IDC reports global EV market nearing 12 million mark

Last updated on June 1st, 2023 at 02:41 am

A recent report from IDC’s Worldwide Semiconductor Automotive Ecosystem and Supply Chain, IDC has shone a light on just how fast the global EV market is expanding. It also provides insight into how that growth might continue in the future. With the trend of electrification, connection, autonomous driving and ride-sharing in the automobile industry, IDC says that the EV market growing fast. How fast?  Well, in 2022 alone, the worldwide EV market reached close to 11M units – with market penetration level passing 15% – and now the 12 million mark is in sight.

IDC is a major provider of market statistics for industries across the world, with over 1,000 analysis operating in more than 100 countries. The company's data is regularly used by the world's biggest manufacturers when planning for production changes in the coming months/years.

So which country does IDC show as ‘leading the way' when it comes to EV adoption?

Driven by improved supply, high oil prices, government subsidies and price-guaranteed promotions by car companies, China’s electronic vehicle market reached almost 7M units with a penetration rate of more than 31% in 2022.

“Top performers have bigger market share,” says Adela Guo, Research Director, Automotive Semiconductor Research, IDC Asia Pacific.

“The top 3 players worldwide – BYD, Tesla, and SAIC-GM Wuling – now occupy 36.11% of the market in 2022. While in China the top 3 players, BYD, SAIC, and Tesla occupy 53% of the market in 2022. In the China EV market, the top 10 players are dominated by local brands, except for Tesla in the third position with a market share of 10.3% in 2022.”

Adela and her group are offering some pointers for the major manufacturers in the EV sector, including:-

• Target market
  Continue investments in the most valuable markets, China, Europe, and North America which are competitive and valuable markets. Some developing countries also have potential such as Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, etc
• Cooperate positioning
  Automobile enterprises should start from their goals and positioning, then choose the right development path. Leading companies are positioned as energy companies or technology companies, which are bigger than automotive, while maximizing synergies between different business portfolios
• Technology strategy
  OEMs need to choose the most suitable technological route, such as low cost, time to market and superior product. Increase investment in research and development to enhance their research and development capabilities, especially for software
• Supply chain strategy
  To create a high tenacity supply chain, automotive companies need to consider changing their original pure outsourcing strategy and more actively arranging upstream core components from a strategic perspective, such as investment, cooperation, self-development to enhance the control and discourse power of the industrial chain. At the same time, build a more digital and intelligent supply chain management system to increase resilience and agility
• Talent strategy
  OEMs should start as early as possible to discover their talent shortages, especially for internet and communication functions, enlarge their talent pool, try to attract global talent, at the same time, build health and attractive systems to attract top talent and maintain employee satisfaction.

“The industry transition will be fast, both opportunities and challenges exist. Only by establishing advantage in advance, can the players get ahead of their competitors and win the final victory,” concludes Guo.

The effect that SAIC, Testa and BYD are having on the market is profound.

We recently tested the ATTO 3 from BYD and also managed to get hands-on with the Dolphin – all of which left us very keen to find out more about the ultra-low cost Seagull that's waiting in the wings to snatch market share out of the hands of the traditional car makers – with a range of more than 200 miles and a price that could be closer to £15,000 than £20,000.

Many years ago, companies would produce goods in China solely to get lower production costs. After working with high-tech companies like Apple for more than 15 years, it's now the case that many products are so complicated to produce, that they can only realistically come from the latest generation of Chinese production facilities. This lead is likely to be unassailable in the short to mid-term future.