2023 passenger car industry status and prospects

I. Overview

A passenger car is a vehicle which, in its design and technical characteristics, is primarily used to carry passengers and their carry-on baggage or temporary items, with a maximum of nine seats, including the driver's seat. Passenger cars are subdivided into basic passenger cars (sedans), multi-purpose vehicles (MPVS), sport utility vehicles (SUVs), special passenger cars and crossover passenger cars. Passenger cars can be divided into broad passenger cars and narrow passenger cars according to the scope of coverage, narrow passenger cars include cars, MPV and SPV, and broad passenger cars include cross-type passenger cars on the basis of narrow passenger cars.

2. Market supply and demand

China is a veritable country of automobile production and consumption. China's automobile production and sales rank first in the world for many years, which cannot be separated from the contribution of passenger cars, which account for the vast majority of China's automobile production and sales. From 2017 to 2022, the production of passenger cars in China (broad sense) showed a trend of first decline and then increase. Under the background of the vigorous development of the new energy automobile industry and the continuous introduction of automobile consumption stimulus policies, the production of passenger cars in China began to rebound in 2021, reaching 21.408 million units, an increase of 7.07%. In 2022, China's passenger car production further increased, reaching 23.836 million units, an increase of 2.428 million units from 2021, an increase of 11.34%.

2017-2022, China's passenger car sales and production changes in the same direction, passenger car production and sales basically maintain a balance. In 2021, China's passenger car sales will reach 21.482 million, an increase of 6.46%. In 2022, China's passenger car sales reached 23.563,000 units, an increase of 2.081 million units from 2021, an increase of 9.69%.

In the passenger car sales ranking of car companies in 2022, whether it is retail sales ranking or wholesale sales ranking, BYD ranks first, with retail sales of 1.805 million vehicles in 2022, accounting for 8.5%, and wholesale sales of 1.863 million vehicles, accounting for 7.9%. Faw-volkswagen followed with retail sales of 1.779 million units, accounting for 6.2%, and wholesale sales of 1.802 million units, accounting for 7.7%.

China's new energy automobile industry has ushered in rapid development in recent years, and the sales of new energy passenger vehicles have shown explosive growth. In 2021, China's new energy passenger car sales increased by 1.67 times compared with 2020, reaching 3.3340 million, accounting for 15.5% of passenger car sales. In 2022, China's new energy passenger car sales maintained rapid growth, and sales increased to 6.4950 million, accounting for 27.6% of passenger car sales. Looking to the future, the proportion of new energy passenger vehicles will continue to expand.

In recent years, Chinese automobile enterprises have seized the opportunities of energy structure transformation and upgrading, and continuously improved their competitiveness. The market share of Chinese brand passenger cars has been expanding continuously. In 2021, the sales volume of Chinese brand passenger cars will be 9.543 million, accounting for 44.4% of passenger car sales, an increase of 6% over 2020. In 2022, Chinese brand passenger car sales reached 11.766 million units, accounting for 49.9% of passenger car sales, an increase of 5.5% over 2021.

3. Import and export trade

In recent years, in the wave of the development of new energy vehicles, the export volume of China's passenger cars has shown a rapid growth trend. In 2021, the export volume of China's passenger cars was 1.614 million units, an increase of 915,000 units over the previous year, an increase of 1.1 times. In 2022, China's passenger car exports were 2.529 million units, an increase of 915,000 units from the previous year, an increase of 56.69%.

From 2017 to 2022, China's passenger car imports continued to decline. In 2021, China's passenger car import and export market showed a reversal phenomenon, the import volume began to be less than the export volume, the import volume of China's passenger car in 2021 was 924,000, and the import volume of China's passenger car in 2022 fell to 871,000, a decrease of 53,000 compared with the previous year, a decrease of 5.74%.

From the perspective of imported passenger car brands, China's imported passenger car brands in 2022 are mainly Lexus, whose imports are as high as 183,000 units, accounting for 21.0% of China's passenger car imports, followed by Mercedes, whose imports are 161,000 units, accounting for 18.5% of China's passenger car imports, followed by BMW, whose imports are 115,000 units. It accounted for 13.2% of China's passenger car imports.