It is obviously a problem that self-owned brand car companies take on the heavy responsibility of the rise of the Chinese auto industry.

In the face of foreign brands, almost all of the auto makers have landed in China. The automaker’s technical strength is weak, the R&D system is not perfect, and the products are concentrated in the low-end and mid- to low-end markets. What’s more, the auto makers still rely heavily on policies and policies. When they are favorable, they will make great strides and they will immediately become exhausted when the policy is withdrawn. How to seek more profitable ways in the case of a sharp drop in profits has become a new idea that is constantly emerging in the minds of more entrepreneurs.

It is not true that "industry" has also begun to become the choice of many independent brand car companies. However, people in the industry believe that it is understandable to open up new profit growth points when the year is not good, but how to achieve profitability in the short term for self-owned brand car companies that are responsible for the rise of the Chinese auto industry A balance between them is an insurmountable barrier.

In the middle of August, Foton Motors announced that it had spent RMB 11.7 million to establish CNPC Futian (Beijing) Petroleum Sales Co., Ltd. with China National Petroleum Corporation, engaged in the wholesale and retail of refined oil products, and officially involved in the oil industry.

Also in August, Chery’s 80,000-ton ship was officially launched. This is not the first time that Chery Automobile has “derailed”. Two years ago, Chery built 30,000 tons of large lake-type double-hulled ships. Chery, the automaker, had twice set foot in the background of the shipbuilding industry and was surprisingly consistent. They all chose the year when the auto market turned from bad to bad.

Fukuda and Chery are not the first to develop "sideline business." Lovol Heavy Industries under Foton Motors has now become a successful model for domestic agricultural equipment industry companies. Chery also entered the agricultural machinery industry last year, and jointly invested 965 million yuan with the Kaifeng municipal government, setting a record for the largest investment in the domestic agricultural machinery industry.

If you go back further, non-Huatai Automobile, the domestic self-owned brand automobile company that first entered other industries, is the only one. Huatai is one of the earliest car companies that produce SUVs, but it has not been able to grab a share of the SUV wave. In 2006, Huatai Motor's engine and transmission project was settled in the Erbaisi Development Zone in Inner Mongolia. As a condition, Huatai Automobile obtained the mining rights of two coal mines in Ordos City.

Professionals analyze that the value of two mineral resources may exceed 10 billion yuan. In addition, Huatai Automobile successfully occupies an area of ​​about 6,000 mu in the Auto Industry Park in the New District of Kangbashi, and the land price is only 10,000 yuan/mu. Huatai Automobile obtained a loan of more than 1 billion yuan from the local national development bank.

However, five years have passed and although Huatai Automobile has partially completed the construction of the automobile industry park in Ordos, the sales of automobiles and parts and components are now far behind the previous plans. At the same time, Huatai Automotive’s senior management team responsible for the automotive business has seen an embarrassing situation of seven replacements in nine years. The most familiar to the industry in Huatai Automobile is that due to the long-term falsification of sales data of Huatai Automobile, China Automobile Association will replace its sales data with “0”, thus making Huatai Automobile fall into the “fake door”.

Persons familiar with Huatai Automobile think that in recent years, despite the loss of auto business, the value of land, coal and other assets of Huatai Automobile has been rising. In particular, the sales of coal have been very considerable. As a result, it has become a "side job".

However, according to the reporter's understanding, getting involved in other fields has become the next new profit-making route for many car companies in the downturn of the auto market. Last year, Chery received a large coal field with reserves of 1.66 billion tons in the Nalin River area of ​​Ordos City. According to the current coal market price, this coal resource can make more than 12 billion yuan profit.

Petrochemicals, shipping, and finance, which have nothing to do with the auto industry, have become the vehicle of choice for auto companies to develop "sideline businesses" when the auto market is not in a good year.

As a dangerous company, it is understandable to pursue profit, especially in the background of nearly 90% of autonomous vehicle sales and profits in the first half of this year. However, the problem is that under the premise of unsatisfactory development of the main business, it is worrying to get involved in more "sideline jobs."

In fact, in recent years, the development trend of the global automotive industry has shifted from doing "addition" to doing as much as possible "subtraction." None of the auto giants wanted to lose weight quickly. Not only did they shun the industries of steel smelting, parts and components and logistics that had nothing to do with the auto industry, even the unprofitable auto brands were all cut off. Ford sold Aston Martin, After Jaguar Land Rover and Volvo concentrated on creating a "One Ford" strategy, GM only focused on four profitable brands.

Compared with the enthusiasm of multinational auto giants, domestic self-owned brands appear to be somewhat “unprofessional”. Gao Hesheng, deputy director of the China Automotive Technology and Research Center, believes that some car companies have turned their attention to the energy market and the capital market. This is not appropriate, and it is inappropriate. The big companies now have their own main business, general and modern. Although Toyota has a diversified business side, it has not given up on the core business of automobiles, and some domestic cars are in a vapid attempt to lay the groundwork for down-to-earth industries. This is very dangerous.

For this phenomenon, the industry analysts sharply analyzed that cross-border investment in their own brands is an opportunity or retrogression, which reflects not only the confusion of car companies, but also the cruel gap between the vision and reality of China's own brand car companies.

From July this year, the market share of self-owned brand passenger cars fell below 40% for the first time, and continued to fall in August, which was directly related to the successive withdrawal of state support policies at the beginning of the year. Since next month, the energy-saving and people-to-people policy will need to raise the threshold, and the vast majority of self-owned brands will face difficulties in upgrading their technology and unable to obtain subsidies.

The self-owned brand car companies appeared to rely too much on the bad signs of national policies, causing the attention of the industry. "The enterprises and industries that survive the policy are hopeless." Zhang Xiaoji, executive vice president of the China Machinery Industry Federation, admitted in an interview with the "First Financial Daily" that if a product and a company depend on the government, Support and encouragement. This product and company may not survive in the next market competition.

Although self-owned brand car companies have no longer received support from the market for favorable policies this year, the vast majority of self-owned brand car companies have, to a large extent, been the beneficiaries of national policies.

In terms of preferential income taxation for high-tech enterprises, purchase of domestically-produced equipment, investment tax credits, foreign-invested enterprises' purchase of domestically-manufactured equipment, refund of value-added tax, and other related taxes, the preferential policies provided by the state for self-owned brands are still “awesome.”

Policy benefits and subsidies account for a considerable proportion of the profits of independent brands such as Chery, Great Wall, and Haima. According to statistics, Chery will lose money for two consecutive years without government subsidies. Haima Motor's 2010 financial report showed that it achieved a net profit of 370 million yuan in the year turning losses into profits, and during the reporting period hippocampus received a government grant of 259 million yuan, that is, 70% of Haima's net profit in 2010 came from government subsidies.

Car analyst Zhang Zhiyong believes that excellent companies can use this to achieve a good development, but there are also companies in the "subsidy-style development" of mud, indulging in the "short-sighted effect". Therefore, the market suffered some setbacks and shifted the direction of the industry, treating profit as the only indicator of the company. "This kind of behavior has temporarily improved the financial status, but it has also delayed the increase in the competitiveness of the main industry." Zhang Zhiyong frankly said.