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The chip shortage crisis in the automotive industry, which began at the end of 2020, not only did not ease in the third quarter of this year as expected by the industry, but intensified over time.
A number of car companies to the "Securities Daily" reporter revealed; "July so far outbreak of a new round of chip shortage, the impact of the area and the degree of shortage has exceeded the end of last year and the second quarter of this year. Now still take the goods are not bad money customers, but also some customers switched to use domestic chips." From the perspective of automobile production, many automobile enterprises, including Volkswagen, Honda and Nissan, have been close to "halving" for three consecutive months ".
"Now it's as much as chips are produced as cars are produced. The production and sales of cars in the next few months are completely dependent on the supply of chips." On September 10, Li Shaohua, deputy secretary-general of the China Automobile Association, said in an interview with a reporter from the Securities Daily that the current chip shortage in the auto industry has exceeded expectations.
At the same time, there are individual illegal traders, hot money groups maliciously snapped up chips, hoarding, driving up prices, resulting in some car chip prices continue to rise. Recently, the official website of the State Administration of Market Supervision (hereinafter referred to as the "General Administration of Market Supervision") announced that, according to the law, Shanghai Qite Electronics Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Qite"), Shanghai Chengsheng Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shanghai Chengsheng") and Shenzhen Yichang Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Shenzhen Yichang") were fined 2.5 million yuan for driving up the price of automobile chips.
Three Enterprises Fined 2.5 million yuan
According to the punishment information released by the General Administration of market supervision, some illegal traders and hot money groups in China have maliciously snapped up chips, causing the prices of some automobile chips to continue to rise, with some rising by 30-40 times, seriously affecting the orderly production and healthy development of China's automobile industry. For this reason, according to the "the People's Republic of China Price Law", the General Administration of Market Supervision imposed administrative penalties on the three distribution companies for driving up the price of auto chips, and imposed a fine of 2.5 million yuan.
According to the relevant person in charge of the General Administration of Market Supervision, after investigation, the three distribution companies of Shanghai Qiete, Shanghai Chengsheng, and Shenzhen Yichang have significantly increased the price of some automotive chips. For example, chips with a purchase price of less than 10 yuan are sold at a high price of more than 400 yuan. Up to 40 times. Under the condition of balanced supply and demand trading, the price increase rate of auto chip traders is generally 7%-10%.
According to the General Administration of market supervision, the three distribution enterprises take advantage of the imbalance between supply and demand of automobile chips in China, and have the misconception that independent pricing is equivalent to arbitrary pricing. They can not only increase product supply and alleviate the contradiction between supply and demand, but also create tension, resulting in panic stocking of spare parts manufacturers, automobile enterprises and other links, aggravating the imbalance between supply and demand and disrupting the market price order.
"Previously, the AKM (Asahi Chemical Microelectronics Co., Ltd.) chip factory caught fire, which affected the price of the chip. Everyone found that the price of the product could be sold after it was several times higher. Therefore, the scope of chip speculation gradually spread out, covering most of the automotive chips, including Texas Instruments, NXP, Botong and other products, which have become high-priced hot goods." Some people in the chip industry, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told reporters that in order to hoard goods to make exorbitant profits, some dealers even mortgaged their own real estate.
"Grab the core" war intensified
At the beginning of this year, natural and man-made disasters such as Blizzard in Texas and Renesas fire in Japan led to a number of chip manufacturers to reduce production or stop production, and the overall "lack of core" in the automotive industry intensified. By July this year, the local outbreak in Malaysia had intensified, triggering a global chip production crisis.
"North and South Volkswagen was disclosed at the beginning of the year that there was a large-scale production cut due to a shortage of ESP and steering chips." Sina Finance columnist Lin said that Malaysia is the world's most important production site for the production, packaging and testing of automotive-grade chips, and the outbreak in July caused a number of semiconductor manufacturers to shut down their factories here, affecting the production of large quantities of ESP chips.
Since then, the chip crisis has spread rapidly. Dozens of car companies, including Volvo, GM, SAIC, Hyundai Kia, Ford, NIO, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Honda, Porsche, etc., have been forced to suspend production or reduce production in stages, which has undoubtedly dealt a blow to vehicle manufacturers. It's huge.
According to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, in August 2021, China's auto production and sales were 1.725 million and 1.799 million, respectively, down 7.4 percent and 3.5 percent month-on-month and 18.7 percent and 17.8 percent year-on-year. According to the latest statistics from the third-party data agency AFS, as of now, the global auto market has reduced production by 6.442 million vehicles due to chip shortages, and the annual production reduction is expected to climb to more than 7.65 million vehicles.
"Lack of core" has a greater impact on who? Li Shaohua believes that the joint venture company in the global procurement system is using a stable, long-term procurement agreement, so in the case of tight supply of chips, basically foreign car companies can only stop production; and independent brands will do everything possible to find chips to ensure their own production, in the process, the advantages of independent brands are reflected.
However, he also said that through the competition in the first eight months, many chip resources have been exhausted in the circulation link, while the ability to recover upstream supply has not yet been formed, and the chip shortage has also spread from the previous MCU chip shortage to other types of chips. "So the advantages of independent brands in chip resources are no longer obvious in the next step, and we need to deal with it."
In fact, car companies started the "core grab" war very early. As early as early June this year, Volkswagen, Daimler, Toyota and other car manufacturers took the lead in taking measures to seize chips. In addition to increasing chip inventory, they also took the initiative to sign long-term agreements with dealers to obtain stable supply. Among them, Volkswagen is the first to change the on-time production method, so that the supply chain maintains more inventory than before, and reduces the impact of temporary parts shortage caused by accidents.
"If it weren't for the insufficient supply of chips, the monthly sales of one of our small new energy vehicles could double." Insiders of self-owned brand automakers told reporters that company leaders have been sweeping goods around the world for a long time, and they will lead their teams to chip suppliers and manufacturers in order to buy as many chips as possible.
"The short-term chip shortage due to the epidemic and other factors has exposed China's deficiencies in key core technology reserves and supply chain control." Ye Shengji, chief engineer and deputy secretary-general of the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers, said, "These problems and difficulties require the joint efforts of vehicle and parts companies, including relevant scientific research institutes and universities."
(Source: Securities Daily)
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