Due to the influence of subsidy policy, capital, market and other factors, the tractor market has changed greatly. From the short supply in 2020 to the optimism at the beginning of 2021, to the slowdown in sales in the second quarter of this year, and then to the current decline in sales, the tractor market began to shuffle.
1. Varieties and enterprises have changed greatly
The growth rate of large and medium-sized tractors decreased month by month and showed negative growth. According to the tractor output data of 2021 provided by the National Bureau of statistics, large tractors increased by 154.6% from January to February, and then decreased month by month, with an increase of 74.7% in March and 19.5% in April. In June, large tractors showed negative growth, with a decrease of 5.3%, the largest decline since August 2019; The growth rate of medium-sized tractors from January to February was as high as 121.4%, and then decreased month by month. It only increased by 19.5% in March, decreased by 9.8% in May and 25.3% in June. The decline in June was the largest in three years. If this trend is followed, the decline of large and medium trailer production in the later stage will be further expanded.
The production and sales rate of tractors is also lower than that of the same period last year. According to the data provided by the enterprise management committee of China Agricultural Machinery Industry Association, the production and marketing rate from January to June this year was 101.1%, compared with 106.5% in the same period last year. Among them, the production and marketing rate of Zhongtuo was 103.4%, which was 108.0% in the same period last year; The production and sales rate of Datuo was 94.6%, compared with 101.5% in the same period last year. This shows that the production and sales of China tractor are basically balanced, and the large tractor is affected by factors such as K value. At present, enterprises in the market still focus on digesting inventory, and it is difficult.
According to the statistical data, China tractor Co., Ltd. led the sales of 50 and 70 series, with the sales volume of more than 30000 units. The sales volume of 60, 70 and 90 series increased greatly, with the growth rate of more than 48%, and the other varieties increased or decreased slightly; Datuo has the largest sales volume of 140 series, nearly 10000 units, and more than 7000 units of 120 and 200 series. The largest increase includes the above varieties and 150 series. The increase of these four varieties is more than 38%, and the increase of other varieties is small or even decreased.
There is also polarization between enterprises. From the production and sales situation in the first half of the year, the leading enterprises in the tractor industry have increased, some enterprises have increased significantly, while the production and sales of some small enterprises have decreased significantly, especially their large tractors. In 2020, the production and sales of tractor enterprises generally increased.
2. Domestic tractor enterprises should strengthen or build the following hard core competitive strength
First, improve the level of scale. In the second half of the competition in the tractor industry, scale is an essential hard core strength. Enterprises that do not exceed the average scale level of the industry have no possibility of survival. The industrial economy itself is economies of scale. Since the beginning of the first industrial revolution, people went out of manual workshops and entered factories in order to pursue economies of scale.
In a fully competitive market, each industry and each type of product has a minimum production scale, which is the breakeven point of the enterprise. For example, the minimum scale output of an automobile factory is 500000 units. If it is lower than this output, it is definitely a loss. It is possible to make a profit only after passing the threshold of 500000 units.
In the era of hard core competition, enterprises inevitably participate in the vicious competition led by the price war, and in addition, they have to follow up the service war of head brands. Therefore, enterprises must rely on large-scale production to pursue scale effect. Without scale effect, they have no basic right to survival.
Second, build excellent low-cost operation ability. From the countless industry development cycles, the final return path of competition among enterprises is cost competition. As users become more and more mature, users' purchase and consumption will become more and more rational. Finally, products with high cost performance will win, that is, products with better quality and lower price. To achieve this "fish and bear's paw" is to rely on low-cost competition.
Low cost competition mode is not equal to low price competition. Low price competition belongs to vicious competition. Price war is a kind of consumption war, which is often a zero sum game. "Kill one thousand enemies and lose eight hundred yourself". Therefore, price war is a tactical arrangement and often can not last long.
Low cost competition is a kind of benign competition. There are several situations: first, under the condition of the same quality, the cost is lower than that of the competitor, and the enterprise profit will be higher than that of the competitor, or it can still make profit in the price war or support it for a longer time than the competitor; Second, under the condition of the same price, the cost is lower than that of competitors, and enterprises earn more than competitors; Third, even if competitors fight a price war or launch a price war on their own initiative, low-cost enterprises have more competitive advantages.
It can be seen that low-cost competition is a very high-end means of competition, which is based on the advantage of internal strong cost control ability. Enterprises with low-cost ability are not afraid of price war, and enterprises with low-cost advantage are able to launch price war and are not afraid of price war.
Low cost is a strategic purpose, not just a means. By reducing production costs, we should improve the profit and loss line of the whole industry and let enterprises without cost advantage exit automatically.
