Compete for market luxury car "sound reduction"

This year, the decline in the price of luxury cars in China has become a market trend. According to the announcement issued by the National Development and Reform Commission's Price Monitoring Center on March 14, the price of luxury imported cars fell by 3.69% year-on-year in February this year. The past two years have been the highlight of luxury cars in the Chinese auto market for two years. In 2010, the growth rate of the luxury car market was as high as 70% to 80%. Although it fell slightly in 2011, it still rose by 30% to 40% in the case of only 4% increase in the entire automobile market. The sales of luxury cars not only rose rapidly with retrograde trends in the generally sluggish market, causing major luxury car makers to earn enough money, but also strengthened the determination of these foreign customers to explore the Chinese market, take root in the Chinese market, and adapt to the Chinese market. . There are rewards and rewards, and sales volume has also brought about radical sales targets. In this context, the sales price of the luxury car brand has always been surprisingly high. However, the feedback from the market is not a brawl. At the same time as consumers get benefits, there are also people in the industry who question whether the short-term behavior of the price war is beneficial to sales, but it is not conducive to the long-term development of the luxury car brand.

Zhang Zhiyong, an automotive marketing expert, told the China Economic Times that reducing prices is the best way for luxury car companies to seize market share in an increasingly competitive environment. This year, sales of luxury cars such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW have generally increased rapidly. For example, Audi sold 300,000 last year and 400,000 this year, which also caused price competition for some car companies to achieve sales targets.

The luxury car market “sounds down”. In 2009, Audi recorded an annual sales increase of 31.43%, an increase of 45.01% in 2010, and an increase of 37.33% in 2012. Among them, Q5 has always increased the price by 30,000-440,000 before it can lift cars. In February and March of this year, some models have dropped by about 20,000. Just after the Ching Ming Festival, Mr. Chen from Hebei Province's Qinhuangdao District purchased a BMW 530 lead with a discount of RMB 23,000 below the guide price. However, the same model had to increase its fare in March and April of last year to raise the car.

The intensified price war started at Mercedes-Benz. Since its detonation of luxury cars in February this year, other luxury car manufacturers have also had to follow up on the price cuts in order to keep market share. In February of this year, Mercedes-Benz’s imported car S300L had successively reduced its prices in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The highest price cuts were around 260,000, and its low allocation models were lowered to around 600,000. With the advancement of its sales channel integration, its domestic Mercedes-Benz E-class also made large-scale price adjustments in mid-March. Mercedes-Benz has said, "Before the launch of the S-Class Grand Edition, it is necessary to discount to clear inventory. In February, dealers averaged 12%, and dropped to 8% in March. In the future, they will further reduce the discount, within 5% of the interval. Make adjustments."

Insiders believe that Mercedes-Benz's move disrupts the market price order. He believes that the Mercedes-Benz price reduction in February is not just the S-class will soon face full-line model updates, the existing models passed on to the Chinese market to digest; the other hand, in January this year, Mercedes-Benz brand passenger car sales in China fell in January this year, Mercedes-Benz sold about 14,500 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 7% compared with sales of 15,600 vehicles in January 2011. However, regardless of what factors Mercedes considers, since it has launched the first shot of price cuts in the Chinese luxury car market, BMW and Audi, the other two leading horses in the luxury car market, have to follow up the price cuts to keep them in the market. The advantages in competition. After the Mercedes-Benz S300L, BMW had already experienced significant discounts in 2011. Since then, in late February of this year, BMW has adjusted its brand prices. The BMW 7 Series has even received a diving price of 370,000 yuan. Subsequently, the Lexus LS460 first discounted about 13 million, a Jaguar model also played a drop of about 130,000 -14 million. The discount rate for the Volvo XC90, which is officially priced at 59.89 to 81.8 million yuan, is more than 17%. Currently on the market Mercedes-Benz S-class, BMW 7 Series, Audi A8 and other million luxury car price cuts in 90,000 yuan -37 million between the average drop of up and down 10%.

Reducing the price of luxury cars is a rational return. Zhang Zhiyong believes that the price reduction of luxury cars is undoubtedly a good news for Chinese consumers. However, irrational price cut competition is not conducive to the sustainable development of the market. He believes that in the increasingly fierce competition, the most convenient way to seize market share is not only the price war, but also the search for extended warranty, replacement parts and other after-sales services. Service upgrades.

Talking about why this year's luxury car market has fallen silently, he said that luxury car prices are a kind of rational regression after experiencing the frantic growth rate in the past two years. He believes that the direct reason is that the luxury car market has experienced a sharp decline from last year. Although the first two months are still growing, the growth rate is declining. Auto manufacturers are very sensitive to this trend. Last year was the decline of the entire Chinese auto market, and the luxury car market was uniquely contrarian. However, with the continuation of the downturn in the entire automotive market, luxury cars have expanded their production capacity, and their product mix has both imported models and new domestic models. Both the current and potential sizes are increasing, while the market is shrinking. Competitive pressure is relatively large. In addition, new brands have continued to make domestic and joint ventures. The B-class car market is also threatening the position of the luxury car market. The entire international situation is not very good, and oil prices are rising and other factors have caused luxury car prices. He believes there is a huge gap between domestic luxury car prices and foreign prices and production costs, so there is a huge profit margin, and price cuts can guarantee the rational operation of the entire market.

While consumers get benefits, there are also people in the industry who doubt that the short-term behavior of the price war is not conducive to sales, but it is not conducive to the long-term development of the luxury car brand. This view seems to have been the vendor's evidence. Mercedes-Benz was the instigator of this price war, but it issued a statement in the near future to stop Mercedes-Benz models from slashing prices in China. Mercedes-Benz said that if it continues to reduce prices, Mercedes-Benz will not be able to achieve the average operating margin of 10% in 2013.

Zhang Zhiyong believes that price reduction will not affect the luxury car brand image. He said that luxury cars are a small share of the consumer market, and their costs are currently higher than the current market prices in China, and there is a huge profit margin. With the speeding up of the pace of the development of the Chinese market by the major luxury car companies, the contradiction between supply and demand eased, and the price reduction was a rational return. He pointed out that such a big difference has nothing to do with the brand, but only that in the past, the shortage and immaturity of the market caused the high price of luxury cars, and now it is only to lower the price that should be lowered.