2022 The global car market will experience a cold winter, excluding China and India

Due to the continuous existence of supply chain shortage such as chips, Russian Ukrainian conflict, epidemic situation and other adverse factors, the trend of the global automobile market in the first half of this year continued the difficult trend of last year. Fortunately, the second half of this year achieved continuous growth over the low base caused by chip shortage in the same period last year.

According to the statistics of LMC Automotive, the global light vehicle sales volume in the first 10 months of this year was 66.594 million, with a year-on-year decline of 0.9%. This figure is 14.703 million units different from the total sales of 81.307 million units in 2021. In other words, as long as the average monthly sales in the last two months of this year can reach 7.352 million units, the global light vehicle market is expected to see positive growth again throughout the year.

However, according to the latest data of major global automobile markets, the final result may not be so optimistic.

According to the incomplete statistics of the comments, although 11 of the 12 major auto markets had good year-on-year growth in November, including India and Germany, which both had growth rates of more than 30%, the situation was quite difficult from the cumulative year-on-year perspective. Except that China and India have turned positive, the other 10 countries are still in a negative growth state, and even Brazil, which has only declined by 1.4%, is very difficult to achieve a counterattack.

Very few lucky people

As mentioned above, among the 12 countries, only China and India are sure to achieve growth this year, and they have their own reasons for being the lucky few.

Although, in the first half of this year, China's car market also suffered a great loss due to the epidemic, especially in March, April and May, after strict containment measures were taken in Changchun and Shanghai, the production and sales of the entire domestic automobile industry were affected, resulting in a year-on-year decrease of more than 1 million passenger car sales during this period.

Fortunately, in order to make the auto industry recover quickly, all provinces and cities have successively issued a series of policies to promote auto consumption, such as increasing license plates and providing car purchase subsidies. On June 1, the national policy of halving the purchase tax on 2.0L and below passenger cars with a unit price of no more than 300000 yuan was also implemented.

Driven by all kinds of favorable policies and the continuation of the high-speed growth mode of the new energy market since last year, it has provided a huge increase for the car market. Therefore, China's car market has maintained continuous growth since June, making up for the holes created in the first five months. It is worth mentioning that in the first 10 months of this year, the sales volume of new energy passenger cars in China reached 4.432 million, with a year-on-year growth of 107.5%, which has become the largest growth engine in the passenger car market.

Compared with China, the performance of India's passenger car market is even better. In 2022, India's car market will not only end with a growth rate of more than 20%, but also set a new record in the country's history.

Data shows that the total wholesale sales of passenger cars in India reached 3.509 million in the first 11 months of this year, which has exceeded the previous record of 3.385 million in 2018.

The reason for such excellent results is that India's automobile industry has gone through the most difficult years and is experiencing a "V-shaped" rebound.

Due to economic downturn, political instability, epidemic blockade and other factors, the Indian car market dropped sharply for two consecutive years in 2019 and 2020, of which the sales volume of the latter fell to the low point in recent years, only 2.428 million vehicles. Since then, with the gradual recovery of the economy, the political situation has tended to be stable, the epidemic has also been under control, the suppressed consumer demand has begun to be released, and the Indian car market has recovered rapidly. In 2021, it will once again break through the 3 million vehicle barrier, continue to soar this year, and will eventually close to about 3.8 million vehicles.

The road ahead is still difficult

While India is about to usher in a new historical high, 2022 is bound to be a very difficult year for 10 countries, including the United States, Japan, Germany and Brazil, even Brazil, which seems to be the most promising.

Although the cumulative year-on-year drop in Brazil in the first 11 months of this year was only 1.4%, the difference between the sales volume and the whole year of 2021 is still 219000. For Brazil, which is still recovering, it is very difficult to reach this figure in December. After all, since 2021, the monthly sales volume of Brazilian light vehicle market has not exceeded 200000. Therefore, the approximate rate of Brazil's car market this year also ended with negative growth.

If Brazil is still like this, we can imagine the situation in other countries.

After a year-on-year growth of 3.3% in 2021, many institutions predicted that the US market would continue to grow slightly at the beginning of this year. However, due to the continuous impact of chip shortage, the production of auto enterprises is limited, and the inventory of new cars is insufficient for a long time, leading to the trend of the U.S. auto market this year is not as expected. Up to now, many institutions have adjusted their expectations to about 14 million, which is equivalent to a year-on-year decline of about 7%

Like the United States, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom and France had expected growth this year after a slight increase last year. However, the sudden outbreak of the Russian Ukrainian conflict has caused a shortage or even interruption of the European automobile supply chain, followed by the energy crisis, and the automobile sales in most European countries have declined. According to the data of the European Manufacturers Association, in the first 10 months of this year, the cumulative year-on-year figures of most of the 30 countries including the EU, the European Trade union and the United Kingdom were negative.

Among them, Germany, as the largest market in the European continent, may fall for the third year in a row this year, and its sales volume may even replace 2021 as the low point of the country for more than 20 years. At the same time, Japan and Canada may hit new lows in recent years since 2009 and 2012 respectively.

Of course, both Brazil, the United States, Germany, Japan and Canada, compared with Russia, are nothing but small.

The conflict between Russia and Ukraine has led to Russia being blocked by Western countries led by the United States in energy, economy and diplomacy in an all-round way. Most foreign car enterprises have accelerated their withdrawal. The car supply chain and production are facing difficulties, and consumer confidence is also insufficient. As a result, the car market in this country has started a "cliff like" decline since March this year, with sales falling below 100,000 vehicles in a single month, including less than 30,000 vehicles in May and June, It gradually recovered to more than 40000 vehicles from August.

Therefore, the total sales of light vehicles in Russia in the first 11 months of this year only closed at 549000 units (excluding Mercedes Benz, BMW, MINI, Smart, Chery and other brands that only announced quarterly sales), down 60.9% over the same period of the year. Based on this calculation, the overall sales rate of light vehicles in Russia this year could not exceed 1 million, a new low since 2004.

To sum up, although most of the world's major auto markets grew year on year in November this year, only a few lucky people like China and India can enjoy the growth of the whole year. It is also very difficult for global light vehicles to achieve positive growth.

Copy  from Automobile Commune
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