People often say that if you want to know what car to buy, you should go to the videos and articles on the Internet, Which car is most often used for comparison and PK, you must buy it!
And obviously, the Highlander of Toyota , or the former Highlander, is exactly such a car. The identity of the joint venture brand, the layout of seven seats, and the god-like value retention rate and other labels, have made Highlander one of the hottest models in the market for a long time in the past.
Whether it is the second-generation Highlander that first entered the country, or the third-generation Highlander later, they have always been the most important imaginary enemies of all powers. The "feat" of has to be increased every cycle. It is also this strong market performance that made the fourth-generation Highlander successfully become the hottest model at that time before it was officially launched in 2021, and there is no doubt that the focus of everyone's discussion is around the new car meeting. Whether to continue the strong market (jiā) market (jià) performance of the old models.
And Toyota did not let everyone down. Not long after the new car was launched, we visited the 4S store of GAC Toyota. There was a lot of fanfare asking for a cash markup, but the sales still implied that we would need to pay more for premium options and wait about two months for the car to be picked up.
However, unlike the previous generation models, the strong situation of the fourth-generation Highlander did not last for too long. On the contrary, after one and a half years after its official launch, the current Highlander not only no longer needs a price increase, but even There is already a small discount margin.
sales dropped significantly
After hearing that the price of the Highlander had loosened, I checked the sales of the Highlander in recent months. Generally maintained at 9,000-10,000 vehicles, sometimes even close to 15,000 Highlanders, actually set a new low in sales of 4,659 vehicles in the past November.
In terms of compared to , from June to November this year, sales of Highlander only rose slightly in October, showed a trend of diving as a whole, sales continued to decline, and continued from 8413 in June It has fallen to less than 5,000 today.
You must know that the sales of the Highlander reached the level of "breaking 10,000" in the same period last year. In just one year, the sales of this once benchmark model actually experienced a sharp drop of nearly 60%. What is the problem? where?
1, product does not match demand
Highlander's previous hot sales, in the final analysis, it can perfectly meet the main needs of consumers at that time in all aspects. In the era when the joint venture brand still had its own halo, the Highlander, as a large-sized Toyota SUV, had a lot of advantages in terms of image. In addition, the seven-seater SUV happened to be the most popular in the market at that time. Under such circumstances, Highlander was naturally created as a myth for a while.
When the time comes to the end of 2022, the market trend has already changed, and consumer groups and consumption concepts have also quietly changed. New energy has become the new mainstream in the market, and the brand value perception of the new generation of consumers has diverged from that of the older generation. People will become more "bold" when buying cars, will no longer be superstitious about traditional brands, and at the same time More emphasis is placed on "added value" such as configuration, technology, and details.
And when the Highlander brand no longer hasWhen it has the advantages and lacks in various "added values", everyone will find that this car can no longer fully meet their needs, and everyone will naturally switch to other models.
2, the reverse psychology of buying up and not buying down
Consumers’ psychology is always very strange. When a car is popular in the market, even if it has to wait for the car and increase the price, everyone will flock to it, but once it The price is loose, the supply is sufficient, and the market will turn into a wait-and-see state— wait a little longer, maybe the price will be lower?
This is why, for models such as the Alpha , Highlander, Senna , Toyota is consciously or unconsciously controlling the market supply, thus creating a tight atmosphere. But this kind of tightness artificially created by is like walking on a steel wire. Once can't play well and falls down, it's not easy to climb up again. And the current Highlander is facing this kind of situation. Because Toyota did not control the production well in the early stage, some 4S stores have pressure on the inventory of Highlander models. If the 4S stores want to withdraw funds as soon as possible, they naturally have to make a fuss about the price. .
This also led to the original strongest "barrier" of Highlander - price, which was broken all at once, and this was like a chain reaction, from price increase, waiting for cars, to sufficient existing cars, cheap sales, and then Until there is a discount, it is as unstoppable as a slippery slope. What's more terrible is that fluctuations in new car prices have even affected Highlander's performance in the second-hand market, and once the trump card of "second-hand value preservation rate" is no longer easy to use, Highlander's future performance will only be Even less optimistic.
3, the self-owned brand " internal roll " was successful
In addition, in the past two years, driven by new forces, self-owned brands have also broken through the previous price ceiling, and have extended their tentacles to the level of 200,000 or even 300,000 . Compared with models of the same level as the Highlander, the GS8 of the GAC Trumpchi is comparable in size and also provides THS hybrid, the is not only a lot cheaper, but also has a lot more power.
In the field of new energy, the previous Ideal ONE , the current Ideal L8 and the Wenjie M7 are also Highlander’s most direct opponents. Especially the ideal L8 has surpassed the Highlander in terms of mechanical hardware, interior configuration, and power level, not to mention that has advantages in licensing policies in big cities.
November is just the first month of L8 delivery. According to the data from the Passenger Association, L8 sold a total of 5,293 new cars in November, which has surpassed Highlander. According to informed sources, the sales volume of L8 this month may be expected to "break through 10,000".
Originally, the market share of medium-sized and medium-to-large SUVs was not considered large, and now more than half of them are eaten away by independent brands. As a veteran player, it is not surprising that Highlander has a hard time.
The overall pressure on the Toyota series
Looking at the performance of the entire Toyota series in the Chinese market, Highlander is not the only model that feels the pressure this year. For example, the Lexus brand has also experienced rare fatigue this year-the cumulative sales from January to November were only 168,600, and fell by as much as 16.45% compared with the same period last year.
, its flagship model, the ES series, was originally the hardest hit area for new car price increases. Nowadays, whether it is the entry-level ES200 or the high-end ES300h series, has also started to have discounts ranging from 20,000 to 35,000 yuan, and is relatively unpopular ES260For models, the discount rate in some areas has reached 40,000 yuan.
It can be seen that the sales pressure of Toyota is not only on a single model, but their entire brand and even luxury brands cannot be spared.
Of course, in terms of Toyota's size, they are still far from the moment that can be called a "crisis", but the "crash" of many popular models is actually enough to sound the alarm for them. If Toyota does not change product strategy as soon as possible to cater to the new market trend, then their days in the Chinese market may not be so moist in the future.
(some pictures come from the Internet)
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