金融双语阅读：“麦当劳式经销”伤及中国汽车业利润率

下面本站小编为大家带来金融双语阅读：“麦当劳式经销”伤及中国汽车业利润率 ，希望大家喜欢!

Starbucks, McDonald’s and KFC outlets are all too common sights in towns and cities across much of the world. 在世界许多地方的大小城镇，几乎到处都能看到星巴克(Starbucks)、麦当劳(McDonald's)和肯德基(KFC)的门店。

But in China, it seems, you are just as likely to run into a car dealership selling the wares of one of the country’s best-selling auto manufacturers. 但在中国，同样寻常可见的似乎是中国几大畅销车品牌的经销商。

According to calculations by Robin Zhu, a senior analyst at Bernstein, GM, VW Group and Nissan have 8,400 dealerships in China between them, within a whisker of the 8,600 McDonald’s, KFCs and Starbucks outlets the Middle Kingdom boasts, as the first chart shows. 根据伯恩斯坦研究公司(Bernstein Research)高级分析师Robin Zhu的估算，通用汽车(GM)、大众汽车集团(VW Group)和日产(Nissan)在中国合计有8400家经销商，与这个“中央王国”拥有的麦当劳、肯德基和星巴克门店数量(合计为8600家)相差无几。

And that is not taking into account the 5,100 dealerships in the distribution networks of five other foreign auto manufacturers: Honda, Toyota, PSA Peugeot Citro?n, Ford and Hyundai. 这还没算上本田(Honda)、丰田(Toyota)、标致雪铁龙(PSA Peugeot Citro?n)、福特(Ford)和现代(Hyundai)这五家外国汽车制造商分销网络中的5100家经销商。

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Mr Zhu wonders if this might be too many, suggesting this “McDealering” could be a “catalyst for chaos” in 2016. Robin Zhu质疑这是不是有点太多了(他有这种想法或许并不令人意外)，称这种“麦当劳式经销”(McDealering)可能会在2016年“催生混乱”。

“Do Chinese cities really need as many car dealers as fast food restaurants? We think these numbers highlight just how large and dense the dealer networks have become, and the extent to which over-penetration has become a problem,” he says. 他说：“中国城市真的需要和快餐店一样多的汽车经销商吗?我们认为这些数字突显出，经销商网络已变得多么庞大和密集，‘过度覆盖’的问题已变得多么严重。

“[This] over-dealering represents one of the most significant challenges for pricing and profitability in the Chinese auto industry, and one of the most under-appreciated structural issues among investors.” “(这种)经销商过多的局面代表着中国汽车业定价和盈利能力面临的最严峻挑战之一，也代表着投资者普遍严重低估的一个结构性问题。”

One of Bernstein’s concerns is that the proximity of many dealerships is encouraging buyers to play them off against each other, eroding retail pricing power. This danger is exacerbated by the presence of intra-brand competition, where two or more chains of dealers compete head-to-head. 伯恩斯坦关注的一点是，许多经销商彼此离得太近，导致买家可以挑动它们鹬蚌相争，零售定价能力因此受到削弱。品牌内部竞争(即同品牌下的两家或多家经销商网络互相抢生意)的存在，更是加剧了这种风险。

In Beijing for instance, two of the three largest dealer networks sell Volkswagens: FAW VW and Shanghai VW, both joint ventures with Chinese state-owned manufacturers, as the second chart shows. 例如，在北京，三个最大的经销商网络当中，有两个是卖大众汽车的：一汽大众(FAW-Volkswagen)和上海大众(Shanghai Volkswagen)。这两家都是大众与中国国有制造商组建的合资企业。

This problem is not limited to megacities such as Beijing, where Bernstein counts 391 dealerships among the top 21 brands, and Shanghai, with 344 dealers. 这个问题不止限于北京和上海等特大型城市——伯恩斯坦估计，21个最知名品牌在北京有391家经销商，在上海有344家。

