A bad start, but it doesn’t hurt the overall situation

The epidemic forced Standard & Poor's to withdraw its forecast that China's auto market would recover after two years of decline. Car sales in China, the world's largest auto market, are not expected to meet analysts' baseline forecasts of growth of 1 to 2 in 2020.

This is the first piece of industry information I saw after turning on my computer today.

The main reason supporting the above view is that this analysis agency believes that the loss of production capacity in the Chinese automobile market in the first quarter will reach about 7. I agree with this point, but as for the sales trend this year, I think that although the start is not good, it will not harm the overall situation.

First of all, we are confident that we will win this epidemic. This is indisputable. As for when the war against the epidemic will end? That’s left to the experts in the medical industry to answer. Today we will only talk about those things in the automobile industry

Demand will not slip away

It is unrealistic to analyze demand apart from it. What is certain is that our market demand is still there, but due to the impact of the epidemic, the auto market demand in the first half of the year will be delayed to the second half of the year. Moreover, due to the impact of the epidemic, everyone’s demand for private cars will become more urgent. Data shows that the SARS epidemic in 2003 "After the event, the transaction rate of entering the 4S store increased from 20% to 80%, which is tantamount to increasing the "just needed" value of family cars.

Therefore, relevant practitioners in the automobile industry do not need to feel anxious. It is time to recuperate and recuperate. The automobile market will become very busy in the second half of the year.

The change in demand deserves our attention. The growth of new energy vehicles will slow down, and the demand for entry-level family cars will increase significantly.

In the high-end market, this epidemic may accelerate the implementation of driverless technology, especially in the commercial field. JD.com’s driverless delivery vehicles were hotly searched during the epidemic, which shows that logistics The industry's urgency for this demand also requires attention to the implementation of relevant traffic regulations.

For family cars, car companies should accelerate the innovation of health-related in-vehicle configurations. For example, the "N95 filtration system" launched by Geely may become the focus of accelerated investment by independent brands this year. However, this configuration and in-vehicle configuration N95 masks are relatively simple. More complex ones include health assistance systems, for which WEY already monitors the driver's fatigue status. In the future, it may spawn monitoring of the driver's health status.

Of course, these advanced features will mainly focus on high-end products in the future.

Impact on the industry

When an epidemic occurs, there are no "beneficiaries" but only "affected ones". The main reason why most institutions or individuals are currently pessimistic about the future development of the automobile industry is that the impact of the epidemic has caused a fatal blow to automobile companies that were already on the line of survival.

However, I still stick to my point of view. As long as demand is still there, some car companies will not be able to survive this crisis. That will only have an impact on car companies, and the long-term impact on the industry can be basically ignored. From another perspective, this epidemic will help accelerate the elimination of backward production capacity, such as Haima and Landwind, which occupy a large amount of production resources but fail to bring corresponding value to the industry. If they are eliminated as soon as possible, the auto market will be healthier .

I said in my last article that instead of focusing on the impact on car companies, I personally pay more attention to the impact on dealers and suppliers. The transformation of car dealers is also a commonplace topic. This time Perhaps we need to use external forces to push them. After all, car dealers have relatively high requirements for capital flow. If they cannot find new profit points or reform services in a difficult environment, the future prospects will only become more pessimistic.

Suppliers need relevant policies to support them, which is a problem in another dimension. At present, the supply chain caused by the epidemic has affected automobile production outside China. For example, Kyungshin and Yura (wiring harness suppliers) have insufficient production capacity, causing Hyundai Group's factories in South Korea to suspend production for a week.

Online car sales and services

There is still not a good enough online sales and service solution. Even Tesla’s model is difficult to satisfy the vast majority of customers. people’s car buying experience.

Because we have already discussed the issue of online car sales before, today we will talk about it again from the service aspect.

For the vast majority of dealers, after-sales service is the key item for their profitability, which is one of the reasons why I have repeatedly emphasized the need for dealers to transform.

Affected by the epidemic, consumers will pay more attention to "one-click hosting" door-to-door service projects. The current shackles of this service method are that car owners are "not very confident" about their cars being driven away. In fact, car companies can step in to create an online platform to allow users to understand the after-sales progress and status of their managed vehicles in real time. This is difficult for roadside repair shops to achieve, and it is also a unique advantage created by the joint efforts of car companies and dealers.

To sum up, the impact of the epidemic on the automobile industry is generally these changes. Again, as long as the demand is there, there's nothing to worry about.

This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.