July sales in China are still not optimistic. When will the decline of Japanese cars stop?
2024-08-10
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The once solid turf of Japanese cars is gradually crumbling.
Recently, many Japanese brands released their sales in China in July, and the situation remains not optimistic.
Toyota Motor's new car sales in the Chinese market in July were 143,400 units, down 6.1% year-on-year; Honda's sales were 52,567 units, down 41.4% year-on-year; and Nissan's sales were 47,102 units, down 20.8% year-on-year.
Looking at the long term, in the first half of 2024, Toyota's cumulative sales in the Chinese market were 784,600 vehicles, a decrease of 10.8% from the same period last year; Honda's cumulative sales of terminal vehicles in China were approximately 415,900 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 21.5%; Nissan China's cumulative sales, including the two major business segments of passenger cars and light commercial vehicles, were approximately 339,300 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 5.4%.
From January to July this year, there were only four Honda models with sales exceeding 50,000 units, namely CR-V, Accord, Civic and Haoying.
Nissan also has few competitive models. Apart from the aging but still strong Sylphy, which has accumulated sales of more than 170,000 units, the remaining models are the Qashqai and Teana, with cumulative sales of 53,400 and 38,400 units respectively in the first half of the year.
Toyota's Camry, the market leader, has also seen its monthly sales decline from more than 20,000 units to 13,000 units. Moreover, this is achieved at a price point of 120,000 yuan for the ninth-generation Camry.
Amid the dilemma of gradually declining market share, it is becoming increasingly difficult to pick out the previously highlighted percentage increases in the sales posters released by Japanese brands, and instead they are replaced by solitary numbers.
The "proportion of hybrid models", which can highlight the manufacturers' progress in electrification, has become the only bright spot in the Japanese car sales report.
As the industry rapidly shifts to new energy vehicles such as pure electric vehicles, the market share of fuel vehicles is shrinking dramatically. Japanese automakers are at a disadvantage in terms of new energy vehicles, and some of their sales have been diverted by Chinese independent brand new energy vehicles.
Even if there are "ten thousand reasons" such as sufficient product verification, perfect after-sales service, and reliable quality, they cannot cover up the fact that they are "inferior to Chinese cars in terms of visible technical configuration" - after all, manufacturers cannot prevent consumers from "living in the moment" and have no right to require consumers to have a long-term perspective.
But Japan's auto giants have witnessed the ups and downs of the auto industry and the global economy, and they will not sit idly by.
All signs indicate that Japanese automakers are planning a transformation.
Recently, Toyota stated that in order to accelerate its transformation into a mobile travel company, the company will add nearly 2 trillion yen in investment.
Honda announced at the end of July that Honda China will optimize production capacity and accelerate the transformation to electrification. Specific measures include closing two fuel vehicle production lines and then expanding electric vehicle production capacity. According to the plan, Dongfeng Honda's new electric-only factory will be put into production in September 2024, and GAC Honda's new new energy factory will be put into production in November 2024.
Also at the end of July, Mitsubishi announced plans to join the Honda-Nissan Alliance. The three parties will carry out comprehensive cooperation at the vehicle software level in order to catch up with Chinese automakers in the field of smart electric vehicles.
Japanese automakers are already running, but they need to speed up.
The Paper
(This article is from The Paper. For more original information, please download the "The Paper" APP)
