First-quarter negative growth of passenger cars in the first quarter

From January to April 2013, the sales volume of highway passenger cars decreased by 2,456 units over the same period of last year, a decrease of 4.92%, which was the first time that negative growth occurred in the past five years.

Multiple causes of sales decline
Why is there negative growth? The author believes that this is directly related to the market environment.

The country’s macroeconomic policies have tightened and monetary policy has tightened. The government is trying to curb inflation and control the flow of money, resulting in high barriers to commercial bank lending, making it difficult to buy the target customers who rely on loans to buy road buses. In addition, the growth rate of road passenger cars in 2011 and 2012 was relatively large. Many passenger transport companies spent the purchase price index for 2013 ahead of schedule, and the overdraft conditions were relatively common, which will inevitably affect the road passenger car market from January to April 2013.

In addition, in order to control the real estate market, the state promulgated the “National Five” at the end of February this year, which not only has not led to a drop in housing prices, but has also seen skyrocketing growth, causing many investment road passengers to suddenly change the direction of investment: the funds for the purchase of cars. The investment in real estate market with faster and more profitable income will inevitably affect the sales volume of the highway passenger car market. The direct result is the reduction in the sales volume of highway passenger cars.

In addition, the excess capacity of the tourism market also affected the sales of road passenger cars. According to statistics, from January to April this year, the number of trips abroad has increased compared to the same period of last year, but the increase has not far exceeded the increase in the capacity of the road passenger car market. At present, many regional markets have already stated that they will no longer approve any new tourism passenger transport companies within two years, and the transport and transportation department will also adopt a total control and coordinated development strategy for the regional tourist passenger transport market. This is a microcosm of excess transport capacity in the tourism market.

The overcapacity of the tourism market is mainly reflected in three aspects: First, the number of tourists decreased and the demand declined. The second is the restructuring of the tourism industry. Taking Hainan Province as an example, Hainan has explicitly proposed to accelerate the pace of corporate coaching and transformation of the coaches. Through mergers, acquisitions, joint stocks, and joint methods, the company will integrate existing coach companies and sponsored vehicles that have not yet reached the full operation period. Tourism Passenger Transport Group. The third is the impact from road passenger vehicles. Starting from the Spring Festival this year, during the statutory holidays, the state cancelled the charges for passing small bridges (less than seven seats) across the bridge, leaving many families and groups to drive by car. In addition, the acceleration of trains and the diversification of the railway passenger dedicated lines have caused a large number of highway passenger vehicles to face downtime or change lines. Therefore, it has become a trend towards the tourism market, which has also directly increased the burden on the passenger car travel market.

In terms of cost, the operating cost of the road passenger car market has increased due to the rise or fall in oil prices and the country’s restrictions on prices for goods and ticket prices. Coupled with the threat of railway competition, the competitive advantage of road passenger cars has been severely challenged. Therefore, the road passenger car market will inevitably be squeezed. Of course, although the export market has grown by a large margin this year and the rate of increase has reached more than 30%, it still has a much smaller increase compared to the same period of last year. In particular, there are fewer exports in the area of ​​road passenger cars, which will inevitably affect the overall increase.

In addition, as an important part of the composition of road passenger cars - sleeper buses, there has been a significant decline from January to April. Today, sleeper buses basically exit the road passenger car market. This has never happened before. In addition, a large number of highway passenger car companies have concentrated their energy and resources on the production of highway buses into the hot school bus production in recent years. This has also affected the sales of highway buses to a certain extent.

Increased proportion of 11 to 12 meters

Although the number of road passenger cars sold in 2013 decreased year-on-year, the proportion of passenger cars with 11 to 12 meters of roads increased continuously from the perspective of market segments, showing a gradual upward trend. According to statistics, currently 11 to 12 meters of road passenger cars account for about 61% of the market of large-scale road passenger cars of 9 meters or more, which is the largest market segment for road passenger cars.

Why is the quantity so large? At present, 11 to 12 meters of road passenger vehicles mainly carry long-distance passenger transportation tasks such as provincial-level and prefecture-level cities with a distance of 200 kilometers or more, prefecture-level cities and prefecture-level cities, and inter-provincial lines. In addition, due to the fact that there have been many migrant workers around the country in recent years, the passenger flow has been at a peak. The main means of transportation that is responsible for a large number of passenger flow tasks still rely on 11 to 12 meters of road passenger buses, especially holidays, tickets for train tickets are difficult to obtain, and air tickets are again in demand. Very expensive, 11 to 12 meters of road buses will inevitably bear the heavy responsibility of long-distance passenger transport. Therefore, 11 to 12 meters of road passenger cars are the most important market segment.

It is understood that today 11 to 12 meters of road buses are mainly distributed in ten regional markets such as Guangdong, Jiangsu, Shandong, Henan and Sichuan. From January to April 2013, the sales of 11 to 12 meters of road passenger cars in the above ten regions were 7603, which accounted for 83.09% of the total market of passenger vehicles.

In addition, according to the analysis of experts in the bus industry, about 50% of the profits of mainstream bus companies currently come from the contribution of 11 to 12 meters of road buses, which is the main carrier of profits.

The profit contribution of 11 to 12 meters of large-scale highway passenger cars has continuously increased in the past five years, and it is the largest contribution of all length segments. 11 to 12 meters of large-scale road passenger cars not only have a strong sales volume (the proportion of total sales of road passenger cars generally averages about 18%), but their profit contribution is also equivalent to about twice the sales ratio, which shows that their profit margins are large, which also explains Why almost all highway bus companies have poured into this competitive industry. On the Other hand, in the 5 to 10 meter range, the profit contribution rate has basically declined in the past 5 years. This is mainly due to the fact that the rural economy is not well-developed and the purchasing power is relatively low. Many passenger car companies can only rely on volume and scale. To benefit.

The stronger players become stronger

In the past five years, the market share statistics of road passenger cars from January to April can be seen that the share of main road bus companies is also uneven. Yutong Bus has occupied nearly one-fourth of the market share, securing the top spot, followed by other mainstream companies, and it also holds a large share. Nowadays, the stronger the stronger is gradually formed.

At present, Yutong’s road bus market has the largest market share, occupying an absolute dominant position and being the most profitable. In addition, Suzhou Golden Dragon is not too much to let, sales share ranked second. In recent years, Dajinlong has focused its efforts on light buses under 5 meters in size. Its performance in this segment has been good, and its share has also increased year by year. Goldenway’s market share for highway passenger cars is at fourth place. Although it performed poorly in January-April 2012, it has seen recovering growth in the same period this year. Zhongtong Bus also performed well in the segmented market of road passenger cars. From January to April this year, the share of sales increased significantly. Its traditional strong market, such as Shandong, the three northeastern provinces, and Fujian, has achieved commendable results this year.

In addition, the trend of increasing concentration of leading companies can also be seen from the data. From January to April, the total number of road passenger cars of mainstream companies such as Sanlong Liangtong occupied 65.9% of the total road market, while in the same period last year its concentration was 64.9%. This year from January to April, it increased by 1% year-on-year. In addition, the degree of monopoly in the past five years has been increasing year by year. This situation shows that on the one hand, mainstream companies such as Sanlong and Liangtong are absolute monopolies of road passenger cars, and their monopoly status is still being strengthened. This also explains, to a certain extent, the stronger positions of strong companies such as Sanlong and Liangtong. Being formed, other bus companies are under increasing pressure for competition.