After five years, India once again experienced negative growth, the biggest decline in the past two decades.

After five years of sustained growth, the Indian passenger car market took a sharp turn in 20 19, and fell again in 20 13 years.

According to the wholesale data of Indian automobile website Autopunditz (excluding luxury brands), the total sales volume of passenger cars in India in 20 19 was 29,36214, down by 12.4% year-on-year, of which1.5% dropped slightly to 2,348,000.

In fact, such negative growth was expected as early as possible. After all, in 20 19, the Indian passenger car market only grew slightly in June of 5438+00 1. 1%. In the months of decline, the decline from April to September exceeded double digits, reaching 30.3% in July and 30.8% in August. Such a sharp decline made the sales volume in these two months fall below 200,000 vehicles, far lower than 280,000 vehicles in the same period of 20 18. This means that in July and August alone, there was a gap of more than 6.5438+0.6 million vehicles.

Therefore, although the decline in the last two months has narrowed to less than 1%, the number of passenger cars in 20 19 is still 414,000 less than that in 20 18, which makes 20 19 the biggest year of passenger car decline in India in recent 20 years.

Although the Indian passenger car market only experienced a sharp decline in 20 19, its sales actually began to decline in the second half of 20 18. Judging from the trend in the past two years, in the second half of 20 18, only 10 and1February maintained positive growth. However, at the right time, all walks of life are more immersed in the joy of the Indian passenger car market hitting a new high, and have not paid attention to the hidden crisis.

India has many domestic economic and political difficulties.

As early as 2065438+July 2007, when India began to implement the Goods and Services Tax (GST) rate, the automobile industry began to be affected. Because GST requires dealers to pay taxes first, which seriously affects their working capital, dealers continue to close down, resulting in many automobile manufacturers reducing production, layoffs and even closing factories.

2065438+September 2008, the Indian financial giant-India Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Co., Ltd. IL&; The partial default of the debt of $ FS 65.438+0.3 billion caused the Indian stock market to fluctuate greatly and the financial stocks to plummet. It also caused the Indian stock market to fall after the bull market of 654.38+00 years, which had a great impact on the Indian economic trend.

Although the Indian government privatized the company afterwards, the market liquidity has begun to tighten significantly. After the crisis of IL & ampFS, the liquidity tightened, which led to the continuous increase of car loan interest rate, and the depreciation of rupee led to the continuous increase of oil price. These factors restrict consumers' car buying behavior.

And 20 19 is the election year in India. During the election period of more than one month, many riots and attacks broke out in India, which led to extremely unstable political situation. Not only that, but marathon elections also cost a lot of money. According to the estimation of Media Research Center (CMS) in New Delhi, the total expenditure of political parties, candidates and institutions in India in the 20 19 election was nearly $8.6 billion-once again setting a new record for India's election expenditure, which was about twice that of the 20 14 election.

While the election cost a lot of money, the data of India's Central Bureau of Statistics showed that India's economy grew by 6.8% in fiscal year 20 18-20 19 (from April 20 18 to March 20 19), which was the second time that India's economic growth rate fell below 7% after a lapse of five years. Among them, due to the slowdown of the world economy, the performance of domestic agriculture and manufacturing industry is poor, and the growth rate of 20 19 in the first quarter has narrowed to 5.8%, which is lower than 6.6% in the fourth quarter of 20 18.

However, the performance of 20 19 in the first quarter was not the worst. The growth rate in the second quarter was only 5%, and it narrowed to 4.5% in the third quarter, becoming the lowest growth rate since the fourth quarter of 20 13 fiscal year. Although the Bank of India has cut interest rates five times in a row in 20 19, and the government introduced a favorable policy to reduce the corporate income tax rate in September, some surveys show that the confidence of Indian domestic enterprises is still at a multi-year low. Therefore, nayar, chief economist of ICRA (Aditi? Nayar) said that the economic growth rate in 20 19 may be lower than 6.5%.

Bad news for the auto industry?

To make matters worse, the automobile industry not only has to face various unfavorable factors such as goods and services tax, tight liquidity, general election and economic slowdown, but also has more obstacles within the industry.

From 2065438 to March 2009, the Indian government announced a three-year subsidy plan worth1500 million US dollars to boost the electric vehicle industry and encourage local electric vehicle production. Although the amount of subsidy is more than ten times as much as before, it is impossible to achieve it in the short term, because the subsidy requires that about 50% of vehicle parts must come from the harsh conditions of local Indian enterprises. Therefore, this has not brought benefits to the automobile industry, but has led to the deterioration of the Indian electric vehicle industry.