Even in cities it dubs Tier 2 and 3, it found each of these 21 brands had an average of 4 outlets per city, with Shanghai VW typically having seven or eight a city and FAW VW five or six (in addition to another six or seven for VW Group’s Skoda and Audi marques). 伯恩斯坦发现，即便在它所谓的二三线城市，这21个品牌平均每个品牌在每个城市也有四家经销商，上海大众在每个城市通常有七八家，一汽大众有五六家(这还不包括大众集团旗下斯柯达(Skoda)和奥迪(Audi)品牌拥有的六七家)。

“Cannibalisation amongst dealers was one of the main contributors to declining retail pricing over the summer of 2015 as dealers of the same brand increasingly tried to undercut one another, and looks set to remain a risk,” says Mr Zhu. Robin Zhu表示：“经销商之间互相抢生意是导致2015年夏零售定价能力不断下降的主要原因之一，同一品牌旗下的经销商越来越多地试图彼此杀价。这种风险似乎将持续存在。”

As EM Squared reported this month, car sales in China are currently strong, with a temporary tax cut helping push light vehicle sales to a record high of 24.2m (on a seasonally adjusted annual basis) in November, underlining the country’s position as the world’s largest market. 正如本月另一篇报道《中国驱动全球汽车销量增长》所述，眼下中国车市兴旺，一项临时的减税政策帮助推动11月轻型车销量(以经季节性因素调整后的年化销量计)达到创纪录的2420万辆，有力地彰显出了中国的全球最大汽车市场地位。

Bernstein argues that expectations of strong sales growth have drowned out concerns about overcapacity, but that the dealer network “remains unsustainable”, with more than 26,000 dealers at the end of 2014 — 60 per cent more than in the US. 伯恩斯坦辩称，尽管对销售将强劲增长的预期淹没了对销售能力过剩的担忧，但这样的经销商网络“仍是不可持续的”——截至2014年底，中国有逾2.6万家经销商，比美国多60%。

Indeed, while the US has about 13,000 Starbucks outlets and 12,800 McDonald’s restaurants, the number of Ford dealerships is less than 3,500. Toyota, the world’s largest car company by unit sales, has 1,750 outlets in the US and Canada. 确实，尽管美国有大约1.3万家星巴克门店和1.28万家麦当劳餐厅，但福特经销商的数量不足3500家。按销量计为全球最大汽车公司的丰田，在美国和加拿大有1750家经销商。

Mr Zhu goes as far as to claim that running a Chinese dealer is increasingly akin to a “McJob” — unstimulating, low-paid and with few prospects — and this in turn is ”putting off Chinese entrepreneurs”. Robin Zhu甚至表示，在中国经营一家经销店越来越像是在麦当劳工作——没劲、薪酬低，也没啥前途——这反过来“让中国人不愿经营经销店”。

With new car profitability “looking permanently impaired” and after-sale service margins now “under attack” following a market liberalisation that allowed consumers to service their cars at a non-franchise location during the warranty period, he believes a crunch may be looming for manufacturers. 新车盈利能力“似乎受到了永久性损害”，而市场自由化使得消费者能够在保修期间在非4S店做保养，经销店的售后服务利润率正“受到冲击”。考虑到这些因素，Robin Zhu认为汽车制造商可能即将遭遇危机。

“We expect many to face the unpalatable choice of accepting shrinking distribution scale, impacting sales, or financially supporting hundreds of increasingly challenged dealers, impacting pricing and profitability,” says Mr Zhu. 他表示：“我们预计许多汽车制造商将面临无奈的选择，要么接受分销网络规模缩水的局面，要么向成百上千日益面临挑战的经销商提供财务支持，前者影响销售，后者损害定价和盈利能力。

“Returns in the market may be about to fall irreversibly.” “市场回报率可能即将不可逆转地下降。”

GM, VW and Nissan all declined to comment. 通用、大众和日产均拒绝置评。