Automotive Industry: April Industry Sales Data Review

In April 2007, the automobile industry sold 808,701 vehicles, an increase of 19.5% year-on-year, a decrease of 4.5% from the previous month; in January-April, it sold 2,933,575 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 21.5%;

A total of 411,790 cars were sold in April, an increase of 16.6% year-on-year. In the first four months, 1,534,493 units were sold, a year-on-year increase of 26.3%. According to the accumulated inventory of cars we calculated, the current inventory is at a relatively high point, but it has shown a downward trend. Only from the perspective of inventory changes, the pressure on the car industry in the 2nd and 3rd quarters is not significant;

Commercial vehicles sold a total of 262,877 vehicles in April, a year-on-year increase of 27.2%, and accumulated sales of 849,415 vehicles in January-April, which was a year-on-year increase of 23.4%. Both the single month and cumulative year-on-year growth exceeded the average level of the automotive industry;

Among the key sedan companies in April, hippocampus is still the fastest-growing car company, with sales of 12,149 vehicles this month, a year-on-year increase of 163%; sales of Korean car joint ventures represented by Beijing Hyundai Motor and Dongfeng Yueda Kia With the decline, the rise of self-owned brand cars will have the greatest impact on the Korean cars with a price range of 10-15 million yuan.

Among the major listed commercial vehicle companies in April, the largest increase in sales volume in the heavy truck industry was Beiqi Foton, which sold 7,001 heavy trucks, an increase of 120.6% year-on-year. In the passenger car industry, if the same period last year was excluded from Luoyang Yutong, we estimate Yutong Group's monthly growth year-on-year. The growth rate is about 30%. The peak sales of passenger cars before the May 1st period are good.

In terms of historical sales volume, the heavy-duty truck industry generally experienced a downward trend in April, but heavy-duty truck sales reached a record high in April this year, totaling 53,929 units, up 61.2% year-on-year, and accumulatively selling 159,303 units from January to April. An increase of 60.2% year-on-year, which is equivalent to 52% of sales in 2006;

The product that drives the increase in sales volume of heavy trucks is still semitrailer tractors. In April, it sold 18,350 vehicles, an increase of 124.4% year-on-year. The sales of complete vehicles and chassis are also very strong. We still believe that the current high growth mainly comes from the real demand of the downstream. The main reason is that the increase in freight volume, while the governance overload has a significant impact, but irrespective of the factors of emission standards upgrade, semi-trailer high growth sustainable, sales in the second half of the possibility of a sharp decline;

Among all the major production companies, FAW Group benefited from the sales of its “Huiwei” tractors, and its cumulative sales ranking continued to rank first. FAW, CNHTC, Dongfeng, Shaanxi Automobile and Beiqi Foton occupy 84.6% of the market share, and the gap between the companies in the second tier gradually widens. In the stock investment proposal, we believe that the current domestic heavy truck market capacity is expected to continue to expand, with heavy truck exports. It has not yet produced a significant pulling effect on the sales of the industry. In the future, its export prospects are as optimistic as passenger cars, and heavy-card listed companies have more room for growth. We recommend investors to focus on the current Weichai power with the lowest dynamic price-earnings ratio in 2007 among the leading commercial vehicle companies. We give it a target price of 76.09 yuan.