10 conjectures in China's auto market

13 million units, growth rate of 40%, world's largest market ... Along with all kinds of auras, the Chinese car market in 2009 has become the history. The pressure is on the forthcoming year 2010. Will China's auto market in 2010 continue the highlights and glory in 2009? At the beginning of this new year, Yangtse Evening Post infers with us this destined extraordinary year 2010.

　　Guess 1 continuing double-digit growth

Looking into the auto market in 2010, the manufacturers and dealers have all shown the positive side. Most of vehicle manufacturers have locked the target on the increase rate of around 10%. 15 million units, this number seems very unreachable. But in fact it is not far away from the Chinese automobile market. If China's market will be able to reach the growth of 10% in 2010, the amount of sales will achieve 15 million units by the end of year.

However, some cautious people still think that the blowout of the auto market in 2009 overdraws the sales of about 2.5 million units. Therefore, the increase range will not exceed double digit. The reason is that the rapid increase rate of automobile sales in 2009 depends to a large extent on the support of government's policies, but not just the market factor.

　　Guess 2 Buying and taking a car isn't difficult.

Buying a car is difficult, and taking the car is also very hard. In 2009, it seems extremely "difficult" for people to buy a auto. "The vehicles in the store have been already sold out". A number of car dealers have all suffered this kind of "happy embarrassment".

The Chinese automobile market in 2009 has appeared the rare phenomenon over the past ten years that the auto's supply was unable to meet the demand. Will this unmatched relation between supply and demand in auto market be eased in 2010? At present, the major auto companies all announce their own plan of capacity expansion. If the capacity of these manufacturers is overlapped, the annual production capacity of Chinese automobiles will be not far from 20 million units. In front of such huge capacity expansion plan, the short supply's situation of China's auto market in 2009 should be alleviated in 2010.

　　Guess 3 Auto price will falls or still stay strong?

It depends crucial on the target of production and sales made by various auto manufacturers this year, whether the automobile price will go down or stay strong, After the automotive manufacturers have expanded production capacity and enlarged the network, the supply of existing automobiles in the market will become more abundant. The tension between supply and demand of the car market in 2009 will be turned around. The situation of "buying a car very hard" and "raising money to buy an auto" will no longer continue. The possibility of price reduction will also increase.

Insider said frankly, from the perspective of consumer's psychology, the less the sources of vehicles are, the more consumers are willing to purchase a car. But, if the goals of the manurfacturer's production and sale are too optimistic, the auto companies would pass the inventory pressure on the auto's 4S shops under the current pattern. When auto corporations suffer too much pressure of stock, the distributors will very much likely reduce the prices to gain more amount of sales, which could intensify the competition on price. It will lead to the price war.

　　Guess 4 How many new vehicles will come into the market?

According to Chinese auto industry association, there are over 221 kinds of domestic passenger cars come into the market, which is the highest record of the history. However, most of them are upgrading and equipped vehicles. Total new auto models are less than 50 models, and best-selling models are just a dozen. How many new autos will be launched in 2010? What will create a new fairy tale of car market?

Just at the beginning of 2010, there are over 78 documented new car models. Auto companies unveil their new models one after another. Chevrolet's new Sail, Buick's Excelle, Dongfeng-Peugeot 408 and other grand vehicle models come very fiercely. At the same time, the new auto models of domestic own brands also keep up with the pace in 2010. BYD will launch five new car models this year, including L3, I6, G6, S6, M6. SAIC, Chery, Great Wall Motor and other corporations have also announced their new auto plans, Roewe 350, Riich G6, Hover M2 ... The consumers embrace more abundant selections in 2010.

　　Guess 5 Oil price break through the limit of consumer's psychology

In 2009, the international and domestic oil prices have kept increasing that the highest price had risen to 7 Yuan/Liter. According to incomplete statistics, there are total eight adjustments of domestic oil price in 2009, five times raising and three times falling. During the whole year, the prices of gasoline and diesel have risen accumulative total of 1520 Yuan/Ton and 1390 Yuan/Ton, whose growth rates are both about 27%.

