to five years. After this period of time, the product is prone to problems. The low reliability of quality makes it difficult for Chinese products to carry out used car business in the domestic market, and it will also encounter bottlenecks in the international second-class market, which is a technical threshold that must be surpassed for commercial vehicle manufacturers in China.
Zhao Yufeng believes that the end result of competition in the commercial vehicle market is that some companies can upgrade to international standards and can use the heavy truck market to make used car business on a large scale. Now, whether it is the domestic or international market, the trend of upgrading the commercial vehicle industry is very strong.
Taking the domestic heavy truck market as an example, behind the hot selling of Dongfeng Tianlong, Jiefang J6 and Futian Auman, there is a rapid decline in their respective low-end products. The once light-selling Kama, Ace, and other light-card companies suffered sales volume declines of more than 40% this year.
“At present, the industrial structure of the commercial vehicle market is indeed undergoing major changes. Taking the light-duty-card market as an example, with the rise of the e-commerce model, the logistics industry needs a large number of high-end light trucks to join. The light truck owners are now mostly young after 80 and 90. People, they are not willing to repair the car, require driving comfort, do not want the car in the middle of the problem." Yang Jiaqing believes that, to some extent, the current high value-added products have become the stamina of commercial vehicle development.
However, at present, China's commercial vehicle companies do not have the technical ability to produce high-end products. Yang Jiaqing frankly stated that taking light trucks as an example, China’s best light truck products cannot rival Japan's products 30 years ago. In the breakthrough of core technology, Chinese commercial vehicle enterprises are as powerless as passenger car companies.
As a result, the search for a joint venture partner has again become an inevitable choice for commercial vehicle technology upgrades. "Fukuda and Daimler's joint venture, Sinotruk and Mann's cooperation, and Dongfeng's integration into the Renault-Nissan system will all play an important role in the future internationalization strategy." Zhao Yufeng believes that only when the international standards set by multinational companies are met, China Commercial vehicle companies can ultimately gain a foothold in the international market, and now they can only complete technology upgrades through partners.