In the context of the overall downward trend of China’s auto market in 2020, China’s new energy vehicle market has achieved counter-trend growth under the combined influence of policy promotion, market guidance, marketing diversification, and increased user acceptance, with industry drivers shifting from policy to market.
With the increasing proportion of individual users, how to grasp the needs of individual consumers has become the core of the future growth of auto companies. As new players continue to enter the game and the industry circle continues to expand, market participants are gradually divided into five camps. Each camp has its own characteristics in terms of audience population, morphological characteristics, content performance, and marketing strategies. Facing the complicated market situation, only by understanding the trend can we grasp the opportunity.
In view of this, Giant Arithmetic and Gasgoo Automotive Research Institute have cooperated to provide insights into China’s new energy vehicle trends from the perspective of industrial research, content platform and data-driven, and conduct in-depth exploration at the market, population, content, and brand levels, and release the “2021 China “New Energy Vehicle Market Insight Report” provides strategic insights and reference enlightenment for the future growth and development of industry players.
01. Market
The new energy vehicle market is booming, and grasping the needs of users has become the core of growth
After years of rapid growth in China’s passenger car market, market sales have declined continuously in recent years, and it has officially entered the era of stock competition. However, China’s new energy vehicle market sales have risen instead of falling, and the market penetration rate has continued to rise, reaching a record high in 2020. The market has gradually divided into five camps, and the proportion of individual car purchases has expanded significantly, marking that the new energy vehicle market has gradually shifted from policy-driven to market-driven, and the market maturity has improved.
China’s new energy vehicle market is currently dominated by traditional self-owned brand players, but in recent years, new power brands have rapidly increased their share due to intelligent technology and innovative service models. So far, the new energy vehicle market has gradually formed five camps: traditional luxury, traditional foreign investment, traditional independence, new foreign power, and new independent power.
From a structural point of view, the consumption structure of China’s new energy vehicle market is polarized, and individual consumers are the main incremental user group. The influence of policy factors on the new energy vehicle market is weakening, and factors such as brand and service have become the focus of users’ consideration when purchasing new energy vehicles.
The proportion of personal consumption has expanded significantly. It is the main incremental user group and a market that needs to be focused on in the future.
Individual users are currently the main user group for the growth of China’s new energy vehicle market. Different types of market segments have a certain increase in the proportion of individual users.
02. User
Differentiated by user preferences, players need to accurately grasp the hearts of consumers
Based on the survey of consumer groups and data mining on the huge arithmetic platform, we found that in addition to the differences between Chinese new energy vehicle owners and fuel vehicle owners, the typical user portraits between different camps have their own characteristics. Overall, the audience and acceptance of different brand camps are related to their product positioning.
Based on multi-dimensional factors such as population size, consumption potential and consumption power, we have screened out six types of typical high-potential groups. Among them, there are three groups of people whose new energy vehicle consumption tendencies are particularly prominent, namely: free young people, emerging white-collar workers, and newly recruited mothers.
With the application of digital technology and the rise of new media, online content dissemination has become the main information channel for users to make car purchase decisions, and the influence of new dissemination methods on consumers has increased. Consumers are also moving from a shallow level of recognition to a deeper level of interest in the brand.
03. Content
The content ecology of new energy vehicles is prosperous, and good interaction with users is formed
Due to the fragmentation of user information consumption time, the penetration rate of content users represented by short videos has expanded rapidly. By the end of 2020, the active penetration rate of users exceeded 75%. From the survey data, short videos are the most preferred form of car content for users, accounting for more than 36%, and users’ acceptance of watching live broadcasts has increased, and the viewing frequency has increased rapidly.
From the perspective of different camps of new energy vehicles, the number of content authors, submissions, broadcasts, completions, and interactions all show upward growth. Among them, new power brands have outstanding content, with the fastest growth in submissions and the highest user interaction.
04. Marketing
The content platform creates value for the brand to link users and becomes an important engine for digital marketing in the new energy vehicle market
Companies have tried diversified online marketing models, and diversified online marketing methods have emerged one after another, providing consumers with diversified car shopping touchpoints. Manufacturers need to create targeted content and interactive methods for target customers with different characteristics.
05. Insight Summary
China’s new energy automobile industry is ecologically prosperous, and each role in the industry has its own development missions and challenges
With the decline of subsidies, in the future, new energy car companies will face competition with fuel car manufacturers, and will rely more on endogenous development models, and reducing costs and increasing efficiency will become their only way. As the new energy vehicle industry chain is longer than before, it is difficult for players to form an end-to-end industry chain full coverage in the future. In the future, we are likely to see more cross-border cooperation models emerge. The system, capacity, channels, and brand reputation that traditional car companies have formed over the years are still their advantages, and the advantages of new forces in intelligent and innovative service systems are also what other players need to learn. For different roles in the industry, the future will have issues and missions that they need to face.
In the future development of China’s new energy automobile industry, more new players will continue to enter the market, competing on the same platform, new marketing strategies will emerge endlessly, and the future development pattern of the market will be variable. New technologies and new products will continue to emerge, and the struggle of industry players will create a new world for the next-generation automobile lifestyle.
Source: China Business Journal