How To Run Well In The Second Half Of Sprint Competition For Auto Companies?

? ? ?“ This year, China's automobile market maintains a growth trend, but the pattern of rapid growth since the second half of this year may end, especially since the second quarter of this year, the growth rate will show a relatively obvious decline. " On June 26, Wang Qing, deputy director of the market economy Research Institute of the development research center of the State Council, predicted at the 2021 global smart travel conference that "this year, the car market will present a pattern of high in the front and low in the rear. The annual growth rate is slightly higher than 2%, and it is impossible to be much higher than that."

The year 2021 is more than half. Looking back on the development of the automobile industry since this year, on the one hand, the pain of "core" still plagues the pace of the industry to move forward, the impact of chip shortage on the automobile industry is still continuing, and the growth rate of the automobile market has dropped significantly; On the other hand, under the trend of industrial chain integration, industry integration and business model transformation, the supply chain system around intelligent connected vehicle is developing rapidly, iteratively and growing, which also brings new opportunities and challenges to the automobile enterprises in transformation.

Since the second quarter, the growth rate of automobile market has dropped significantly

According to the data of CAAC, by the end of May 2021, the number of new energy vehicles in China is about 5.8 million, accounting for 50% of the total number of new energy vehicles in the world. In the first five months of this year, the production and sales of new energy vehicles exceeded 950000, a year-on-year increase of 2.2 times, and the market penetration rate increased from 5.4% last year to 8.7%.

Wang Qing said that the rapid growth of the car market in the first half of the year was mainly due to the release of demand for epidemic suppression, but the release of this demand had been "almost" in May this year. At the same time, the main uncertainty in the second half of the year is the price rise and supply of large quantities of raw materials in the upstream, including chips. "Once the supply is not eased, the market may fall back. However, after the supply is restored, the restrained demand of consumers will still be released steadily. "

Since the fourth quarter of last year, all industries in the world are facing the problem of semiconductor supply shortage, especially the automobile industry. This "core shortage" of automobile industry is generally believed to be due to the mismatch between automobile industry demand and semiconductor industry cycle. At the beginning of 2020, affected by the epidemic situation, the automobile industry had low market expectations, and took the initiative to reduce semiconductor orders. Part of the production capacity of the semiconductor industry was transferred to consumer electronics. When the global market recovered by the end of the year, it was difficult for the semiconductor industry to complete the capacity switching and restore product supply. In addition, the spread of global epidemic, fire, earthquake and other factors further restrict the production capacity of the semiconductor industry.

The impact of chip supply on the automotive industry should not be underestimated. It is understood that the normal supply cycle of chips at the end of last year was about 16 weeks, and now it has become more than 40 weeks. Forced by the "chip shortage", executives of auto companies such as Chang'an Automobile and great wall motor are squatting at the gate of chip manufacturers in order to get the latest chips first. In order to reduce losses and ensure profits, it is normal for car companies to give priority to high-end models and hot-selling models.

"The chip shortage has an impact on the sales growth of the car market in the first half of this year, especially in May and June." Liu Ming, deputy director of the Ministry of information technology and industrial development of the state information center, said, "generally speaking, this year's auto market will not continue the rapid growth from January to may, but it is also worth looking forward to. The passenger car market will grow by about 10%. Affected by policy factors, the commercial vehicle rate will probably show negative growth, and the overall automobile industry will maintain a growth rate of about 5% - 10%

In his opinion, the current domestic automobile market presents three major trends: falling back after rapid growth, transformation and upgrading, and coexistence of centralization and decentralization. From January to may, the sales volume of China's automobile market increased by 33.5% year-on-year, but compared with the sales volume of passenger cars in 2019, it was still a negative growth, which had not reached the level before the epidemic“ Despite the downward trend, it does not mean that the market is turning, but the market is returning to the normal growth trend. "

Secondly, the transformation and upgrading of China's automobile market is obvious. Since 2006, China's automobile market has entered the stage of consumption upgrading. The most representative feature is that the average price of single vehicle transaction is higher and higher, and the speed of vehicle price rising in 2021 is more obvious“ Last year, the average retail price of bicycles was 161000 yuan, which has risen to 174000 yuan this year. " In addition, at present, the automobile market share of less than 50000 yuan is relatively low. After Wuling Hongguang Mini EV went public, it boosted the market share; The market share of RMB 50000-100000 decreased significantly. The market share reached 33% in 2010 and dropped to 17% this year; The market share of RMB 100000-150000 increased before, but now it has decreased.

