10 popular keywords about China's auto market in 2018

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Gasgoo hereby enumerates 10 most popular key words that have been searched on Internet in 2018 to help you review what happened in China's automotive market this year.

Negative growth

China's monthly vehicle outputs and sales presented YoY drop starting from July. According to China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM)'s data compiled by Gasgoo each month, China's vehicle outputs and sales in September dropped 11.71% and 11.55% over the year-ago period, which signals a failure to pull the volume back on the positive growing track in “golden September”, the traditional peak season for China's auto market.

CAAM's data also show that the vehicle outputs and sales for the first eleven months declined 2.59% and 1.65% respectively. A fact which is almost settled is that China, the world's largest auto market, will face the first-time negative growth ever since the 21st century.

Industry insiders say this is the sequela rooted from the previous sales surging boom and is greatly likely to continue for some time. Automakers should rescue the sliding performance by optimizing their own development strategy rather than merely relying on government's policies.

New energy vehicle

The sales of new energy vehicle (NEV) have been substantially growing this year despite the overall vehicle sales downturn. Both NEV outputs and sales exceeded 1 million units so far this year.

From January to November, the cumulative sales of all-electric PVs leapt 69.4% year on year (YoY), while this growth rate is still far less than that of the plug-in hybrid PV whose year-to-date (YTD) sales splendidly jumped 147.7%. Carmakers are striving to have the fuel consumption decreased to the governmental standard level by largely promoting PHEVs.

China-owned car brand

Although several carmakers like Geely, SAIC Motor PV and BAIC BJEV gained blooming sales performance this year, quite a few China's self-owned car brands have still been suffering a rather hard time with weak growth under the average level of the overall auto market. 

In November, such automakers as Zotye, BAIC Motor and Dongfeng Liuzhou Motor saw their sales plunge over 50% compared with the year-ago period. Affected by relaxing restrictions on foreign ownership, “dual credit policy”, declining prices of JV-made vehicles and SUV slower growth, China-owned automakers will be faced with a severe challenge in pulling sales back on track or maintaining a rising momentum.

EV startup

Many Chinese EV startups choose to present or launch their first models in 2018. The publicly-listed NIO launched its second SUV model—the ES6 into the market at its second NIO Day on December 15. Besides, XPENG Motors's G3 SUV also hit the market in the same month.

Other startups like WM Motor, Sitech and AIWAYS all made progresses in vehicle delivery or launching. Singulato Motors reportedly plans to make the iS6 go on sales around the forthcoming Spring Festival.

SUV

From 2010 to 2016, China's SUV sales were continuously climbing year by year at growth rate of 40% to 50%. Nevertheless, an obvious slowdown in SUV sales has appeared from 2017. By the end of November, China's SUV YTD outputs and sales presented YoY decrease for the first time in 2018, edging down 0.43% and 0.83% respectively.

It is understandable to see SUV sales decline since the volume for China's SUV sector almost touches a ceiling. Meanwhile, a great deal of new brands has been swarming into this market, which is far beyond the market's capacity.

Used car

China's used-car market gains a blooming performance in 2018. According the data released by the China Automobile Dealers Association (CADA), the transaction volume and amount of used cars for the first ten months reached 11.33 million units and RMB704.541 billion, growing 13.02% and 5.78% over the previous year. The used car sales volume is projected to hit a new high to 14 million units this year.

In the meantime, the sales channels for used car business are on the way of innovation, which is characterized by a co-existence of traditional sales networks and e-commerce platforms.

Autonomous driving

Whether conventional automakers, startups or tech companies in China are zealously developing autonomous driving technologies, trying to seize the high ground or closely follow the trend of the nascent business.

Such companies as Baidu, Changan Automobile, BYD, SAIC Motor, SAIC Motor and NIO all have programs working on R&D of autonomous vehicles. Yet, volume products for most developers are just on the Level 2. There is still a long way to go before truly realizing the “self-driving”.

Inventory pressure

Inventory pressure imposed on vehicle dealers is rather serious in 2018. China's vehicle inventory alert index (VIA) in November was 75.1%, 8.2 percentage points and 25.32 percentage points higher than that of the previous month and previous year, according to the data from the CADA. By the end of November, the monthly VIA has been exceeding an official warning threshold for eleven straight months.

CADA predicts that the VIA in December will continue to stay high, which will make 2018 the first year that faces VIAs above the warning line from beginning to end.

Automotive finance

As the auto market is transferring from the “age of increment” to the “age of stock”, automotive financing companies are reforming their development modes by trying more types of businesses or stretching the service chain. To build a closed-loop automotive financing ecosystem and form barriers against competitors, they integrate the businesses online and offline and provide users with comprehensive services including car selection, sale, finance, after-sales maintenance as well as insurance, etc.

It is forecasted that the penetration rate of automotive credit in 2018 may climb to 43% thanks to the strong acceptance among post-90s users.

Car-sharing

As a trendy and green travelling mode, car sharing is getting increasingly popular among consumers. In 2018, plentiful automakers and investment corporations announced their participation into ride-hailing and hourly car rental fields with their service scope extended from car owners to all passengers. They expect that the lucrative mobility services could offset the profit decline caused by vehicle sales drop.

Aside from such domestic automakers as Geely, SAIC Motor and FAW Group who have already launched their own ride-hailing service platforms, many prominent global car makers like BMW and Daimler are also flocking into China to develop mobility services on their own or working with their local partners.