Zhang Zhiyong: Who fell into trouble when the sharp decline in the auto market in April?

Recently, the automobile market data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers actually brought an earthquake to the auto industry. In April 2011, the production and sales performance of autos was sluggish: a month-on-month decline of more than 15%, which fell for the first time in the same period of the previous year, among which the decline in commercial vehicles was even more pronounced. From January to April, the growth rate of auto production and sales was less than 6% year-on-year, and the growth rate decreased by 2.39 percentage points and 2.13 percentage points respectively from the first quarter.

Therefore, it is expected that there will be negative growth in the auto market in 2011.

The sharp drop in the auto market is what has caused trouble?

Japan Earthquake? The Japanese earthquake caused certain domestic companies in Japanese auto companies to continue production. This suspension not only affected the Japanese auto companies' own supply, but also affected the pace of production of new cars for auto companies around the world.

Undoubtedly, the earthquake in Japan has also reached the Chinese automotive market. Although it is still impossible to quantify the specific effects of this situation, the reduction in market supply will inevitably affect the market demand.

The tightening of the macro environment? China has constantly raised its interest rate and deposit reserve ratio in order to control inflation. This kind of situation makes the car manufacturers face tight funding, auto consumption credit is affected to a certain extent, at the same time, this pessimism will affect the consumer's buying psychology to some extent.

However, despite such factors, from the current market performance, the tightening of macroeconomic policies has not affected the level of production and sales in the first four months.

The introduction of purchase restrictions? The introduction of the purchase restriction order in Beijing has brought the auto market in Beijing into a downturn, but the proportion of a market in Beijing in the national market is not serious enough to cause negative growth in the entire market.

The effect of the purchase restriction is the psychology of the policy for the entire market. As other cities will follow the example of Beijing's introduction of measures to limit purchases, it will have a greater impact on consumer confidence. Especially for the low-end car market, the impact is particularly serious.

Speaking of policies, we have to mention the impact of the withdrawal of automobile preferential policies on the entire auto market.

The preferential policies for the automobile going to the countryside that lasted two years did not continue in 2011, and the auto market, which was considered as a rigid demand, resolutely appeared to have cooled after the policy was withdrawn.

If we look at the specific data, we can know the impact of the entire policy exit.

In the sales of passenger cars in April, there was a negative growth from the previous quarter. However, the drop in micro-offers is the largest, reaching more than 25%. In comparison with the same period in the same period, only the micro-passenger market experienced negative growth. Although the other growth rate was relatively small, it was still a positive growth rate.

This sign also appears in the data of the first four months. Among the passenger car data, only the micro-customer market has experienced a year-on-year negative growth.

In this comparison, it is not difficult to understand: Since the micro-customer market is most affected by the policy, it is undoubtedly the micro-customer market. The micro-bus market undoubtedly drove the entire market down.

How to understand this problem? Is there no so-called rigid demand that many of us have been verbally? Rigid demand has become so fragile and uncertain in the face of policy.

Policy City!

It can be said that the ups and downs of China's auto market have great policy factors. From the perspective of demand, the lower the end, the greater the policy flexibility and the greater the ups and downs. From the perspective of the company, it is also true that companies often focus on changes in policy. The policy encourages biofuel technology, so say that biofuel technology has been independently developed. Policies to encourage new energy electric vehicles, companies have in the field of electric vehicles have great "achievements." Policies require the development of self-owned brands. Naturally, enterprises are making rapid progress in building their own brands.

The automotive market is most afraid of instability. Unstable markets can cause chaos and disorder in production and sales. They can cause great waste of resources and cause twists and turns in the development of enterprises.

Now that the market has slipped, it is not a good thing in the short term. But bad things can certainly become good things. Because the company's arrogant “one-sided” market tendencies in the past can be corrected due to changes in the market, this kind of correction will bring long-term development opportunities to the company.

It is only that we need to pay attention to how the policy determines its position and role in the development of the automobile industry. Policies must be predictable and must be sustained. Such policies can promote enterprises to formulate long-term development strategies, and they can also allow the market to feel that the policies are consistent, so as not to ups and downs.

Only children who have fallen over can truly learn to walk and suffer a momentary market dilemma. It will certainly be a good thing for enterprises. Prepared enterprises will be happy to see this situation because the machines they have developed meet.