In 20 17, India announced that by 2030, it would completely ban the sale of fuel vehicles and only sell electric vehicles. But at the beginning of 20 18, the government announced that it would abandon this plan. Some insiders said that the government should not give up so early, but from the actual situation, it is really difficult to achieve.

On August 1 2065438, the consumption tax commission, a federal indirect tax agency, also came into effect to stimulate the sales of electric vehicles and reduce the consumption tax rate of electric vehicles from 12% to 5%. However, from the first seven months of fiscal year 20 19 (April 20 19 to June 0 10), only 1 07 1 electric vehicles were sold, and this measure had little impact, after all, it only accounted for 0.00% of the total passenger car sales in seven months.

Therefore, as mentioned above, for the 20 19 Indian passenger car market, it is more a crisis and challenge than an opportunity.

Also in August, 2065438+2009, Maruti Suzuki, India's largest automobile manufacturer, decided to reduce the number of temporary workers locally and stop recruiting new employees to cope with the decline of the automobile market. Soon after, Tata Motors began a plan to adjust the frequency and cancel temporary workers in India. Not only have four factories shut down for a whole week, but many factories have accumulated more than ten days of shutdown records. Honda also stopped the production of new cars in a factory in northwest India. Since the end of July, another Honda factory in India has also suspended the operation of its production line during the renovation period.

Vishnu, Director General of SIAM, Indian Automobile Manufacturers Association? Marthur said that during these two months, about15,000 employees of automobile manufacturers lost their jobs, most of them were temporary workers. In the field of auto parts manufacturing, there are also more than 1 10,000 people facing unemployment risk. In addition, nearly 300 dealers were forced to close due to the decline in sales. The Indian auto market is like a domino effect, and the bad news comes one after another.

What is even more worrying is that the sharp drop of 20 19 does not mean that the cloud in 2020 will disperse. India began to implement Bharat in April this year 1? Six-stage emission regulations (BS6), so at the end of 20 19, car companies and dealers increased their efforts to promote products with BS4 emission standards, reducing the decline of 5438+0 1 in June and 1 in February. Nevertheless, some dealers still have a large amount of BS4 cars in stock, so that FADA, an evening newspaper of Indian car dealers, has to ask the Supreme Court of India to extend its sales period, but the Supreme Court has rejected this request.

At the same time, the improvement of emission standards also means that the manufacturing costs of car companies will all increase, and eventually these costs will be passed on to consumers. 65438+ 10/month 1, the prices of Maruti Suzuki, Hyundai, Nissan and Kia all increased to varying degrees. Originally, car sales have been restricted by factors such as loans, oil prices and macroeconomics. Coupled with the rise in car prices, consumers will only become more and more cautious in buying cars in the future.

Renault became the only car company that grew all year round.

Like the overall auto market, the situation of major auto companies in 20 19 is also terrible. Except Kia and MG, which have entered the Indian market for less than a year, only Renault has achieved growth among other 12 major car companies, and eight of them have experienced double-digit declines, even Hyundai, Mahindra and Skoda, which have a smaller decline, have also exceeded 5%.

Triber has become the most powerful product of Renault since it went on the market in August 20 19. In just four months, it sold 24 142 vehicles, making it the brand's best-selling model after Kwid. Driven by Treber, Renault was able to achieve double-digit growth in the last four months of last year. From June of 10 to February of 12, the growth rate exceeded 60%, and finally the annual sales stood out-an increase of 7.9%.

Of the nearly 90,000 cars sold by Renault in 20 19, 50% came from diesel vehicles. However, in order to cope with the changes in emission standards in the Indian market, Vinkatram, the chief operating officer of Renault India? Mamillapalle said that the company has decided to focus only on gasoline vehicles in the future. Therefore, Renault will not make any changes and upgrades to Lodgy, and will only gradually phase out this model, which will not have much impact on it. After all, the rising star Triber can be replaced.

Among the declining 1 1 car companies, Ma Hengda had the smallest decline. Specific to each model, 20 19 Ma Hengda's best-selling models are Bolero, Teana and XUV? TUV？ KUV？ The sales volume of 100 has declined to varying degrees, among which KUV? 100 has a maximum drop of 83. 1%, from18,000 to 3 107, which is the same as TUV in the market segment. 300 also decreased by 44. 1% to 13592 vehicles.

