This newspaper (ChinaTimes. net. cn) reporter Yu Jianping intern reporter Tian Ye reports from Beijing
According to data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, China's automobile exports reached 550000 units in November 2024, with a year-on-year growth rate of 5%. From January to November, a total of 5.84 million vehicles were exported, with an export growth rate of 23%.
From the sales data, the performance of China's automobile exports is still impressive. Not only that, in recent years, with the Chinese automotive industry moving towards "Made in China", the export product structure has also shown a trend of jumping from the mid to low end to the high end.
This is directly reflected in the export price of the entire vehicle. According to data disclosed by Wang Fang, a senior engineer at the Equipment Research Department of the Equipment Industry Development Center of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, at the 2024 Automotive Technology and Equipment Development Forum, the average export price of automobiles in China increased from $5000 to $24000 from 2019 to 2023, achieving a growth rate of 380%.
At the same time, cases of cooperation between global automotive giants and domestic car companies continue to emerge, such as Volkswagen and Xiaopeng, Stellantis and Leapmotor. The technological strength of Chinese car companies in the field of new energy has been globally recognized, and "reverse output" is becoming a trend.
Seize the first mover advantage of the new energy industry
The rise of new energy vehicles is a booster for China to become the world's largest exporter of automobiles. For many years, the average annual export volume of Chinese automobiles has been hovering around 1 million units, with export target markets mostly in underdeveloped regions such as Africa and South America, and the unit price of exported products being relatively low. In developed markets, the shortcomings in fuel powertrain, chassis tuning, styling design, quality control, and other aspects have not established a good reputation for Chinese cars.
Until the rise of new energy vehicles, China's automobile exports began to undergo a process of "quantitative change" to "qualitative change". In 2021, China's automobile exports began to show explosive growth, surpassing 2 million vehicles for the first time; In 2023, China will become the world's largest automobile exporting country, with automobile exports reaching 4.91 million units, a year-on-year increase of 57.9%. Among them, the export of new energy vehicles will be 1.203 million units, a year-on-year increase of 77.6%; From January to November this year, China's cumulative exports of new energy vehicles reached 1.86 million units, continuing to maintain a growth trend.
Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, analyzed that with a complete, efficient, and cost-effective new energy vehicle industry chain, Chinese made new energy vehicles not only have a firm foothold in developed country markets, but also compete in emerging markets, with highlights in Western Europe, Southern Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America, building a diversified market structure for high-quality development.
Among the top ten countries in China's cumulative export volume of new energy vehicles from January to November, Belgium has 242297 vehicles, Brazil has 149923 vehicles, the UK has 112011 vehicles, Thailand has 105905 vehicles, the Philippines has 105701 vehicles, Mexico has 76252 vehicles, India has 72774 vehicles, Australia has 68959 vehicles, the UAE has 67238 vehicles, and Israel has 64695 vehicles; Among the top five countries in terms of export increment from January to November, Brazil had 98118 units, Mexico had 61537 units, Belgium had 56473 units, Indonesia had 40008 units, and the United Arab Emirates had 35563 units. The contribution of the top five countries in terms of incremental growth is 112%, with Brazil's exports contributing significantly.
Among the top ten overseas markets mentioned above, Belgium and the United Kingdom are both located in Europe, and Belgium was once seen by many car companies as an important gateway to enter the EU market. Although the EU's anti subsidy policy has had some impact on sales, with the gradual adaptation of the market environment, sales of Chinese new energy vehicles in Europe should be able to rebound, "Cui Dongshu told reporters from Huaxia Times.
From the sales situation of car companies, from January to November, Chery's total vehicle exports reached 1.046 million units, with a market share of 19.6%, ranking first; SAIC and Changan ranked second and third respectively, with a total vehicle export volume of 841000 and 505000, and market shares of 15.7% and 9.4%, respectively. Geely, Great Wall Motors, BYD, Tesla, BAIC, Jianghuai, and Dongfeng rank 4th to 10th respectively. It is worth mentioning that BYD, Changan, and BAIC all have relatively fast growth rates, exceeding 50% year-on-year.
Cui Dongshu stated that Chinese automobile brands should make good use of the first mover advantage accumulated in the new energy industry chain, seize the opportunity for growth, launch more cost-effective and localized products, and further expand their overseas market share. In addition, the improvement of brand building and after-sales service will also become the key to victory.
