General Motors’ business in China is suffering, and it’s not just because of Covid

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General Motors is losing ground in China, its top sales market for more than a decade and one of the Detroit-based automaker’s top two profit drivers.

The company’s market share in the country, adding its joint ventures, fell from around 15% in 2015 to 9. 8% last year, the first time it fell below 10% since 2004. Its operating income also fell nearly 70% from the peak in 2014.

The coronavirus pandemic, which originated in China, is partly responsible. However, the declines began years before the global fitness crisis and are complex amid emerging economic and political tensions between the United States and China.

A festival of government-backed domestic automakers is also unfolding, driven by nationalism and a generational shift in customers’ belief about cars and electric vehicles.

Take, for example, Will Sundin, a 34-year-old science teacher who told CNBC he never bought a Chinese-branded vehicle when he moved to the country in 2011. Most recently, Sundin purchased a Nio ET7 electric vehicle as a daily driver. . in Changsha, the capital of China’s Hunan province.

“I looked for something big and comfortable, but I also looked for something a little fast,” he said. “I like how it looks. “

Sundin, who works under the moonlight as a car critic on YouTube, is no stranger to China’s auto industry. He bought his Nio unlike models from rival Chinese automakers Xpeng, Li Auto and IM Motors. He said the vehicle’s ability to change the battery for a new one, to recharge it, “moves it pretty quickly. “

Not on your list of considerations? U. S. brands like Cadillac and GM’s Buick, which first led the automaker’s expansion into China.

“Cadillac has a smart symbol in China, but it’s expensive,” said Sundin, who once owned a 2012 Ford Focus. “I think the challenge they face is that they have competition, new competition, a lot of new competition. , other instructions they didn’t expect. “

This festival fits a challenge for GM, which has faced such challenges with its operations in China. However, the company hasn’t given many guarantees on how to buck the trend other than the promise of new electric cars and a new business unit called The Durant Guild that will import expensive cars with higher U. S. margins. USA to China.

While many U. S. brands are doing well in China, GM’s decline is notable. GM’s operations in the country are much larger than those of rival Ford Motor, for example. It also has a much smaller footprint globally after abandoning its European operations and shutting down operations elsewhere to concentrate largely on North America, China and, to a lesser extent, South America.

Relying too heavily on a few markets can be risky. But that led to record profits for GM, as the company led by CEO Mary Barra eliminated underperforming operations. Electric cars may be a new opportunity for GM to expand globally, but experts say it would be an uphill war for China’s recovery in the coming years.

“With the adjustments they’ve put in place, with a new focus on North America and China, the withdrawal from Europe essentially creates a dangerous situation now that you have problems, problems in the Chinese market,” said Jeff Schuster, executive vice president of LMC Automotive, a GlobalData company.

GM has downplayed the role of its China operations in recent quarters, adding Chief Financial Officer Paul Jacobson, saying China is “not decisive” to GM’s monetary functionality when it talked about earnings in October.

Barra said in December that China is a vital component of GM’s business, but that the company also pays attention to other issues, which later included the government’s now-defunct “zero covid” policy and recent protests.

“We see opportunities there. . . Of course, we are also tracking the geopolitical situation. We can’t function in a vacuum,” he told an assembly of the Automotive Press Association. “But we continue to see opportunities and we will continue to assess the situation, but our plans are to be in a leading position in electric vehicles. “

A bright spot for GM in China has been its Wuling Hongguang Mini, manufactured through a joint venture, which is the best-selling vehicle on the market. Since going on sale in mid-2020, the economy car has sold more than one million units. .

However, earlier this year, Jacobson said China’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic and the increase in covid cases accounted for the nearly 40% decline in equity revenue source for operations in 2022.

GM reports its earnings from China as a source of equity revenue because the country imposes joint ventures on non-Chinese automakers in addition to Tesla, which has been granted a waiver. GM has 10 joint ventures, two one hundred percent foreign-owned corporations and more than 58,000 workers in China. Their brands come with Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Wuling and Baojun.

