The tragedy of SAIC Skoda: It was originally a cheap brand, but the Jetta brand came to poach it

In the domestic joint venture brand car market, North and South Volkswagen are undoubtedly two powerful entities, especially the former SAIC Volkswagen. When FAW-Volkswagen has not widely introduced SUV product lines, SAIC Volkswagen has always been It is the number one sales volume among domestic joint venture manufacturers. However, although SAIC-Volkswagen has always been relatively strong, the sales performance of the Skoda brand, a subsidiary of SAIC-Volkswagen and now an independent brand, has been relatively average. In other overseas markets such as Russia, Skoda, as an independent brand, has relatively good overall sales performance. However, due to the competition between Skoda and SAIC-Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen, the two major "first-tier" brands, Skoda's domestic sales performance is getting worse and worse. Even worse, in the first half of the year, Skoda's domestic sales were only 48,530 vehicles, and the average monthly sales volume was only a little more than 8,000 vehicles.

In fact, for the Skoda brand, there has been a shadow hanging over it since it was introduced into the domestic market, and that is SAIC Volkswagen's brand influence and product coverage capabilities. We all know that Skoda, as a subsidiary of Volkswagen, has the same technical heritage as Volkswagen's similar products in terms of products and technology, especially the three major parts of the engine, gearbox and chassis, which are basically the same as SAIC Volkswagen's similar products. . Therefore, some Skoda dealer stores even have slogans such as "Those who understand Volkswagen will eventually buy Skoda." In fact, in essence, Skoda is in the same vein as Volkswagen in the domestic market, at least at the technical level.

But it is obvious that Skoda is still not interesting at the brand level. In other words, with the existence of first-class brands like North and South Volkswagen, Skoda can only be reduced to a cheap brand. This can be seen from Skoda’s products. You can see it in the price. For example, the official guide price of the SAIC Volkswagen Tiguan L is 218,800 yuan to 311,800 yuan, while the official guide price of the Skoda Kodiaq, which has basically the same power configuration, is only 177,900 yuan to 247,900 yuan; another example is the Passat, the official guide price The official guide price of the Skoda Superb, which is also a mid-size car, is only 154,900 yuan to 229,900 yuan.

So in fact, from the perspective of product pricing, the Skoda brand itself has admitted that it has become a lower-end brand under SAIC-Volkswagen. However, in the past, the SAIC-Volkswagen brand itself was strong, so the Skoda brand is a "brand of SAIC-Volkswagen". "Little Brother" still performed well in terms of market sales. Nowadays, SAIC-Volkswagen has been affected by the poor performance of Passat in China Insurance Research Institute, and its sales have dropped again and again. Now it has fallen for eight consecutive years. Skoda has also been affected at the same time, and its sales performance has also become sluggish.

And in the domestic automobile market, different joint ventures of overseas brands are also secretly competing with each other. The same is true for the relationship between FAW-Volkswagen and SAIC-Volkswagen. Many models also have a benchmarking relationship. This is as a Media practitioners are all too familiar with this. Therefore, after FAW-Volkswagen's overall sales are getting better and better, it also started "business extension". Since FAW-Volkswagen already has Audi as a luxury brand, there is little hope of introducing a high-end brand, so FAW-Volkswagen introduced the former as a luxury brand last year. The Jetta VS5, the first mass-produced model of the Jetta brand, sold more than 10,000 units in the first month after its launch. In the first half of the year, Jetta's sales exceeded 10,000 units. Sales volume of the Jetta brand is 79,670 units, which is nearly twice the sales volume of the Skoda brand. Of course, everyone knows that the Jetta brand is a real low-cost brand under FAW-Volkswagen. A joint venture car like the Jetta VS7, which is known as a mid-level SUV, sells for only 106,800 yuan to 136,800 yuan.

So now the overall situation of Skoda is rather embarrassing. There are first-tier brands like Volkswagen. Skoda is essentially a second-tier brand and it is difficult to compare with the first-tier joint venture brands in terms of brand; Compared with Jetta, a fully joint venture and low-cost brand, Skoda's product prices can be said to have no advantage at all. Therefore, the Skoda brand is in a state of being sandwiched between Volkswagen and Jetta in the domestic market. Therefore, the current results As a result, it cannot compete with Volkswagen in terms of brand, and is suppressed by Jetta in terms of price. Moreover, the market share continues to shift towards the more advantageous first-tier brands. Second-tier joint venture brands such as Skoda, which are independent of each other, may not be in the same situation in the future. Very optimistic.

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