After experiencing price cuts at the end of last year, January is often the off-season for car sales. Recently, major new energy vehicle manufacturers have released their first sales performance reports for 2024, showing a significant year-on-year growth trend overall, while the month on month performance was not satisfactory. The polarization of automotive companies is obvious, and the top 10 retail sales list of new energy vehicle companies has also undergone significant changes compared to last month.
Overall, in January, the sales of new energy narrow passenger cars reached 668000 units, a year-on-year increase of 101.8% and a month on month decrease of 29.5%.
According to the analysis of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the retail market in January achieved the expected opening trend, and pre holiday consumption before the Spring Festival brought about the peak season of the car market. But there are two reasons worth paying attention to: first, the overdraft of some sales caused by price reductions in December, which affected January sales; second, the price correction of some car models in January and the reduction of local consumption vouchers, which formed a characteristic that was not conducive to the strength of January sales. The polarization of car companies is becoming increasingly evident.
In terms of specific brands, BYD still maintains a leading gap with retail sales data of 206904 vehicles. Although the month on month decline was significant, the retail sales data of over 200000 vehicles still broke the record for the highest sales in January in previous years. Geely Automobile (64286) and Changan Automobile (51109) have monthly retail sales exceeding 50000 units, ranking 2-3 on the list. Ranked 4-10 are SAIC GM Wuling (41066 vehicles), Tesla China (39881 vehicles), Ideal Motors (31165 vehicles), Celes (30854 vehicles), Great Wall Motors (23491 vehicles), GAC Aion (21938 vehicles), and Dongfeng Motors (12973 vehicles).
Traditional new energy vehicle companies showed strong performance in January. Geely Automobile jumped to second place on the list with retail data of 64286 units, up 632.1% year-on-year from fourth place last month. While the year-on-year increase was significant, there was also a slight increase compared to the previous period.
Compared to the month on month pullback of other car companies on the list, Changan Automobile, ranked third, and Dongfeng Automobile, ranked tenth, saw significant growth in retail sales in January, with growth rates of 21% and 33.3% respectively. The latter also became the "new face" on the January list with the highest month on month growth rate on the list.
Compared to traditional large factories, the new forces in car manufacturing have undergone a transformation in January. Overall, the performance of new car manufacturers in January was mediocre. Except for the Ideal Automobile, which relies on its extended range new energy trend, and the Celes Automobile, which is backed by Huawei's "big tree", which achieved retail sales of over 30000 vehicles, other vehicles such as NIO, Nezha, and Xiaopeng performed average and did not make it to the list.
It is worth noting that with the sudden rise of the Black Horse Quest series, the retail sales of Selis surged by nearly 600% year-on-year in January. The retail sales performance in January was 30854 units, a year-on-year increase of 590.4%, ranking 7th on the list.
On the other hand, the three ideal L-series products will undergo a facelift in March. At that time, the Wenjie M9, which will benchmark against the Ideal L9, will also begin large-scale delivery, with orders reportedly exceeding 54000. Under the general environment that the overall sales of the new car making forces are sluggish, the ideal and question of who can become the "new king" of the new forces in the the Year of the Loong will undoubtedly be a big focus of the market.