Specialists of the Russian Gazeta spoke about the influence of Chinese cars on the domestic car market.
The December sales volume of passenger cars in the Russian Federation can smooth out the overall picture, but the volume of the implementation of the new cars in 2020 decreased markedly. Compared with the result of 2019, the fall in the current year amounted to 10.3%. The result could be even lower, but Chinese cars played a central role here. In 2020, not many brands were able to finish the year "in the plus". Skoda was able to increase sales by 7% thanks to the update of the model range, Suzuki is 8%. Against this background, Chinese companies look much more dynamic, because haval increased sales by 49%, Geely and Chery - 69%, FAW - 92%, and the realization of Changan cars took off for 196%. The brands of Haval, Geely and Chery managed to turn out the market outsiders in strong middle peasants back in 2019. The total share of passenger cars in Russia increased almost twice - to 3.7%.
At the moment, the Russians are alerted to Chinese cars, and the experiences are mainly associated with the quality of machines, their liquidity in the secondary market and dealership. It is noteworthy that the segment leaders constantly work on these issues. Director of the AvtoMir GC Alexey Savostin said: "Geely and Haval are very demanding to their dealer network and today are tightened in principles of working with dealers to market leaders. [They] Completely able to occupy the released Showers of the Ford brand, retaining professional seller teams who were very quickly retrained from Ford's sales on sales of Haval and Geely brands.
Problems with the number of dealer centers and their geography remain only among market outsiders and medium brands. Over the past ten years, the number of Chinese brands dealer centers, according to the Avtostat agency, increased by 10% of their total number - from 10.5 to 20.5%. During the same period, only Japanese brands from 16.6 to 22.1% have strengthened their positions.
An important impact on the growth of the sales of Chinese cars was played and localizing the production of many of them. First of all, you should remember Haval with its plant in the Tula region. At the moment, the production line consists of four models, and the company is ready to expand it further. Experts of "RG" recalled that in accordance with the Special Prisoners concluded with the Government of the Russian Federation (by the way, the first for Chinese companies in the list - and this is a recognition in itself) a representative office began to build a motor factory. The power of automotive reproduces 80 thousand cars per year, and, apparently, the company intends to gradually reach these indicators.
But it should not be noted that Haval has already encountered some difficulties in the Russian Federation. At the end of 2020, the production of cars could not satisfy the demand and some popular configurations had to wait several months. The problems were not only in logistics complicated by coronavirus, but also in personnel deficit.
The plants of Chinese companies are available not only in the territory of the Customs Union. JAC has a production base in Kazakhstani Kostanay, Changan leads to the assembly of some models at the Yunson enterprise in the suburb of Minsk, and Geely has long been and seriously settled in the Borisov district of the Minsk region. But due to the increased demand, some brands were forced to import cars from China.
In 2020, many leading Chinese brands have seriously updated their model rules and generally created a new trend. Now not only the available models will be taken from China, but also the newest and well-equipped. Chery has already started certification of its innovations in the Russian Federation several times even before they appeared in China. Due to this, it was possible to reduce the difference between the debuts in the PRC and the Russian Federation almost to a minimum. Also in 2020, Chery first risked to bring a premium subbrend to our market. CheryExeed TXL crossovers have a cost of 2.4 million rubles and are still offered in the same car dealerships as Chery, but, apparently, and monobraldov dealership will appear soon.
Geely presented in the Russian Federation a premium crossover Tugella worth 2.5 million rubles. Roughly speaking, in the company initially agreed that the model would not become a bestseller, but would show how modern Geely car could look like. Sales growth also provide more modest and massive Coolray and Atlas. In turn, Gac Motor decided to bring to the Russian minivan market for 3.5 million rubles.