Globally, the best example of low-cost competition is Galanz in China. Through the supply chain and internal efforts, Galanz has continuously reduced costs and reduced the market price. Its price has been lower than that of fake and shoddy products in the industry, which makes hundreds of follow-up and imitation enterprises lose their living conditions, forcing these enterprises to withdraw from the market competition. Some enterprises that do not want to withdraw from their own production find Galanz OEM if it is not cost-effective.
The domestic agricultural machinery industry needs Galanz enterprises. It needs to improve the survival threshold of the whole industry through excellent cost control ability and sweep out the enterprises without strength, so as to purify the environment and re-establish the industrial competition order.
Third, strengthen the self-control ability of core components. Service war is a battle of ability. The reason why Dongfanghong dare to launch the three guarantees and two-year service policy in 2015 is that no enterprise dares to follow up this policy for a long time, including more powerful competitors such as John Deere, Kubota, Case New Holland and AGCO. One of the main reasons behind this is a hard core strength: the self-made ability of core components.
The biggest advantage of the high self-made rate of core components is the quality control ability. The quality of a large number of outsourcing factories is controlled by the OEM outside the enterprise, while the quality control ability of the self-made enterprises of core components is within the enterprise.
Extending the Three Guarantees service is an advanced means of competition. This competition must be based on high quality. If you are not sure of the product quality of the enterprise, but reluctantly extend the three guarantees period out of the needs of competition, it is "imitating others". If the quality is not up to standard, the enterprise will have to pay more Three Guarantees service fees for one year, which is really "throwing a stone at its own feet".
In the era of hard core competition, the first thing enterprises should improve is their internal self-control ability. Globally, in the tractor history of more than 100 years, no tractor enterprise has occupied the market advantage for a long time by outsourcing.
Fourth, build a strong agent system. When it comes to agents, the author believes that the whole agricultural machinery industry should learn from caterpillar in the United States. Carter has been brilliant for 90 years, of which more than half of the credit is due to the strong agent system.
After carefully studying the agent system of caterpillar in the United States, it is found that there are at least the following characteristics: first, looking for small and medium-sized agents, which has the advantage of obedience and good cooperation; Third, empower dealers, cultivate small dealers into large dealers, and eliminate the fittest and cultivate feelings in this process; Third, never give up. Once Carter is selected, he will cooperate for a long time. Even if the dealer makes mistakes, the manufacturer helps solve and tide over the difficulties together. At present, Carter has only more than 177 agents worldwide, which has not changed for decades; Fourth, career inheritance. Carter's agency business can be handed down from family to family. At present, many of Carter's dealers are three or four generations.
The stable and powerful agent system has made Carter and 177 dealers. Although these dealers are independent legal entities, they are actually part of caterpillar.
At present, the channels of domestic tractor enterprises are very chaotic. On the one hand, in order to pursue more sales, upstream production enterprises constantly delimit small agent areas, so that dealers can not realize large-scale operation. On the other hand, multi head credit is artificially provoking vicious competition among dealers. As a result, dealers are estranged, and the mistakes of big brands have created opportunities for more than 200 small brands to enter high-quality channels.
Domestic tractor brands should learn from Carter's dealer management concept and development system. They should treat and deal with the relationship between dealers from the perspective of long-term ism. They should not forget their interests or abandon them all the time. Without a strong agent system, there will be no large-scale distribution ability to build a strong brand.
Fifth, seize the intelligent track. Some people say that the technical level of domestic tractors has lagged behind that of their European and American counterparts for about 30 years, which should not be self belittling. In fact, in recent years, the domestic tractor industry has an obvious tendency of "competing for inferior". Among them, "big horse pulling small car" is a typical performance. Manufacturers do not want to innovate in technology, performance, structure and core components, but take shuttle gear shifting, which was eliminated by multinational companies decades ago After repair, the traditional synchronizer shift system is replaced with a higher horsepower engine, so as to obtain more national agricultural machinery purchase subsidy funds. According to this idea, in another 30 years, domestic tractors will not catch up with the level of European and American counterparts. When we stand still or even regress, European and American counterparts are still moving forward with great strides.
Backwardness must be controlled by others. At present, the multinational companies of high-end tractors with the most advanced technology have not introduced the Chinese market, and the domestic sales are the models of the previous generation or that have fallen behind for a long time.
On the one hand, domestic tractor enterprises should subsidize the shortcomings of hardware, on the other hand, they should actively look for corners or overtaking, such as intellectualization, electrification and unmanned driving. At present, domestic agricultural unmanned aircraft have been in an absolute position to rely on all over the world. Using ready-made intelligent and unmanned technologies, domestic tractor brands can quickly develop intelligent tractors.
New energy, electrification, intelligence and unmanned will certainly be the new tuyere of the tractor industry in the future. In the future, a new global overlord similar to Tesla will certainly emerge in the field of intelligence.