Zheng Yun, Global Senior Partner and Head of the Automotive Industry Center at Roland Berger, believes that after decades of development, Chinese automobiles represented by electrification and intelligence have the core elements for this round of global breakthrough in the automotive industry. At present, Chinese car companies still have a long way to go before reaching the top of the pyramid. With the increasingly severe challenges of the external environment, various enterprises are accelerating their investment in global operations. "He emphasized," In the process of global operation, car companies should take the lead in the system, consolidate and strengthen their product and marketing capabilities. Through global research and production supply layout, focus on long-term global first-class brand building
The globalization strategy is constantly upgrading
According to the "China Automotive Globalization Development Report 2024" released by Roland Berger, the current globalization trend of the Chinese automotive industry is mainly manifested in four aspects: brand value reshaping, global research and development upgrading, deepening local production and supply, and accelerating system construction.
In the process of reshaping brand value, Chinese car companies have begun to attach importance to brand system construction, sharpen brand value, and look forward to long-term gains. While differentiating between single brand and multi brand strategies, we pursue space for volume and upward premium.
In terms of global R&D upgrading, the report believes that the R&D model of Chinese car companies has moved from "China defined, China developed" to "global defined, China developed", mainly developed domestically, combined with technical support provided overseas. Some domestic brands have successively launched globally defined models and performed well in overseas markets. The report emphasizes that the next step for car companies is to accelerate the implementation of "global planning, global local research and development", which means establishing overseas R&D centers in major global markets and developing products that meet local regulations and market demands through local teams.
In terms of deepening local production and supply, Chinese car companies are gradually increasing their investment in planning, from KD factories to full process factories. Currently, Chinese automakers have built over a hundred factories on four continents worldwide. The report predicts that in the next 3-5 years, Chinese automakers may invest in building over 15 full process factories, driving the continuous deepening of localization in the Chinese automotive industry.
Taking BYD as an example, it adopts a strategy of going global with commercial vehicles first and then passenger vehicles, and gradually introduces a localized supply system. At the same time as exporting complete vehicles, we focus on building a localized supply system and channel network, such as establishing a complete vehicle production base in Thailand, a complete vehicle and parts manufacturing center in Uzbekistan, and jointly building distribution systems with distributors from multiple countries around the world.
Going global with the entire industry chain is the key to achieving long-term sustainability. At the same time, building localized manufacturing centers, research and development bases, and joint venture factories are also important ways to solve trade barriers such as tariffs, meet the personalized needs of local users, and achieve localized supply, "said Wu Songquan, Chief Engineer of the China Automotive Strategy and Policy Research Center at the China Automotive Center. Internationally renowned car companies such as Volkswagen, Mercedes Benz, BMW, Toyota, and Honda have chosen the joint venture model when entering the Chinese market.
In Zheng Yun's opinion, local car companies need a long-term stable supplier system to build factories. With the increase in the scale of host factories going abroad, it will drive Chinese component suppliers in various fields to evolve from export to localized production on a larger scale, and China may emerge world-class suppliers, "he told reporters from Huaxia Times.
With the continuous deepening of global business, the urgent task is to streamline the complex organizational mechanism and strengthen global differentiation control. Zheng Yun pointed out that the original organizational form is difficult to support the efficient operation of business, and various host factories are gradually transforming into highly versatile organizational models for overseas business or regions. Strengthening collaboration and regional action capabilities is very important. Further enhance market response speed and empower business development through the combination of group and regional decision-making, fully functional independent development of overseas regional companies, and matrix collaboration.
In addition, Zheng Yun further added that under the challenges of high diversity and varying business maturity in overseas regions, car companies need to consider five dimensions when building management systems: adapting the management system to the company's strategic requirements, development stage, matching the existing capacity level of the region, balancing the relationship between "management" and "release", and ensuring that the system has execution capability. In terms of architecture, enterprises should divide by region, set appropriate authorization depth and organizational mechanisms, and ensure the stability and consistency of the management system through the solidification of talents, systems, processes, and systems. This kind of system construction will better help enterprises cope with the challenge of 'how to manage' overseas business, "he said.