The reason for this is, on the one hand, the listing of the same door XUV 20 19? 300 has seized the market of more than 40,000 vehicles. On the one hand, the aggressive modern Veune has eaten the share of 70,000 vehicles. Still, XUV? Can 300 yuan make up for TUV? 300 and KUV? 100 lost the market, but Ma Hengda's smaller decline mainly depended on Marazzo and alturas? G4 these two new cars.

The modern situation is basically the same as that of Ma Hengda. Sales of many best-selling models have fallen sharply. Santro, who re-entered India at the end of 20 18, just made up the share before Eon. If Veune didn't turn the tide, its annual sales might not exceed 500,000 vehicles.

Perhaps it is Veune who has made modern times taste the sweetness. SS, General Manager and CEO of Hyundai Motor India Limited? Kim said that in the future, Hyundai will provide vehicles of different sizes on the basis of the current SUV models to meet the growing market demand for SUVs.

Fiat has withdrawn from India.

Among the eight car companies with a large decline, only Nissan and FCA, that is, he is my brother, with a decline of more than 40%. At present, the situation of the two is indeed somewhat similar.

On the one hand, the Fiat brand under FCA has basically withdrawn from the Indian market, and only Jeep has been left in recent months. Compass fought alone, and on the other side, it fought side by side with former boss Carlos ghosn. Ghosn), Nissan may weaken the datsun brand.

As early as 20 17 Geneva Motor Show, he was the CEO of Fiat Chrysler. Sergio? Marchionne said in an interview that Fiat has many opportunities in India, and now it's Jeep's turn. September 20 17, Jeep? After Compass entered India, FCA did not launch new models for this market.

As Marchionne said, Fiat achieved sales of 1 10,000 vehicles with very few models in previous years, but in 20 13, 20 15 and 20 16 years, its annual sales fell to less than 1 10,000 vehicles. Although, after Compass joined, the overall sales volume of FCA once again exceeded 10,000 vehicles, but the Fiat brand plummeted.

In the first half of 20 19, Fiat's sales remained in double digits, but in the second half, it dropped directly to single digits. Only two and four vehicles were sold in July and August respectively, and then there was no sales, so its annual sales volume was only 3 13. This basically announced the withdrawal of Fiat brand from India.

The reason for this choice is that India began to implement the new crash test standards for new car safety assessment on 20 19 and 10. New? Bharat. New? Vehicle? Safe? Evaluation? Plan (BNVSAP) and BS6 emission standards will take effect in April 2020.

According to ACI's report, all Fiat models fail to meet the minimum safety requirements. If you want to stay in the Indian market, you must replace the old product camp with brand-new models and engines, which will cost at least $600 million, and there will be almost no return on investment in the short term. Therefore, faced with the dilemma of investment or death, Fiat chose to leave when stricter standards came.

From this point of view, Nissan's trajectory is really similar to FCA. In 20 14, in order to seize the Indian market share, Nissan revived the cheap brand datsun. Datsun's GO, GO+ and Reddi -GO have successively entered India, which has indeed won many markets for the group, but at the same time, Nissan's brand has decreased as much as Fiat's.

In 20 18, both Nissan brand and datsun brand began to decline. In 20 19, the decline rate of both brands was almost 50%. In 20 19, among the four cars under Nissan brand, only Kick, which was launched in February of 20 18, broke through 1000 in June of 20 19, while the monthly sales of the other three cars remained basically within1000. It is precisely because Kick sold 4,776 vehicles in 2065,438+09 that the Nissan brand can maintain 6,900 vehicles throughout the year, otherwise the sales volume will not exceed 3,000 vehicles.

According to the financial report released by Nissan Motor Company in the first quarter of fiscal year 20 19-2020 (April-June, 20 19), its operating profit and other performance indicators have fallen to the lowest point in1year. Therefore, in order to reduce the cost and improve the overall profit, Nissan may consider reducing the production capacity of all factories in the world except China. Although Nissan said that there are still plans to close the whole factory or completely withdraw from any country, at present, Nissan's brand is in jeopardy in the Indian market and still needs to go all out.

Now that the Supreme Court of India has explicitly refused to postpone BS? Before April 1, the major car companies in the Indian market had to increase their preferential efforts to clear their stocks, so maybe the first quarter of 2020 will spring up like mushrooms after rain, but after that, it may usher in worse sales than 20 19.

Text/Kang Qin

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