At the end of the year, foreign car companies have released their annual sales reports in the Chinese market.
Although the sales data are not enough to fully reflect the comprehensive development of an enterprise, it undoubtedly directly reflects the specific performance of the enterprise in the current market environment.
Recently, Honda China released annual terminal sales data that revealed a hint of concern.
According to the latest sales report released on Jan.
9, Honda China sold 852000 terminal vehicles in 2024, down 30.
94% from 1.
234 million the previous year.
It is worth noting that since February 2024, Honda’s sales in China have experienced an 11-month year-on-year decline, and in the third quarter (July-September), Honda suffered a severe challenge of more than 40% year-on-year decline for three consecutive months.
Although Honda China actively took action in 2024 to launch new energy brands and new models in an attempt to reverse losses in the fuel vehicle market and poor performance in the new energy vehicle market, judging from the current sales performance, Honda’s joint venture in China has failed to effectively stem the decline in sales.
Are you not satisfied with the soil and water? Honda initially saw hybrid models as a key layout in the Chinese market.
As early as 2013, Honda launched i-MMD hybrid technology.
In 2018, Guangzhou Auto Honda, its joint venture in China, launched the 10th generation Accord with a hybrid electric system, while Dongfeng Honda launched a hybrid version of the Odyssey.
However, Honda’s oil-mixing technology seems to have encountered the dilemma of “soil and water” in the Chinese market.
In China, whether in terms of industrial development or policy support, oil-mixing technology does not occupy the mainstream position, and consumers are not enthusiastic about paying tens of thousands of yuan extra for fuel-mixed models.
At the same time, plug-in and pure electricity lines are rising rapidly under the promotion of policy.
Faced with this trend, Honda has to adjust its strategy and shift its focus to pure electricity.
In 2018, Dongfeng Honda launched the new energy brand strategy of “looking ahead Seeing the Future”, then revived the Siming brand in 2019 and launched the pure electric model X-NV based on XR-V, marking the beginning of the electrified era of Dongfeng Honda.
At the Guangzhou Auto Show in the same year, Honda launched its second pure electric model, M-NV.
In 2021, with the listing of CR-V sharp hybrid e +, Dongfeng Honda officially entered the plug-in hybrid era.
In October of the same year, Honda officially launched its new pure electric vehicle brand “eRu N”, marking the full development of its electrified transformation.
However, due to the fact that most of the models are oil-to-electricity products, coupled with the fierce competition from domestic new energy models, Honda’s road to electrification has not been as smooth as expected, with sales of only 15000 vehicles in 2023.
Photo: Honda China, in order to meet the challenges, Honda China has not only innovated at the product level, but also made significant changes to its organizational structure.
In February 2023, Honda China issued three consecutive announcements to adjust the organizational structure and internal personnel in many aspects, hoping to “further accelerate the electric power industry.
” From April 1 of the same year, Honda began to implement the new organization and operation system, and set up a new electric enterprise development headquarters, which is responsible for key tasks such as automobile industry strategy and pure electric product development.
Taking this as an opportunity, Honda’s reform in China has been significantly strengthened.
In April, Honda China launched a new electric brand for the Chinese market, Ye, which is independently developed by Honda’s local team and works with local suppliers such as Huawei and iFLYTEK.
Guangzhou Auto Honda unveiled its new pure electric brand “Ye P” at the Guangzhou Auto Show in November 2024, while Dongfeng Honda’s Ye S7 also plans to go public in 2025.
In addition, Honda’s joint venture brands in China have also begun to build their own new energy brands, such as Dongfeng Honda’s new new energy brand Lingzhi launched its first model, the Lingzhi L, in September 2024.
However, Ling learns that the sales performance of the L is not good, with monthly sales of only more than 100 vehicles.
In the past five years, Dongfeng Honda has launched a number of electric products, covering SUV, MPV, cars and other categories.
However, despite Honda’s early start of the electrified reform, it still accounts for only about 20% of its sales in the Chinese market.
Zheng Chunkai, a former deputy general manager of Dongfeng Honda, lamented that Dongfeng Honda had achieved good results, but it was only the glory of the “internal combustion engine era.
” Hey, is there any hope? Honda’s terminal car sales in China have continued to decline since 2021, showing a significant decline in annual sales of 1561540, 1373122, 1234181 and 852269 respectively over the past four years.
At the financial level, the Chinese market has also put a lot of pressure on Honda’s overall performance.
Honda’s operating profit fell 15% year-on-year to 257.
9 billion yen (12 billion yuan) in the second quarter of fiscal 2024, the first year-on-year decline in Honda’s operating profit in the past seven quarters.
Honda made it clear in its report that the decline in second-quarter results was mainly affected by falling sales in Southeast Asia and China, especially in China.
In fact, the decline in sales is not unique to Honda, and many joint ventures are facing similar difficulties, which are rooted in the ineffectiveness of the transformation of new energy.
Analysts at the Global Automotive Research Institute have previously analyzed this: due to the deviation in the prediction of the trend, the joint venture brand did not go all out to transform, and then missed the opportunity for development.
At first, the penetration rate of new energy in Chinese market is relatively low, and there is not a big relationship between end consumers’ cognition and acceptance of new energy.
Most joint venture car companies do not judge the rapid development of the new energy market so quickly, believing that fuel vehicles are still the mainstream of the market.
As a result, although the joint venture brand has also launched pure electric products, there is still a certain gap between the joint venture brand and China’s new energy vehicles, especially in terms of price, design and intelligence.
The same applies to Honda’s development path in China.
For joint venture brands such as Honda, are there any opportunities in the future? Some analysts believe that it is very important to reshape the corporate image and launch products that are in line with Chinese market trends and consumer preferences.
This means that joint venture brands need to expand and strengthen cooperation with Chinese car companies and industrial chain enterprises, which may be the real way out for joint venture brands.
However, Zhong Shi, a senior auto analyst, is cautious about this, saying that while joint venture brands are catching up, independent brands are also developing rapidly, so it is difficult to give a definite answer.
Nevertheless, Honda is still reluctant to give up the Chinese market.
Big cake.
” In order to achieve the 2050 goal of “carbon neutrality”, Honda is accelerating its electrification business in China.
It plans to reach 10 models in its pure electric product lineup by 2027, including the e:N series and the new electric brand “Ye” series.
Honda has also set a goal of achieving 100% of pure electric vehicle sales by 2035.
, Photo source: Honda China.
In addition, Honda and Nissan are exploring the possibility of a merger.
One of them is to obtain a larger scale through the merger so as to better participate in the development of new technologies for electric vehicles and smart driving.
At the 2025 CES show, Honda also released two concept cars, 0 Saloon and 0 SUV, and plans to achieve mass production in the next few years.
However, considering that Honda’s new energy models released in China in 2024 have not brought a turning point in sales, the market is holding a wait-and-see attitude as to whether these new products can be mass-produced and bring about performance improvements.
Honda needs to show firmer determination and effective strategies in the China market to reverse the current decline.
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