A-class cars drop 14.4% in 2020, Sylphy won the championship without suspense
In 2020, domestic car production and sales will be surpassed by SUV models for the first time, highlighting the severe challenges facing this market. Among them, the sales of the A-class car market dropped by 14.4%, with a total of 5.575 million vehicles sold throughout the year.
In this regard, Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Federation of Passenger Transport Association, analyzed, “The A-class car market is affected by the epidemic and the sluggish demand for online rental and some official vehicles, and the overall performance is relatively weaker than (other class models).' For example, at the beginning of the epidemic, some cities suspended online car-hailing services. According to data from China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), as of June 2020, there were 340 million online car-hailing users in my country, a year-on-year decrease of 15.87%.
From the perspective of countries, among the top ten models of A-class sales in 2020, the Japanese and German models have four seats, and the American and independent models each have one seat. Among them, Buick Yinglang and Toyota Ralink's annual sales performance increased steadily, increasing by 5.94% and 3.95% year-on-year respectively, reaching 295,900 and 222,400; Honda Civic basically maintained the level of 2019; Toyota Corolla, Volkswagen Bora and Volkswagen Sagitar showed a slight decline. For these A-class car market 'evergreens
In contrast, Nissan Sylphy and Geely Emgrand’s year-on-year growth rates are very impressive, reaching 16.45% and 22.38% respectively. Nissan Sylphy took this opportunity to overtake the Volkswagen LaVida and won the top sales of the A-class car market in 2020 with a huge advantage of 120,000 units, with a cumulative sales volume of 538,700 units. In fact, Sylphy won the championship itself without any suspense. With its practical advantages such as large space and low fuel consumption, except for the marginal advantage of 761 Volkswagen LaVida in March, the remaining 11 months maintained the No. 1 sales of A-class cars. position.
As the only independent brand in the top ten list, Geely Emgrand has become the model with the largest year-on-year growth among the top ten models in 2020, reaching 22.38%, with a total of 223,400 vehicles sold throughout the year. Since its launch in 2009, Geely Emgrand has always maintained an iterative upgrade once or twice a year, keeping up with consumer demand in terms of configuration and cost performance, which makes it not only firmly among the top ten A-class cars, but also in the overall car sales rankings. China is always at the forefront.
However, some people in the industry said, “For Emgrand, the monthly sales volume of more than 20,000 vehicles is the average level over the years. The substantial change in Geely Emgrand’s year-on-year data is mainly due to the low base last year.” Data show that in 2019, Geely Emgrand sold 182,514 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 18.78%. This also shows that Geely Emgrand still has a lot of room for improvement.
In addition, the annual sales of the two models of SAIC Volkswagen, Volkswagen Lavida and Volkswagen Santana, have experienced a significant year-on-year decline, with declines of 20.70% and 31.31% respectively. At this rate, whether Volkswagen Santana's tenth place will be replaced by Changan Yidong, which ranks next, is worthy of attention.
After the 2020 Changan Yidong was launched on the market, it has won the favor of many consumers with its high-looking and technological interiors. Data show that in 2020, Changan Yidong has sold 160,100 vehicles, a significant year-on-year increase of 137.21%. Compared with Volkswagen Santana, the sales gap between the two is less than 20,000.
In fact, the market performance of LaVida and Santana is a true manifestation of SAIC Volkswagen's downturn in the past year. Data show that SAIC Volkswagen’s cumulative retail sales in 2020 was 1.568 million vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of over 20%, which is far from the FAW-Volkswagen’s 2.10 million sales. Since the end of 2019, Passat was rated as the worst level by the China Insurance Research Institute's frontal 25% biased crash test. In 2020, SAIC Volkswagen has been shrouded in the shadow of 'falling and falling.'
As for the trend of the A-class car market in 2021, Cui Dongshu believes that with the rapid growth of the new energy vehicle market, the sales of traditional main models may 'be diverted by new energy vehicles and will face greater pressure in the future.'
In the past year, the new energy vehicle market has shown a “dumbbell-shaped” market pattern with two large ends and a small middle. It is the A-class vehicle market that competes most fiercely with fuel vehicles. For example, GAC New Energy Aion S and BYD Qin EV are all models with outstanding performance in this segment. In 2020, the sales of both vehicles will exceed 40,000. In the future, with the increasing acceptance of the new energy vehicle market, what kind of waves will be set off in the A-class car market is undoubtedly worth looking forward to.
