On January 10-16, 2023, Construction Machinery Today carried out the "2022 Annual Survey on the Survival Status of Chinese Construction Machinery Agents", covering all provinces and regions except Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan and Tibet. From the distribution of the regions, brands and levels of the agent samples surveyed, we can basically reflect the current situation of the agent channels in China's construction machinery industry in 2022.
Agent profit status
28.57% of enterprises are micro-profit
From the analysis of the survey results, 71.43% of the agents in 2022 were in loss, and only 28.57% of the agents were in micro-profit. Compared with the survey results in the third quarter of 2022, there was no agent sample with a gross profit rate of more than 15% in the surveyed agent group, but the number of enterprises in loss decreased slightly, and the loss area narrowed by 5.09 percentage points.
Similar to the survey results in the third quarter, the number of enterprises that can operate normally only through subsidies from the host manufacturer continued to increase (from 48.12% in the third quarter to 53.97%, accounting for 5.85 percentage points), and the number of enterprises with serious losses decreased (from 28.41% in the third quarter to 17.46%, accounting for 10.95 percentage points).
On the whole, compared with the first half of 2021 to the first three quarters of 2022, at the end of 2022, although the market downturn and vicious competition and other negative effects are still in place, the agent group has faced difficulties, actively responded, actively sought change, jointly explored the feasible path of transformation and upgrading, and worked hard to improve the value and capacity of the channel, and then the profit situation of the agent group has achieved a small improvement, and the overall loss area has improved from nearly 80% to slightly more than 70%.
We divided all the enterprises surveyed into six categories. The first category is the enterprises with profit and market share growth, which are very healthy, accounting for 8.93%, an increase of 4.59 percentage points over the third quarter; The second category is the enterprises whose profits and market share have declined. In order to maintain profits, they have shrunk their sales volume, accounting for 9.82%, down 2.10 percentage points from the third quarter; The third category is the enterprises with the same profit and market share, which are relatively stable, accounting for 9.82%, 2.60 percentage points higher than the third quarter; The fourth category is enterprises with losses and rising market share, which have made strategic loss distribution, accounting for 26.79%, an increase of 9.51 percentage points over the third quarter; The fifth category is the enterprises with losses and flat market share, whose operation situation is dangerous and needs high attention, accounting for 20.09%, a small decrease of 0.89 percentage points compared with the third quarter; The sixth category is the enterprises with losses and declining market share. The operation situation is very dangerous and needs to be paid high attention to, accounting for 24.55%, which is 13.71 percentage points lower than the third quarter of 2022. The latter two groups of dangerous agents have decreased by 14.60 percentage points in total, accounting for nearly 45% of the total. It is necessary to alert the industry agents to their own operating conditions.
Nearly 70% of construction machinery agents
There are different levels of buyout
At the end of 2022, 30.23% of the agents did not buy out, a decrease of 23.52 percentage points from the end of the third quarter. In the short term, the distribution situation of the channel end at the end of the year is increasing. It is expected that this trend will be eased in the first quarter of 2023. The overall buyout situation at the channel end has all intensified. Although there is a downward cycle, some brands have shown an obsession with the annual performance impulse, resulting in false buyout; In addition, part of the reason is the buyout of the inventory of new machines in non-road countries with three emission standards.
The number of enterprises buying out less than 50 inventory machines increased from 36. 5% at the end of the third quarter of 2022 25% increased to 55.81%; The number of enterprises buying out 50~100 inventory machines also increased, from 5% to 9.3%; The proportion of enterprises buying out 100~200, 200~300 and 300~400 inventory machines increased by 0.51, -0.34 and -0.39 percentage points respectively. In the third quarter, there were 400 to 500 agent enterprises that bought out, but by the end of the year, there were no such agent enterprises that bought out in such a large number.
The deterioration of the buyout situation and the accumulation at the channel end will aggravate the operational pressure on the time and space of the channel end in the medium and short term, and even have a worse impact on the hedging demand in the first quarter of 2023. It is expected that the first round of peak season in 2023 will probably have a bad situation.
Slightly improve the loss area of small and medium-sized excavation
The price war continues to intensify
At the end of 2022, 83.72% of the agents had a loss in sales, which was 4.69 percentage points lower than that in the third quarter of 2022; 39.53% of the surveyed agents lost money in sales, 8.75 percentage points higher than at the end of the third quarter; 6.98% of the surveyed agents lost money during the sales expansion, deteriorating by 2.93 percentage points.
The operating conditions of agents have improved slightly
But we still need to be ready to fight a protracted war
Compared with the third quarter of 2022, the business of 79.07% of the surveyed agents declined significantly in the fourth quarter, while the profit of 37.21% of the agents declined sharply and the overdue rate of user repayment rose significantly. The proportion of the above three points decreased by 2.18, 24.04 and 20.29 percentage points respectively, all of which improved.
