BYD is focusing on the market above RMB 300,000. Can the Denza Z9 make a comeback?
2024-08-26
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BYD is focusing on the market with prices above 300,000 yuan.
Recently, BYD's Denza Automobile held its 2024 Technology Day and released or upgraded a series of technologies, including BYD Group's Yi Sanfang vehicle intelligent control platform, Yunnian system, "Eye of God" intelligent driving assistance technology, etc., to form a unique intelligent electric fusion architecture.
Denza, which is empowered by many technologies of BYD Group, shoulders the task of BYD's "upward movement". Today, BYD's auto brand matrix has deployed BYD Dynasty Network, Ocean Network and Fangchengbao Automobile in the 50,000-280,000 yuan range. Yangwang Automobile has been deployed in the 1 million yuan range, and the remaining gap in the 300,000-800,000 yuan range needs to be filled by Denza. As Wang Chuanfu said at the press conference, Denza plays a key role in the BYD auto brand matrix.
Looking back at the development history of Denza, BYD and Mercedes-Benz each held 50% of the shares and established Denza in 2010. In its early days, Denza faced many development obstacles, including the immature new energy vehicle market environment, the fact that Denza cars could only be sold in Mercedes-Benz stores, the disagreement between BYD and Mercedes-Benz who insisted on pure electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, and the lack of channel layout. These problems caused many consumers to be deterred from buying the Denza 300 electric car, which was priced at 200,000 to 300,000 yuan at the time, and the sales were not satisfactory. The brand once suffered a loss of 5 billion yuan.
Until 2021, BYD was interested in developing a new energy luxury brand, and the Denza, which was previously jointly established with Mercedes-Benz, became a ready-made transformation target. In December of that year, BYD expanded its shareholding in Denza from the original 50% to 90%, while Mercedes-Benz's shareholding ratio dropped to 10%. After BYD became the controlling shareholder, Denza's technology, products, and channels were reformed, positioning it as a new energy luxury brand.
Data shows that in the past 10 years, the market share of Chinese brands in the national luxury car market has steadily increased. In the first half of 2024, the market share of Chinese brands in the national luxury car market reached 34.7%. At the same time, the consumption of new energy vehicles has also been upgraded. According to the data from the China Passenger Car Association, the sales volume of new energy vehicles in the domestic new car consumption of more than 400,000 yuan has increased from 1.2% in 2017 to 3.4% in 2023; in the range of 200,000 to 300,000 yuan, this figure has increased from 8.5% to 17.5%. The latest statistics from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers show that in July this year, the market for new energy vehicles of 250,000 to 300,000 yuan increased by more than 110% year-on-year, and the market for new energy vehicles of more than 500,000 yuan increased by more than 260% year-on-year. At present, many independent new energy brands such as Wenjie Automobile, Weilai Automobile, and Ideal Automobile are also targeting the above-mentioned high-growth market, and Denza Automobile needs to face many competitors.
In addition, traditional luxury fuel vehicles still have a considerable market share. In July, the Mercedes-Benz E-Class returned to the top of the C-Class fuel vehicle sales, with sales of about 14,000 units. In that month, the sales of "56E" (BMW 5 Series, Audi A6, Mercedes-Benz E-Class) totaled about 35,000 units. Taking the latest pre-sale Denza Z9GT model as an example, the goal of this model is to seize 30% of the market share of "56E". Based on the July data, the minimum monthly sales of Denza Z9GT need to exceed 10,000 units.
According to the plan, the sales target of BYD D9 this year is 200,000 units. The cumulative sales from January to July reached 69,900 units, which is about 35% of the target. Among them, the cumulative sales of BYD D9 from January to July this year was about 62,100 units, accounting for 88% of the sales of BYD D9, and it is still the main force of BYD D9 sales. The sales of N7 and N8 models from January to July this year totaled about 7,700 units. At present, among the BYD D9 product matrix, only BYD D9 has monthly sales of more than 10,000 units. Whether BYD D9GT can achieve the monthly sales target of more than 10,000 units remains to be seen.
(This article comes from China Business Network)
