With the transformation of electrification, BBA has maintained its existing position, but the second-tier luxury landscape is facing a reshaping.
Since 2022, under the impact of the new crown pneumonia epidemic and the supply chain crisis, the luxury car market, which has always been stable, has experienced a decline in sales for three consecutive months. Fortunately, with the gradual easing of the epidemic, the luxury car market has also shown a recovery trend so far. Data show that in the first half of this year, the cumulative sales of luxury cars was 1.3012 million, a year-on-year decrease of 14%; in June this year, the retail sales of the domestic luxury car market was 310,000, an increase of 26% year-on-year and a month-on-month increase of 74%.
From the perspective of the entire luxury car market structure, the market position of first-tier luxury brands such as BBA is still stable; under the impact of the wave of electrification, the penetration rate of luxury brand new energy vehicles continues to increase. In June this year, the penetration rate of new energy in luxury cars In addition, the impact of new high-end brands on traditional second-tier luxury brands continues to intensify. Self-owned brands and Tesla have shown a substitution effect in this field, and the second-tier luxury car brand camp is growing. reshape.
BBA Transformation Acceleration
In the first half of this year, BMW remained the sales champion in the luxury car market, Mercedes-Benz and Audi ranked second and third respectively, maintaining the original pattern. Specifically, BMW and Mercedes-Benz sold 378,700 units and 355,800 units respectively, down 18.9% and 19.4% year-on-year respectively; according to data released by FAW-Volkswagen, Audi sold 317,000 units in the first half of the year, down 24.2% year-on-year.
It is worth noting that the new energy sales of first-tier luxury brands have achieved substantial growth in the first half of the year.
Mercedes-Benz pure electric brand Mercedes-EQ currently has a total of 4 products: EQS, EQE, EQA and EQB. In the second quarter of this year, Mercedes-EQ models achieved a quarter-on-quarter growth of 28%. Earlier data showed that in the first quarter, sales of Mercedes-EQ models were 21,900. According to this calculation, in the second quarter of this year, Mercedes-EQ models sold 28,000 units, and Mercedes-Benz sold about 49,900 pure electric models in the first half of the year.
According to the plan, Mercedes-Benz will launch 21 new products to the Chinese market in 2022, 8 of which are new energy models. In addition to the EQS 53 4MATIC+ and AMG GT 50 4MATIC+ four-door sports car special editions that were launched in the first half of the year, Mercedes-Benz EQE, Mercedes-Benz EQS SUV and more plug-in hybrid products will be launched in the second half of the year.
In the first half of this year, BMW's pure electric vehicle sales also increased by more than 70%. Gao Le, President and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, said, "Although the market faced many challenges in the first half of the year, our product offensive remained strong, and we successfully launched two pure electric models, the innovative BMW i7 and the all-new BMW i3. In the first half
of 2021, BMW sold 36,100 pure electric vehicles. Based on this calculation, the sales of BMW pure electric vehicles in the first half of 2022 will be about 63,000. Up to now, BMW has launched five new energy models in the Chinese market, including iX, iX3, i3, i4 and i7. Following the wave of electrification, BMW's transformation in the Chinese market has continued to deepen. At the end of June, the BMW Rida plant, which is oriented to the production of electric vehicles, officially opened. The new plant has a total investment of 15 billion yuan and can produce up to 100% of electric vehicles. The new pure electric BMW i3 has been put into production at the plant.
Compared with the "frankness" of BMW and Mercedes-Benz, Audi did not disclose the sales data of electric vehicles, but only announced the cumulative sales data for the first half of the year, which was 317,000 vehicles (including imported cars). However, Audi's determination to promote the layout of new energy vehicles in the Chinese market is still very firm. In the first half of this year, Audi's new A8L Horch founder's edition was launched, and the pure electric model Q4 e-tron opened for pre-sale; in the second half of the year, Audi will focus on the RS e-tron GT, the new Audi A8L, and the new Audi A6L to build "fuel + electric" Product matrix, with "new products, new services, new experience" to create a new online and offline, system linkage marketing model.
Second-tier luxury remodeling Under the influence of
multiple unfavorable factors, although first-tier luxury brands have been impacted, it is fortunate that they have stabilized their existing market positions. In contrast, second-tier luxury brands not only generally fell, but the market structure has also undergone major changes.
Lexus, which has been following the BBA for many years, is facing the dilemma of declining sales under the impact of lack of cores and limited production capacity. As of now, Lexus has not announced its June sales, but according to the disclosed data from January to May, Lexus’ cumulative sales were 61,368 units, down 40.1% year-on-year. In January 2022, Lexus announced a comprehensive transformation into a pure electric brand, and plans to sell only pure electric vehicles in China, Europe and the United States by 2030. But the paradox is that, as of now, Lexus has not developed a dedicated platform for electric vehicles, and Lexus has fallen behind in the rhythm of transition to electrification.
Not only Lexus, but also Chery Jaguar Land Rover's sales are not optimistic. In the first half of this year, Chery Jaguar Land Rover's insurance volume was 22,503, a year-on-year decrease of 26.79%. The industry generally believes that the lack of a strong new energy star product may become the biggest crisis facing Jaguar Land Rover. In the field of new energy, from technology to product transformation, it has become a difficult problem encountered by Jaguar Land Rover in the process of transformation.
In contrast, Volvo and Lincoln saw smaller declines. Volvo Cars sold 291,300 vehicles in the first half of this year, down 23.5% year-on-year, of which electric vehicles accounted for 7.6% of total sales, more than tripling compared to the same period last year. Lincoln sold 37,700 vehicles in the first half of this year, down 10 percent from a year earlier.
For second-tier luxury brands, Tesla and its own brand of high-end pure electric models have become a new threat. Judging from the data released by the Domestic Passenger Vehicle Market Information Joint Conference, in the high-end car sales rankings from January to June, Hongqi H9, Hongqi E-QM5, and NIO ET7 are all in the top ten in terms of sales, ranking eighth, Ninth and tenth. It is worth mentioning that before the Hongqi H9, there was only the Volvo S90, a second-tier luxury car in the traditional sense.
In the high-end SUV sales rankings from January to June, the Tesla Model Y won the championship with a cumulative sales of 133,666 units, and the Ideal ONE ranked fifth with a cumulative sales of 60,403. After that, the Volvo XC60 sold in the first half of the year. It was 26,563 units, which was beaten by 33,840 units of Ideal ONE. In addition, NIO ES6 sales reached 23,534 units in the first half of the year, ranking eighth on the list.
It can be seen that the decline in sales of traditional second-tier luxury brands does not mean that the demand for the high-end automobile consumer market is weak. The rise of new car manufacturers has made high-end new energy vehicle products the new favorite of consumers. In terms of cost of use and services, high-end new energy vehicles have more advantages. As consumers pay more and more attention to product and service experience, the brand advantages of traditional second-tier luxury brands in the era of fuel vehicles have been impacted. If second-tier luxury brands want to stabilize their voice in the Chinese auto market, they must accelerate the pace of electrification transformation.
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