The light-duty light truck market is not weak in the mid-western and rural areas in July

In July, this was the off-season for light truck sales. In July this year, there was a hot scene.

The reporter of the "Commercial Vehicle World Network" recently learned that the light truck market continued its favourable trend in June and continued its booming situation in July.

The reporters found that the sales of mainstream light truck manufacturers such as Foton, Jianghuai and Dongfeng were basically the same as in June, and individual companies such as JMC and Jinbei even grew slightly. The truck market, which should have entered the off-season, has been performing "abnormally" in June and July.

In the interview, most people think that the hot light trucks are directly related to the change of economic situation this year.

Off-season is not light

"Jianghuai Motor Co., Ltd. sold more than 11,000 light trucks in July, which is about the same as last month." Du Junchao, a market researcher of JAC's commercial vehicle marketing company, told reporters. In the first half of this year, Jianghuai Light Trucks sold a total of 73,716 vehicles domestically, an increase of 20% year-on-year, and continued to rank second in the light-card rankings.

After adjusting for the first half of the year, the third-generation “Dongfeng Motor” basically remained the same in July and June. The person in charge of Dongfeng Yulong Sales Company told the reporter that Dongfeng Light Trucks sold 7,308 vehicles in July.

There are Futian and Jiangling who are close to Jianghuai. The data in the following table shows that in June, Futian Light Trucks and JMC JMC light trucks sold nearly 40,000 vehicles and 3,563 units (domestic) respectively; in July, Fukuda sales volume remained the same as that in June, and JMC's domestic sales volume increased slightly (compared with a year-on-year increase of nearly 40%). It reached 3,700 cars (domestic ballots). From January to July, the overall increase of Foton exceeded 20%, and Jiangling’s domestic sales increased by nearly 30%.

Since the rural market is the main battlefield for today's young card companies, the traditional economic light truck strong companies, Jinbei Vehicles and Shandong Kaima, have benefited a lot. Data show that the increase in the first half of the Gold Cup was 39%, and continued to maintain a strong sales situation in July. According to Wu Xin, head of the marketing department of Shenyang Jinbei Vehicle Manufacturing Co., the domestic sales of Jinbei light trucks in July exceeded 8,000 units, which is slightly higher than that in June. “We’ve been very busy recently, and we’ve all canceled the fake. From the current situation, Orders will not be bad in August."

Another "dark horse" of the light truck is the Nanjing Iveco Leap. As the base of China's first light truck, the brand sold 4,938 units in July and increased 32% from January to July. However, since the leap forward was adjusted during the previous years, sales have been declining. Therefore, this year's substantial growth can be seen as a kind of restorative growth.

Market structure changes

Behind the overall growth is the change in sales structure and pattern. "The off-season is not thin, but it is only reflected in the mainstream enterprises. Many small and medium-sized marginal light truck companies have experienced a decline in sales," said an expert from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. This means that the industry concentration of the first few manufacturers is continuously improving.

At the same time, the sales structure of light trucks has further converged at both ends. “About 2 tons of medium-body light trucks accounted for a decline in the proportion of sales in various companies. Individual users such as farmers tend to have low-end light trucks with a wheelbase of 2..6 meters and 2.8 meters or even lower tonnage diesel micro-cards. For example, Fukuda’s era led the rapid growth this year; either it favored large-tonnage wide-body light trucks, Du Junchao said. The reporter learned that the sales of "Weiling" in JAC light trucks has increased to about 1/3. Wu Xin also said that the Jinbei light truck is a small tonnage "leader" or a large light truck "Jinji". The sales situation is very good.

Three major reasons for the huge increase in demand

Policy pulls, “lax enforcement” in rural/middle-western demand and standards laws and regulations are considered to be several important factors leading to the light season of the light truck market.

According to the data from the National Bureau of Statistics, GDP grew by 7.1% from January to June this year, and the national economy since July has continued to improve. As the country’s 4 trillion investment at the beginning of the year has increased the tilt to the central and western regions and the Dongcun region, the two major growth points for the light truck market this year are mainly in the central and western regions and in the countryside.

Among them, one obvious sign is that many workers return home to do their own small business, and the demand for cheap light-duty trucks with low prices is very strong. Driven by this demand, from January to July, sales of low-end light trucks such as the Gold Cup, Kama, Futian Times, JAC Luck, and Kang Ling were hot.

From February to May, due to the lighter trucks going to the countryside to redeem, the policies did not promote sales of economical light trucks. In June and July, with the implementation of car replacement programs for direct subsidies and old-fashioned exchanges, policy factors began to exert their effects, which objectively contributed to the off-season sales of the light truck market.

In addition, since July 1, the diesel N1 light truck country III emission standard that has been extended for one year has finally been enforced. In theory, this will lead to a recession in the light truck market after July. However, this is not the case. The light-duty truck industry is "not at all cold" with the National III standard. How light-card sales can be sold and sold? Several truck dealers in Hubei, Hebei, and Henan told reporters that in addition to major cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, the other countries' traffic control offices have reportedly issued an announcement to the State II light truck decking nation III, which “closes one eye with one eye.” "The State III light truck is at least 10,000 to 20,000 yuan more expensive than the State II vehicle. If it is strictly enforced, individual users simply cannot stand the price increase."

From this, it can be said that all localities are not strict on the implementation of the State III standard, which has laid a "policy" basis for the steady growth of the light truck market throughout the year. Is this ironic? Or the reality of choice?