"The potential growth rate of the automobile market in the next decade will be between 1.5% and 2%, and the current growth rate will be maintained at 3% - 4%. Without considering technology substitution and business model innovation, we predict that by 2030, there will be 420 million cars, 300 cars per thousand people, and 31 million new cars. " Wang Qing said.

Intelligent Internet connection reshapes supply chain

With the software defined automobile sweeping the automotive industry, the solid supply chain system of the past century long fuel age is being broken, and the intelligent network technology is comprehensively reshaping the automobile industry chain. The traditional automobile industry is speeding up the transformation to intelligent network connection. Vehicle manufacturers and parts companies have also expanded their software capabilities, linked with traditional business, and added high value-added fields; Chip, Internet of vehicles, intelligent cockpit, cross-border giants and other enterprises are pouring in.

"Some time ago, I was asked many times what I thought about Xiaomi and other mobile phone companies making cars? I think they should have been building cars long ago. Smart phones and smart cars should be linked to innovation, so I'm basically optimistic about mobile phone companies to build cars. " On June 26, Zhu Xichan, director of the automobile safety technology research institute of Tongji University, said that he hoped that after the final integration of smart phones and smart cars with the support of 5g communication, mobile phones would become cars in their pockets, and cars would become mobile phones. However, the integration between smart phones and smart cockpits is far from enough, relying only on Bluetooth communication, This puts forward new requirements for collaborative innovation of automobile industry.

Hardware defines automobile era, engine and gearbox are the core competitiveness; In the era of automobile defined by software, the positioning of vehicle enterprises and the structure and ecology of automobile supply chain are changing. Software is gradually becoming the foundation and core of future automobile intelligence. The McKinsey report shows that the automotive software and electrical and electronic components market is expected to grow at a compound annual rate of 7%, which will grow to $469 billion by 2030.

What is worth considering is that electrification, intelligence and networking have brought new kinetic energy to the automobile supply chain. How will the intelligent connected automobile respond to the industrial change? How to continue the cooperation mode between automobile enterprises and traditional supply chain? What are the problems to be solved?

"The intelligent network connection service needs vehicle enterprises and different technology suppliers in the traditional supply chain, such as human vehicle intelligent interactive equipment, intelligent driving related chips, etc., to develop new cooperation mode in the original supply chain management mode." On June 26, Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the all China passenger Association, said that most car companies do not have the technical conditions and market advantages for independent development of vehicle engine systems. Therefore, they need to rely on independent and mature third parties for development. Otherwise, it will lead to the test of huge investment in research and development in the early stage and external compatibility in the later stage.

In addition, he pointed out that the lack of data and technical talents is a technical short board for automobile enterprises to rapidly develop intelligent Internet connection. At present, relevant core technologies and talent reserves are in the hands of many technology companies.

In the view of Ding Huajie, chief artificial intelligence officer of Zhongqi Chuangzhi Technology Co., Ltd., intelligent connected vehicle is rewriting the industrial chain, innovation chain and value chain under the global automobile industry pattern. System solution providers need to integrate vertical industrial chains including algorithms, operating systems and chips on a larger platform to ensure the safety and controllability of key ecological resources.

"We hope 5g can turn automobile, a vehicle, into an intelligent terminal of the mobile Internet of things. In the development of intelligent connected vehicles, we are not too worried about power batteries and software, but more about chips and operating systems. This requires all industries to work together and innovate together." Zhu Xichan said.

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