The commercial vehicle market is hard to reverse

A few days ago, China National Heavy Duty Truck (000951.SZ) released a sales report that from January to May, China's heavy-carbon production and sales were 35,770 and 32,562, respectively, a sharp drop of 37.05% and 36.90% respectively. In fact, this is not the first time China National Heavy Duty Truck has announced anxious figures. Its 2011 annual report shows that China National Heavy Truck Group's performance is lower than expected. The company's operating income for the year was 26.059 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.84%. The profit was 362 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 46.13%, and the cumulative sales volume reached 101,000 units in the year, a year-on-year decrease of 7.97%.

During the release of the latest production and sales data, China National Heavy Duty Truck Corporation also issued an early warning announcement for the first half of 2012. According to the announcement, the company’s cumulative net profit for January 2012 to June 2012 is expected to decline by 50% to 100% from the same period of last year.

The current difficulties faced by China National Heavy Duty Truck are actually a reflection of the overall dilemma of the commercial vehicle market. Recently, the statistics released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers in the first five months showed that in the commercial vehicle sector, total sales fell by 10.31% year-on-year, of which, the production and sales of trucks were 1,115,700 and 1,119,800, respectively, down 6.34% and 6.06% year-on-year respectively. The production and sales of semi-trailer tractors were 93,800 and 94,500 vehicles, a year-on-year decrease of 18.75% and 22.49% respectively; the production and sales volume of non-integrated trucks were 21.38 million vehicles and 21.6 million vehicles, respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 28.38% and 30.63%. In addition, in the field of heavy trucks that are most concerned about in the industry, Dongfeng Motor sales decreased by 30.4% year-on-year, FAW Group dropped by 27.4%, China National Heavy Truck Group decreased by 34.9%, and Shaanxi Heavy Duty Truck and Foton Motor decreased. 27.1% and 28.4%.

Judging from the overall auto market sales situation, the first five months of this year achieved a slight increase of 1.7%, and the commercial vehicle market has experienced a sharp decline, which has aroused widespread concern.

For the commercial vehicle market, the best news now may be that the policy hand has once again reached out to this field. On June 13, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Commerce jointly issued the Interim Measures for the Administration of Old Automobile Discarding and Renewal Subsidy Funds. (Commonly referred to as the "old-for-new policy") announcement, to clarify the scope of 2012 annual old car scrap replacement subsidies and subsidies, and this subsidy is mainly commercial vehicles, the maximum subsidy standard for each car is 18,000 yuan.

Stimulated by this news, many people in the industry believe that the commercial vehicle market will usher in a turnaround. In fact, a closer look will reveal that things are far from imaginative optimism.

"It should be pointed out that this new "renewal policy" is not a new product but a continuation of the previous policy measures." Liu Feng, an analyst at Southwest Securities, said, "Since 2002, the commercial vehicle market has been Enjoy this policy, but only in 2009, the policy's subsidy quota has increased, and the newly introduced policy's subsidy quota is exactly the same as the increased subsidy quota in 2009, so it is not enough to help the commercial vehicle market to reverse the current In this regard, Shaanxi Kejun General Manager Assistant Liu Keqiang also said: "The newly introduced policy to make the commercial vehicle market completely difficult to change. This policy is not great, and the annual commercial vehicle market is enjoying This policy."

According to the “China Business” reporter, in the policy development process of raising subsidies in 2009, the “trade-in policy” expanded the scope of subsidies from commercial vehicles to the entire automotive sector including commercial vehicles and passenger vehicles. In 2011, the “replacement of old” measures for the passenger vehicle market were introduced, while commercial vehicles continued to enjoy this policy. Although there was policy support, commercial vehicles did not achieve good results in 2011 - relevant statistics show that in the year, sales of the commercial vehicle market have come close to the backdrop of sales growth of 2.45% in the domestic automobile market as a whole. 10% decline. This obviously has also fully proved that the "trade-in policy" is not a "life-saving straw" for the commercial vehicle market.

In fact, most closely related to the development of the commercial vehicle market, or the overall domestic macroeconomic situation.

In 2011, China was committed to economic restructuring and transformation of resource-based industries. Among them, the closure of various types of mines led to a decline in the demand for many commercial vehicles; in addition, the central government’s continuous real estate control measures have caused the real estate market temperatures to drop. The drop also led to a sharp drop in construction vehicle usage, while the inactivity of the macro economy forced the long-distance transportation industry to be embarrassed and the demand for commercial vehicles was greatly reduced.

“At present, China’s demand for economic structural adjustment is still very strong, which will inhibit the rapid growth of the overall economy. From the perspective of the international environment, Europe and the United States’ financial and debt crisis have not shown signs of improvement in the short term. The European and US economies have experienced long-term low growth and even stagnation. The trend is obvious. Therefore, the Chinese economy will continue to face the reality of deteriorating external trade environment and weak domestic investment for some time.” Some industry analysts have stated that “such an economic environment will continue for at least the next two years.” Therefore, the commercial vehicle market will not be able to turn around in the short term."

It is understood that at the same time that domestic commercial vehicle companies are experiencing difficulties, many foreign commercial vehicle giants seem to be taking the opportunity to quietly lay out. It is understood that Volvo Truck Company is expected to have a joint venture with Dongfeng Commercial Vehicle Company recently; Ford is preparing to launch commercial vehicle business with joint ventures such as Changan and JMC. In this regard, the industry believes that: "domestic enterprises are difficult to live, foreign cars are in the 'deadly into the', in the overall commercial vehicle market sluggish environment, Chinese and foreign commercial vehicle companies are bound to start some fierce fighting. ”