By Michael Elkins
A Morgan Stanley analyst highlights an increasing number of electric vehicle product offerings in China as companies continue to expand product distribution to less developed market segments.
He explains in his note that, while foreign brands continue to expand product offerings, they face significant challenges to achieve market shares similar to what they enjoyed in the ICEV market.
As China’s EV market continues to grow, EV penetration for foreign brands (excluding Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)) increased only gradually to 4.9% by Jul-22, compared with an over 50% jump for local brands.
He believes that the challenges may be accentuated by an intensified product launch plan alongside a stable number of product upgrades, highlighted in a previous Morgan Stanley report. Morgan Stanley believes that this position is partly driven by the inroads made by traditional OEMs into the EV realm. Evidence of this can be seen in recent months with the increasing number of EV products offered by both local and foreign companies.
When broken down by market segment, Morgan Stanley believes that the data shows potential to further explore the less developed Chinese markets through the increasing product offerings in areas such as the High-end large SUV and Sedan segments.
He believes that the increased product offerings in these areas mark the legacy players' attempt to catch up and likely will last for the next couple of years.