The situation of "11 consecutive drops" is still inevitable. According to the latest data released by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, the market share of self-owned passenger cars and passenger cars saw a “11 consecutive drop†year-on-year, which fell to 34.6% and 17.7% respectively. This is the first time that the market share of self-owned brand cars has fallen below 20%, which is the lowest since 2009. In the first seven months of this year, the market share of self-owned brand passenger cars dropped by 3.1 percentage points, and the market share of cars dropped by 5.4 percentage points.
However, compared with the decline in the sales of self-owned brands, the hollowing of auto parts deserves more attention. Recently, the auto industry's anti-monopoly has made a lot of noises. Among them, the high odds ratio is the culprit. In addition to luxury car companies such as Audi, Mercedes-Benz and Jaguar Land Rover, the National Development and Reform Commission also stated that it has completed investigations into the implementation of 12 auto parts and bearing price monopoly cases in Japan and will punish them according to law.
Behind many of these Japanese auto parts makers, many have large Japanese consortiums and it is easy to create horizontal monopolies. The data shows that in 2012, auto parts manufacturers with a foreign investment background accounted for more than 75% of the entire industry. Among them, wholly-owned enterprises accounted for 55% and Sino-foreign joint ventures accounted for 45%. It can be said that most of the market share of Chinese auto parts sales has been monopolized by foreign capital.
Taking the 2013 global top 100 auto parts enterprises as an example, the United States, Japan, and Germany, as the world’s recognized automobile powers, have as many as 25, 29, and 21 auto parts companies on this list. As China, the world’s largest automobile production and sales country, only one Chinese auto parts company has been shortlisted in this list.
The reason why such a situation occurs is inextricably linked to the “abandoning†of the parts and components industry when the policy was formulated. When China joined the WTO in 2001, relevant industrial policies only clarified the ratio of joint-venture shares of the entire vehicle company, and did not involve restrictions on the shareholding ratio of joint ventures for auto parts; the “Development Policy for Automobile Industry†issued in 2004 was even cancelled. The ratio limit of foreign-invested parts and components was limited.
Later, multinational companies including Volkswagen and Toyota have established wholly-owned parts and components companies in China. For example, Volkswagen has invested in the establishment of domestic DSG gearbox factories in Dalian, Qingdao and Tianjin respectively, which are exclusively used by North and South public. Hyundai-Kia Motors also established MOBIS Transmission Co., Ltd. exclusively in China. It mainly manufactures key components such as manual transmissions and automatic transmissions and most of the auto parts and components, and supplies the two partners of Hyundai Kia in China.
These wholly-owned parts and components companies, on the one hand, have huge profits for the foreign side, and on the other hand, they have also imposed a technical blockade on the Chinese side of the joint venture, making it possible for the Chinese side to always be the role of the "generation factory." In this anti-monopoly investigation by the National Development and Reform Commission, the "zero-to-zero ratio" factor of some companies was astonishingly high. Among them, the Mercedes-Benz C-Class ranks first in terms of "zero-to-zero" coefficient of more than 1200%, and some models of BMW, Audi and Toyota also have "zero-to-zero" coefficients as high as 700%.
"From the perspective of the development of the auto parts industry in the world's major auto-producing countries, the development of auto parts industry clusters is in an equally important position in the development of the auto industry." Senior expert Chen Guangzu of the auto industry stated that if it is to develop, it will develop into an industrial cluster. It is a strategic choice for the development of auto parts industry. Vehicle companies use platform strategies for product development. Systematic development, modular manufacturing, and integrated supply have gradually become the development trend of the auto parts industry.
However, at present domestic parts and components manufacturing enterprises are basically limited to products with relatively low technological content such as hubs and brake pads. However, core parts and components such as engines and transmissions with high technological content and profitability are still largely blank. Xu Changming, director of the Information Resource Development Department of the National Information Center, believes that the merger and reorganization of parts and components companies is more urgent than the entire vehicle. If there are no large parts and components companies, the costs will not come and the quality will not go up. The development of the entire industry will be extremely difficult. The domestic parts and components companies are small in scale, weak in strength, and lack of R&D capabilities. Under such circumstances, if the parts and components industry wants to develop rapidly, it must speed up mergers and reorganizations to form economies of scale.
Take Bosch, which ranks first in the list of the world's top 100 parts and components, as an example. It not only controls magnetoelectric ignition systems, diesel high pressure common rails, and electronic stability programs, but also masters core technologies such as ECUs and CVTs. At present, domestic self-owned brand models are equipped with Bosch's electronic stability system as a major selling point, but behind them, they can only swallow the increasingly costly consequences.
It can be said that as long as we don't master the core parts and components technology, the development of self-owned brand cars is like “the wood without rootsâ€, and it is stuck in the neck of one hand and can be pinched at any time. The consolidation of anti-monopoly anti-monopoly autos "zero-to-all ratio", although it can contain multi-national companies from the policy level to extract high profits from the parts and components market, but can not change the domestic spare parts industry scattered, weak, poor situation. Only through unified planning and support at the national level will it be possible for China's auto parts industry to achieve a breakthrough. Otherwise, the auto industry will be a mere empty talk.