“Lately we are seeing a lot of covid cases in China that have slowed down the consumer. So, we expect it to develop a little slowly, but it will increase to the degrees we’re used to over time,” he said. reporters on January 31 during a call for results.

But it’s not just similar to the pandemic. Revenue from GM’s operations and joint ventures in China has fallen 67 percent since peaking at more than $2 billion in 2014 and 2015. That includes a drop of about 45% through 2019, before the coronavirus crippled China’s economy and vehicle production. In 2022, GM’s Chinese operations generated $677 million in equity revenue for GM.

“It started way before Covid,” said Michael Dunne, chief executive of ZoZo Go, a consultancy firm focused on China, electrification and autonomous vehicles. “It also coincides with the escalation of tensions between the US and China. There is no question, and it is to measure, however, it is indeed a factor. “

Dunne, GM’s president of operations in Indonesia from 2013 to 2015, said the decline of GM and other non-domestic automakers is accompanied by slower expansion in the Chinese market, with Chinese automakers adjusting to competition and switching to all-electric cars, which they have heavily subsidized through the government. Agencies.

“Everyone has raised their chins in the last five years as mid-market brands. Chinese consumers are buying more and more Chinese brands,” he said. “It’s a seismic shift. . . The mentality has changed. “

Start-ups and domestic automakers have helped Beijing fulfill its purpose of boosting the penetration of new-energy cars, a category that includes electric cars. More than a quarter of passenger cars sold in China last year were new-energy cars, according to the China Passenger Car Association. , which forecasts a penetration of 36% this year.

Local corporations rushed to capture some of this expansion in an overall collapsing auto market. Electric cars manufactured have helped maintain and tap into the growing nationalistic pride of Chinese consumers.

Chinese logos have increased their market share by 21% since 2015 to nearly a share of all passenger cars sold in China last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. By comparison, U. S. logo sales are 45%.

“Obviously, the market has just been somewhere else; a lot of it is directed at politics,” Schuster said.

LMC Automotive reports that Chinese corporations accounted for part of the 10 most sensible automakers in terms of sales in the country last year, up from just 3 in 2015. The most notable is BYD Auto, an electric car maker that has skyrocketed sales from around 445,000 sets to nearly 2 million last year, making it one of the five most sensitive automakers through sales in China.

“I think the main explanation for GM’s decline is this tilt toward Chinese nationalism,” Dunne said. champions like BYD. “

Aside from GM, other U. S. automakers — Ford and Chrysler-descendant Stellantis — haven’t fared much better. Both experienced significant drops in sales; However, it has not communicated its intention to leave the market either.

In February, Ford named Sam Wu, a former Whirlpool who joined the automaker in October, as president and general manager of its China operations, effective March 1.

Ford’s market share in China is about 2 percent since 2019, up from 4. 8 percent in 2015 and 2016, according to the company’s annual filings.

Ford’s disorders in China only abroad. The company announced in February that it would collaborate with Chinese supplier CATL on a new $3. 5 billion electric vehicle battery plant in Michigan. The deal has been criticized by some Republicans, adding that Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who has asked Biden’s management to review Ford’s deal to fire CATL’s technology.

The joint venture between Stellantis and Guangzhou Automobile Group that generates Jeep cars in China filed for bankruptcy in late 2022 following a resolution to dissolve the partnership and import its SUVs into the country.

Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares said the company is following a “light asset” technique in the country, aimed at increasing profits and necessarily sales, which have declined 7% in 2022.

“It’s also vital that they realize that our finances in China have advanced significantly,” he told reporters on a call last month, saying the company “cleans up the place. “

As U. S. automakers regroup, Chinese automakers continue to gain ground in their home markets.

“People in China are proud,” says Nio owner Sundin.

“In the same way that ‘American Made’ is in the United States and all the patriotism in China, [it’s] the same: ‘Finally, we can make a phone or we can make a car that’s as smart or bigger than foreign automakers. ‘”

– Evelyn Cheng of CNBC contributed to this report.

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