It can be seen that, on the one hand, the market situation in some regions has improved on a month-on-month basis, and on the other hand, the operating conditions of some agents have improved to a certain extent in the fourth quarter, and the operating income has been flat or even increased. However, most agents have shown a decline in business, but the profit decline and the overdue rate of user repayment have improved slightly. On the whole, the operating conditions of agents have gradually reached the bottom under the pressure, Even a small number of agents began to step out of the trough.
Under the influence of factors such as the shutdown caused by the shortage of construction personnel caused by the epidemic in December and the insufficient funds for downstream customers' equipment, the bottoming process of the downward cycle of China's construction machinery excavator market is still continuing. From the first quarter of 2023 to the third and fourth quarters of 2023, the market is unlikely to recover significantly.
The operating pressure of the agent group cannot be fundamentally relieved in the short and medium term. The majority of colleagues should be prepared for "fighting a protracted war", and should not relax the timely adjustment of enterprise strategy and tactics because of short-term improvement.
Cash flow status and business strategic layout adjustment
Is the most anxious problem of the agent's decision-making level
From the perspective of the most anxious core issues of the agent's decision-making level, there are four aspects that are the most stressful for the agent enterprise at the current stage: the cash flow status of the enterprise, the strategic layout of the enterprise's business, risk control and market share assessment.
Compared with the third quarter of 2022, at the end of 2022, the proportion of enterprises' cash flow status and market share assessment decreased by 2.76 and 6.81 percentage points respectively; The selection weight of the business strategy layout and risk control of the agent enterprise increased by 8.68 and 7.14 percentage points respectively. In this investigation, no agent decision-maker worried about human resource management.
Undoubtedly, after stabilizing the pace, how to adjust the business strategic layout of the agent to improve the survival and profitability, how to strengthen and improve the quality of risk control, and then respond to further difficult challenges, are the key issues that the agent's decision-making level is paying more attention to at present.
Average layoffs of agents in the fourth quarter
The proportion is 7.02%
In the fourth quarter of 2022, 70.7% of agent enterprises continued to adjust their human resources, an increase of 1.6 percentage points over the third quarter. The average layoff rate of construction machinery agents in the fourth quarter was 7.02%, 3.08 percentage points lower than that in the third quarter; 29.3% of the agent enterprises did not actively adjust their human resources; In addition, unlike the third quarter, 1.25% of the agent enterprises have expanded their human resources.
Outlook
More focus on post-market services
From the feedback of the future outlet of the agents, 55.81% of the agent enterprises choose the post-transformation market service, an increase of 17.06 percentage points over the proportion in the third quarter; 20.93% of the agent enterprises chose diversification, with a decrease of 6.57 percentage points; 6.98% of the agent enterprises choose to take the initiative to integrate and merge, with the proportion reduced by 11.77 percentage points; 6.98% of agent enterprises transformed into renters, with a decrease of 3.02 percentage points; Another 4.65% of the agent enterprises chose to quit, with the proportion increasing by 3.40 percentage points.
On the whole, only the way out for the transformation and upgrading of agents has begun to focus gradually. After many attempts, post-market service providers have become the common and effective choice of most agents, and have gradually become the consensus of the industry. There are also a few agents exploring and expanding the innovation of new energy 名媛直播 and technology solutions, and the creation of multi-brand, multi-product and multi-business profit models. The proportion of agent enterprises that transform leasing and take the initiative to merge and integrate has decreased. At present, it seems that the opportunity for effective channel integration is still waiting for time.
The proportion of agents who choose to quit the industry has increased slightly, which also means that at the end of 2022, about 5% of the construction machinery agent group will leave the industry actively or passively.
How to spend the cold winter in the industry with epidemic situation? In the survey report on the survival status of agents in the third quarter of 2022, the author once shared seven valuable comments from Sun Changxin, an industry expert and today's special columnist of construction machinery. At the beginning of the year of Guimao Rabbit, the author continues to share the other two paragraphs of Miss Sun to you at this moment:
"All kinds of conferences and annual meetings come one after another, and there is no need to intersperse training. But most of the training is' headache cures the head, foot pain cures the foot 'to complete the task-based training, and there is little thinking and penetrating essential guidance training. The reason why a bird is not afraid of breaking a branch is that it has wings that can fly, otherwise it may break even if it jumps to another branch. What is your wing? How big wings can ensure its own flight?"
"In the past two days, the circle of friends is full of start-ups, start-ups, blitzkrieg, and decisive battles... I think of a sentence: the running water does not compete for the first, but the fighting is endless!"
The strategic choice based on accurate and true information and data is very important. This choice is based on rationality and the objective and actual situation of enterprises and industries. Then this choice should be refined into an enterprise budget and operation plan that can be adjusted based on the market changes of enterprises and industries.
Seek change at low ebb and wait for the spring breeze. I hope that the quarterly "China Construction Machinery Agent Survival Survey" carried out by "Construction Machinery Today" magazine and China Construction Machinery Market Research Center can provide some valuable decision-making reference information and confidence for the majority of industry colleagues, especially for the construction machinery agent group still sticking to and struggling.
