The situation in the second half of the luxury car market is worrying

In the first half of the year, the market experienced a steady increase in pressure on entry-level models. In the first half of this year, the performance of automotive data was relatively strong, with a slight decrease from the previous quarter and a double-digit increase over the same period of last year. The market performance in the first five months also turned negative. Positive growth. The luxury car market continues to show steady and high-speed growth in all markets. In addition to Mercedes-Benz's slowdown in growth due to problems with channel integration, the growth of other luxury car brands continues to spiral.

In May, FAW-VW Audi sold a total of 36,000 new cars to the Chinese market, an increase of 45% year-on-year. BMW Group China sold 27,185 vehicles, an increase of 31.5% over the same period last year. The decline in prices and fierce market competition have kept the luxury car and SUV market in a state of excitement. Experts said that the luxury car market is implicating growth concerns.

Among them, the auto market contrast activity index is showing a monthly declining trend, indicating that the consumer purchase intention is decreasing. Once the price competition measures are slowed down or even cancelled, they will quickly show up in the growth rate of the luxury car market.

The increasing risk of the luxury car market, industry experts believe that the luxury car market is facing great risks. “The current price decline in the luxury car market is a vicious price war behavior. The reversal of the luxury car market situation is faster than expected. ". A number of experts predict that if the situation continues to deteriorate, the luxury car market is likely to experience a major reversal in the second half of the year. The last year's increase in sales is no longer the case, and it has entered an endless cycle of mutual price and vicious competition.

From January to May, the luxury car terminal market experienced a great ups and downs. Before the Spring Festival, the demand at the end of last year continued to fall short of demand. However, after the Spring Festival, with the price avalanche, the market began to stagnate, and all major brands have accumulated a large amount of inventory in different degrees.

The growth rate of luxury cars is not as great as it once was. From the surface data, the growth rate of luxury cars is still leaping forward, but the actual sales growth has been worse than before. Although the price-level curve is consistent with terminal sales, the market still had a price increase before March of this year. However, after the Mercedes-Benz S-Class began to release the price in March, all luxury car brands were involved in price competition and the terminal prices declined.

Inventory pressure forced dealers to make profits and sales, but the author found that the effect is not obvious, the number of major luxury brand inventory cars nearly doubled compared to the same period last year, dealer inventory and liquidity have lit "yellow lights." The auto giants are blindly optimistic about the luxury car market in China, and many brands continue to press their domestic distributors. If this situation cannot be improved, the price of luxury cars will continue to fall, and the prospects are very dangerous.

The data shows that the number of factory wholesalers hasn't risen so far. Since the beginning of the year, it has maintained double-digit growth. However, the inventory pressure at the terminal is slowly reflected in the number of wholesales. The increase since March is declining month by month. Less than 20%. The author visited and learned that, in addition to dealers lower prices to deal with high inventory, some luxury car manufacturers have begun to take the initiative to adjust the supply of dealers. "Since June, manufacturers have significantly reduced shipments and our inventory has also been reduced to less than 300 vehicles," said a BMW dealer.

Mercedes-Benz also reduced the pressure on the dealers. Statistics show that from January to April this year, Mercedes-Benz China's sales increased by only 10.9% to 66,000 units. “Beijing Benz has basically stopped production in the first quarter of this year, and dealers’ inventory has basically been adjusted to a reasonable level,” said one informed source.

Entry-level luxury car competition pressures The current price competition pressure is concentrated on some entry-level luxury cars, such as the BMW 1 Series, Audi A1, etc., dealer inventory pressure has made these models prices below 200,000 yuan, and can not see Signs of recovery.

In addition, after visiting the major luxury brand dealers, the author also found that in recent days, Audi, Mercedes-Benz, BMW's three major brands have successively cut prices, and under their pressure, Infiniti, Lexus, Yingge and other brands have shown serious competitiveness. Inadequacies can only be added to the price war. The luxury car market has been staged with price changes, but the effect is not satisfactory, but it has aggravated consumer sentiment, and the inventory of major luxury brand dealers is still at a high level.