Everyone couldn't understand clearly the current trend of international crude oil. If the price reaches 150 or 200 Dollar/Barrel again, the domestic oil price may be corresponding 10 Yuan/Liter, which will break through the people's psychological endurance price. The insiders believe, from the current market situation's point of view, this year's oil price will probably "increase more and drop less". The consumers, who want to buy a vehicle, should take use cost in the future fully into consideration in order to avoid regrets.

　　Guess 6 Happiness index of the "marriage" between auto enterprises

The merger and reorganization among car companies is simmering throughout 2009. After China's major automobile companies have spent one year to wait and watch, whether the domestic car enterprises will start a new climax of merger and reorganization between automotive corporations in 2010? Guangqi Group recombined Changfeng, and then worked together with Fiat, which has brought up a new round of merger and reorganization. Of course, the acquisition trend of Chinese solid auto companies have also spread into foreign countries. Sichuan Tengzhong purchased Hummer, which has catched the world's attention. Then, Beiqi tried to buy Saab, Geely combined with Volvo and so on. After the "marriage" of two enterprises with total different style, how will they arrange the production of auto models between two companies? All kinds of questions will be answered along with the proceeding projects in 2010. We still need to wait and see.

　　Guess 7 New energy vehicles walk into the home of common people

How far are new energy vehicles with great reputation away from the consumption of end-users? At the end of the year of 2009, this question has a much clearer answer. In early December 2009, the government introduced a series of new energy vehicles incentive policies, including personal vehicle purchase subsidy policy, which the whole people have been looking forward to and it plans to be formally implemented in 2010.

The other exciting news is that there will be the first group of private owners of electric vehicles in the first quarter this year. They will be able to buy BYD F3DM with preferential price, who should apply for an auto plate in Shenzhen as the condition. Experts forecast, since the personal subsidy policy is put into effect, people may hopefully purchase new energy vehicles with lower price in 2010, which are energy saving, environment friendly, and outstanding economic performance.

　　Guess 8 Chinese own auto brands enter high-end market

When joint ventures find out that the Chinese market needs low-emission vehicles. Nissan, Hyundai, Volkswagen and General Motors will all launch their own new generation small cars in 2010. If the own auto brands really want to occupy a place in the market, they still need to keep enriching product line and increasing product image in order to move toward the high-end market.

Chery's G5 challenged Nurburgring successfully. Geely Auto launched Emgrand EC7-RV with the aura of "priority bidder of the Volvo acquisition". BYD introduced electric vehicles, which has been constantly improved, and also released first high-end Chevrolet G3. Under the positive support of policies, Chinese auto own brands stride toward the high end as a group.

　　Guess 9 The secondary and tertiary market are accelerating the expansion.

From the 2010 business plans, which has been recently announced by many automobile enterprises, we can easily find out, Dongfeng Nissan, Guangqi Toyota, Dongfeng Citroen, Dongfeng Peugeot and other auto manufacturers have all expressed that the sale center in 2010 will expand to the domestic secondary and tertiary market and build up more new sales outlets.

Moreover, car manufacturers will also strengthen the sale and after-sale service in the secondary and tertiary market, and set up more marketing activities there. At the growth point of China's automobile market, they will play the role of booster. But from the standpoint of auto companies and dealers, this new booster is also the great hope and future prospects for the increase of future auto market.

　　Guess 10 Second-hand auto market embraces spring.

According to the general rule, which second-hand auto market is running behind new vehicle market, second-hand auto market is expected to have significant growth in 2010.

The expert of the industry estimates that second-hand car market will have the first blowout in 2010 and achieve an obvious increase in leaps and bounds. The market scale reaches a new level of 4 - 4.2 millions units. The growth rate will likely create double-digit high level.(Jianfei Keke)

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