According to the latest data released by the General Administration of Customs, China's auto exports in 2023 reached 5.221 million units, an increase of 57.4% year-on-year, setting a record. Previously, China's auto exports in 2022 and 2021 were 3,111,000 units (up 54.4% year-on-year) and 2,015 million units (up 101.1% year-on-year), respectively. China's car exports in 2023 are equal to the combined 2021 and 2022, causing strong concern at home and abroad. China may overtake Japan to become the world's largest auto exporter, while Japan's 2023 auto export data will be released at the end of January. Japan's Kyodo news agency said it would be the first time Japan has lost the top spot since 2016.
Japanese cars have won a lot of market share in the world with their high cost performance and fuel-saving performance. In 1980, Japan became the world's largest automobile exporter, and for more than 40 years, Japan remained the world's largest automobile exporter. After 2016, against the backdrop of a gradual slowdown in global car consumption, the scale of Japanese car exports has increased very little. In 2020, the new coronavirus epidemic swept the world, the decline in consumers' desire to buy cars combined with poor export transportation, and the number of Japanese automobile exports fell sharply. In 2020, Japan's automobile exports fell 22.36% year-on-year to 3.740,800 vehicles. In 2021, the epidemic around the world gradually improved and encountered a chip supply crisis. Japan's auto exports rose slightly to 3.818,900 units. In 2022, with the rapid popularity of China's electric vehicles and the improvement of local enterprise brand appeal, began to continue to erode the market of German and Japanese brands, although Japan's car exports of 3.28 million are still ranked first in the world, but compared with China's 3,111,000 there is not much of a gap.
China may become the world's largest auto exporter, although the conclusion is not yet in the book, but it is almost certain. According to data released by the Japan Automobile Industry Association JAMA, Japan's car exports in November 2023 was 3.99 million, and it is expected that the annual car exports in 2023 will be about 4.35 million, which is nearly one million cars short of the 5.221 million Chinese car exports in 2023. The previous year, China's car exports surpassed Germany in 2022, ranking second in the world after Japan.
North America is the largest export place of Japanese automobiles, and the leading economic development level in the world makes consumers in this market have stronger consumption power and higher consumption willingness for automobiles. On this basis, due to the sparse population in North America and the high labor cost of automobile repair, consumers have higher requirements for the fuel consumption and quality stability of automobiles. With durability, high cost performance and fuel saving performance, Japanese cars with the same price become the main object of American consumer automobiles, and stand out in German and American cars. The second is the European market, the overall performance is not as good as North America, because the European market as a whole more expensive oil, more fuel-efficient diesel cars are more sought after, and German cars are very prominent in diesel technology, and Japanese cars can not compete with it. At the same time, Germany, the United Kingdom, France is the foundation of European automobile development, the European market for Japanese and other brands exclusion is obvious, making Japanese cars to enter the market relatively difficult.
In 2022, the top three countries in China's total vehicle imports are Germany, Japan and the United States. After 2022, with the rapid popularity of electric vehicles in China and the improvement of the brand appeal of local enterprises, it has begun to erode the market of German and Japanese brands, and Japanese cars have been difficult to survive only by cost-effective and low fuel consumption, coupled with the insufficient investment of Japanese car companies in new energy vehicles, resulting in a sharp decline in sales of Japanese cars in the Chinese market. In 2023, Toyota, Honda, Nissan in the Chinese market sales decline, including Nissan China down 24%.
It is precisely because of the rapid popularity of electric vehicles in China, more and more domestic brands are going global, car exports have soared, and Russia is China's largest car export destination. According to the Russian auto market analysis agency Autostat data show that in 2023, there are 6 Chinese auto brands into the top 10 sales in Russia, the first is the Russian brand Lada (Lada), the annual sales of 324,000, Chinese brands occupy the position from the second to the seventh, Chery in the Chinese brand sales first (118,950 units, 118,950 units, Market share was 11.2%); In third place is Haval (111,720 units, market share of 10.6 percent). In addition, Geely (93,553 vehicles), Changan (47,765 vehicles), Star Road (42,152 vehicles) and Omenda (41,983 vehicles) entered the top 10.
Chinese cars are not only enough to supply the domestic market, but can also make up for overseas markets. External factors, such as geopolitical changes and setbacks in the international supply chain system caused by the new coronavirus epidemic, have become opportunities for Chinese cars to accelerate to the sea. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the global auto industry chain has been severely impacted, and some overseas auto companies have had to reduce the supply of vehicles due to supply chain shortages, while China has a complete auto industry chain and can effectively coordinate. For Chinese car companies, the focus can not be limited to domestic, going abroad is the hard truth.
In the past two years, many Chinese auto companies such as Great Wall, BYD, Changan, SAIC, and Chery have aimed to invest and build factories overseas. Taking BYD as an example, BYD has entered 59 countries and regions such as Japan, Germany, Australia, Brazil and the United Arab Emirates. The relevant person in charge of BYD said in an interview: "As a leading enterprise in the new energy automobile industry, BYD has more than 20 years of technology accumulation, mastering the core technology of the whole industry chain of new energy vehicles such as batteries, motors, electric controls, which gives us a profound insight and understanding of the technological change and strategic layout of the industry." Data show that in 2023, BYD's overseas sales of new energy vehicles reached 242,800.
In 2023, 344,000 "Made in China Teslas" produced by the Shanghai Super Factory were exported to overseas markets, a year-on-year increase of 26.9 percent. The increasingly bright performance of China's auto exports is indeed easy to attract media attention, which is a big encouragement for Chinese cars. Fu Bingfeng, executive vice president and secretary general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said that we need to rationally realize that the number of car exports in a country is calculated according to the territorial principle, which also includes the number of cars produced by foreign brands in the local area and then exported, so we can not simply take the number of car exports as the criterion. In fact, the pace of China's automobile globalization is late, in recent years, a large scale to the international market, Chinese enterprises overseas layout and technology output has just begun. It can be said that the international media's identity positioning of China's "world's largest automobile exporter" expresses their recognition of China's automobile progress and acceptance of Chinese automobile products.
