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Wen | Aohu

If the wheel of history is doomed to roll forward, an orderly exit of active choice may be wiser than "rolling" into it, but it is a more difficult choice.

Say it wisely, because it is always more controllable and decent to exit voluntarily than to be kicked out; when it is difficult, every worker knows how hard it is to persuade the boss to let go of his obsession with "man prevails over nature".

The so-called joint venture car enterprises have a variety of understandings of its scope. The joint venture here refers to the joint venture of economical foreign car brands other than BBA and other luxury brands in China, that is, "two fields and one crowd" and so on.

Of course, luxury brands also face challenges in China. However, unlike the economical joint venture brands, most luxury brands have imported car sales that can not be ignored, so it is not suitable to evaluate the domestic part of the joint venture alone, or at least their situation is quite different from that of the economical joint venture brands.

The giant ship is moving forward, and no one can stop it. According to the mid-year report of the Federation of passengers, the market share of China's local car brands reached 53% in the first half of this year. In 2022, 2021 and 2020, the numbers were 47%, 41% and 36%, respectively, all the way from "3" to "5".

Isn't it exciting? Actually, it's not enough.

Next door in South Korea, local brands account for 80% to 90% of car sales. Of course, it can be said that the Korean market is too small, and has a unique chaebol economy, then the more mature Japan, Japanese brands control about 90% of the share, last year's brand sales list of the top eight are local brands.

On the European side, the sales of local brands in the German market can account for about 50%, but considering the close relationship between European countries and their car brands, such as German, French, Spanish, Czech and other brands as a whole, the market share can easily be calculated to more than 70%.

Only the American market is relatively special. On the one hand, it is well known that Japanese and South Korean car companies capture half of the Americas in turn, and the United States is the second hometown of Japanese and South Korean car companies; on the other hand, the brand composition of the three major American automobile groups is complex and difficult to distinguish between countries. Even so, generally speaking, the proportion of "pure native" is up to 40%.

In terms of brand lineage, for any modern automobile industry power, "50%" is only a starting point for its own brand's share of the local market.

Today, 53% of China's independent brands are almost certainly far from the highest point that can be reached. Then the market has been absolutely dominant for many years, and the living space of the joint venture brand will continue to shrink for a long time in the future.

No matter how immature the current situation is, how many disputes and obstacles are encountered, whether or not to take and how many detours in the process, China's automobile industry has a strong driving force to catch up with the economic volume and international status, and the huge inertia can not be interfered by any commercial organization.

Casually name a conservative number: for example, autonomy accounts for 70%. Considering that the remaining 30% still belong to luxury brands (which are not classified as "joint ventures" in the context of this article), this means that the overall space of the joint ventures has been cut by half compared with the small peak in 2019 (60% but includes luxury brands).

This means that any individual effort to find a partial upside in the downward market is pointless, unless the current size is so small that most joint venture brands must accept and face the future of shrinking share.

Throughout the development history of China's automobile industry, Sino-foreign cooperative capital is the product of a specific historical period, and now it has completed its own historical mission. In terms of technology and experience, "foreign investment" is no longer essential for Chinese cars.

Today, even without joint ventures, Chinese consumers can still buy cars of a sufficient standard. The joint ventures are no longer a "necessity" for the Chinese auto market, and they can only fight hand-to-hand without a mission bonus.

However, with the well-known industry changes and Chinese consumers becoming more confident about their demand preferences, the disadvantages of joint venture models relative to independent new cars in the market are becoming more and more prominent.

What Chinese consumers value most today: smart driving, whether subjective or objective, foreign brands are in an absolutely disadvantageous position; intelligent cockpit, joint ventures can never understand better than independent brands, and can connect local Internet services more quickly and flexibly; space and luxury configurations, joint venture brand lineup of product lines, at this time has become a constraint.

The joint venture brand does not have any opportunity to preempt its own brand to launch high-precision city driving assistance, to have a digital cockpit with a higher level of intelligence than its own brand, and to pile up a "second living room" that is more luxurious and more comprehensive than its own brand.

In recent years, increasingly anxious joint venture brands have launched more sincere "special" models-a derogatory term for hidden rules, but today's specials are really "developed for Chinese consumers".

How did it turn out? Even if today's consumers are no longer sensitive to "specials", they can still see that today's specials are reformed "real specials", but they have not been able to save any joint venture brand, but have become specific footnotes to the loss of power of the joint venture.

Learn the radical appearance style of our own brand, the oversized screen interior of our own brand, and the large size and large space of our own brand. What the joint ventures want is a joint venture model that combines the advantages of the independent camp, but the subjective and objective conditions determine that they cannot be fully learned. As a result, they have not been able to win an independent customer base and lose the remaining fans of the joint venture.

The sales of "autonomous" models are even trivial, and the real disaster is that the offensive and defensive reversal of "learning independently does not understand" is fully exposed, which makes it even worse for the few remaining brand image and public awareness.

In terms of product competitiveness, it is impossible for a joint venture to suit the preferences of Chinese consumers better than its own models. In terms of price, the autonomous camp is often better able to tolerate lower net interest rates, and even the new forces are still selling cars at a loss (which is certainly not a good thing).

To be sure, when the sales scale of many independent car companies is no less than that of any large joint venture car enterprises, and when the comprehensive strength of independent car companies covers the requirements of mainstream joint venture price models, it is inevitable that they simply compete for product competitiveness in hand-to-hand combat.

Although it sounds like a "bad-mouthed" joint venture, all this talk is nothing more than an expression that the era of joint venture is over. This may not be the fault of any joint venture car company, but the wheel of history is rolling, and individuals must and can only learn to adapt.

Of course, this is easier said than done, and it is simply impossible for senior executives to set negative growth goals in reverse, let alone involve a series of complex practical issues such as the supply chain channel network, but-- fortunately, I don't eat this bowl of rice. To be able to talk fast here.

(so I don't expect any leader to nod and agree with me for a long time, but a ticket-friendly exercise of military enthusiasts on paper, featuring an open and reasonable answer. )

Only when we make clear the historical inevitability of the shrinking joint venture exit market and the infeasibility of the performance-price ratio between the joint venture and independent products, can we discuss how the joint venture or foreign car brands should continue to survive, and even how to retain the spark of hope.

Do not accept this reality as soon as possible, and based on this expected thinking strategy, but use the way of clumsy imitation of independent brands, to the advantage of independent brands on the track, the result will also be the loss of share, and the process may be more hasty and out of control.

With an active contraction, leaving the field slowly and orderly is better than a hysterical but futile struggle, if the result will not be any different, it is better to keep a decent life for yourself.

After all, feng shui turns around, and although we believe that it is inevitable to rise independently and shrink joint ventures in the medium term, no one knows how the politics, economy and industry will change in the further future. Most of the established joint ventures have a history of several decades, which is precisely the result of "staying on the poker table".

In the environment of the strong rise of Chinese local brands, what gaps can the unloved joint venture brands take advantage of to save their place as much as possible? That's what the next part is going to talk about.

At the beginning, it was born because of the brand, but today it is also reborn by the brand.

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: autocarweekly (ID:autocarweekly)

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