搜尋歷史
熱門搜尋
經銷商登入 / 註冊
The continuous "price war" intensifies market involution, while also prompting Chinese automakers to expand into overseas markets. However, as the scale of China's automotive exports continues to grow, the competitive order and compliance in overseas markets are becoming the industry's focus.
Recently, the Ministry of Commerce, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the State Administration for Market Regulation jointly released a document—"Guidelines for Overseas Competitive Behavior and Compliance Construction in the Automotive Industry". This document directly points to a series of controversies triggered by frequent price cuts by Chinese automakers in overseas markets in recent years, and for the first time at the official level, systematically set clear compliance requirements for automakers' overseas pricing, promotions, and localized operations, among other behaviors.
Among them, Chery Automotive's response was swift and steady, clearly stating it will establish a scientific pricing system in overseas markets and regulate terminal prices and promotional behaviors. GAC Group was not left behind, with its statement stating, "Integrating compliance concepts throughout the entire R&D, production, supply, sales, and service chain". Moreover, BYD, Great Wall Motor, and Geely Holding Group also issued statements in response in succession.
From the industry's top-level call to standardize benign competition and eliminate spillover involution, to automakers generally recognizing the ineffective competition of low-price killing, the whole industry has formed a unified consensus on breaking the deadlock. However, reaching a consensus does not mean risks automatically dissipate; the warning bell against "involution" spillover must still ring long.
1
Export Acceleration, Compliance Faces Challenges
The background for the release of the "Guidelines" is the explosive growth in the scale of Chinese automotive "going global". Data shows that in the first 7 months of this year, China exported 6.14 million automobiles, a year-on-year increase of 66.8%. The monthly export volume first broke through the 1 million mark in June of this year, and July continued this trend, achieving consecutive two months of over 1 million automobiles exported. Industry predictions suggest the full year may hit 10 million.
Against the background of intensified competition in the domestic market, overseas exports have become the core growth engine for numerous Chinese automakers. Taking August sales as an example, BYD's single-month overseas sales exceeded 180,000, setting a new historical high; Chery exported 197,000, a year-on-year increase of 52.1%, with cumulative exports exceeding 7.18 million; Geely's overseas exports in August reached 110,100, a significant increase of 205% year-on-year. Great Wall Motor's overseas sales of 289,000 in the first half of this year have surpassed its domestic sales of 286,700; this is the first time in Great Wall's history that overseas sales have exceeded domestic sales.
Behind rapid expansion, the hazards of extensive overseas expansion are gradually emerging. Some enterprises expanding overseas continue to use the domestic "trade price for volume" strategy, with frequent price cuts, channel channeling, and failure to fulfill promises to dealers occurring from time to time. This not only harms consumer interests but also impacts the overall brand image of Chinese automobiles.
2
Overseas Markets Can No Longer "Price Arbitrarily"
Pricing is the core focus of this guideline. It is reported that the document urges vehicle and component manufacturers to avoid fierce price wars and significant price-cut promotions in overseas markets. It requires enterprises to base pricing on costs and local market supply and demand, avoiding frequent and large price cuts. Different configurations must have clear price gradients and cannot rely on low prices to disrupt local market order. At the same time, dealer channels must be regulated, and a complete compliance system for overseas after-sales, quality, and data security must be improved.
The intent of "admonishing" in this section is obvious, referring precisely to the "involution" spillover that everyone has been very familiar with in recent years. Many automakers, after expanding overseas, adopted aggressive methods such as price cuts to quickly grab market share. Although this was due to market behavior, it did exert certain impacts on the stability of the local market. There are already some negative cases, for example, in the Thai market, some automakers made successive price cuts in Thailand, raising the dissatisfaction of users who had already purchased cars. Thai public institutions also launched investigations into this matter.
This scene inevitably recalls the past lessons of Chinese motorcycle exports to Southeast Asia. If Chinese auto enterprises continue to blindly "involute" and replicate the domestic price war tactics, it will only undermine the value of Chinese brands, and even trigger anti-dumping and trade protection investigations by local regulators. This is a very dangerous signal for Chinese automakers who are just beginning to emerge in overseas markets.
The purpose of the state issuing relevant guidelines this time is clear: no longer solely encouraging the expansion of export scale, but beginning to standardize and manage the increasingly complex global business layout. In other words, previously Chinese automobiles competed on "whether they could go out", but now they are competing on "whether they can stay".
Overseas markets are full of gold mines, automakers must not mess this up. Chinese automakers going overseas cannot just think about selling cars; they must also learn to do business long-term and in a compliant manner. After all, the outcome of long-term competition no longer depends on who has the lower price or faster shipment, but on the comprehensive ability of localized operations, global compliance governance, supply chain collaboration, and brand building.
Currently, China's automotive export faces dual pressures of intensifying trade barriers and the spillover of internal price wars. The joint release of compliance guidelines by the Ministry of Commerce and two other ministries is precisely to curb malicious competition. Of course, the guidelines are essentially guiding, non-mandatory regulations. To be implemented, it ultimately depends on whether enterprises can reach a true industry consensus and take concrete actions.
