Analysis of Highway Bus Market in Jan.-Apr. 2010 Ⅱ

www.chinabuses.org:

This is the analysis of the sales of seat buses and sleeper buses for mainstream bus builders in Jan.-Apr. 2010

Table 3: the sales growth of seat buses in Jan.-Apr. 2010

Table 4: the sales growth of sleeper buses in Jan.-Apr. 2010

Shown above:

1. For 15 bus builders, it sells 33,535 seat buses in Jan.-Apr. 2010, 13991 units more than in 2009 (19,544 units), 71.59% growth; 1,084 sleeper buses, 429 units more than in 2009, 65.5% growth.

2. In Jan.-Apr. 2010, it sells 33,535 seat buses for 15 bus builders, accounting for 81.8% of the total sales (41,011 units). In Jan.-Apr. 2009, it sells 19,544 seat buses for 15 bus builders, accounting for 81.7% of the total sales and 655 sleeper buses, taking 91.2% of the total 718 units. The concentration of seat buses for 15 builders goes up 0.1% while that of sleeper buses drops 1.8 percentage.

3. The sales of seat buses remains the rising trend of 71.59% while sleeper buses keep small growth rate. For 15 builders, the growth range of highway buses sales differs as : Kinglong (155.9%0; Ankai (115.5%), Sunlong (114.8%) and Youngman (92.3%); Chang'an (35.5%) and Wanda (0.95%). For sleeper buses, the positive sales growth shows in Yutong, Kinglong, Higer, Youngman and Ankai. The sales increasing all shows in the high-class sleeper buses worthy RMB 1 million Yuan for Youngman Automobile. Sunlong Bus and Zhongtong Bus take the sharpest decline with the rate of 50% and 39.1% respectively. The pick-up of highway buses chiefly comes from the seat buses and the rising of the sales of sleeper buses is not so obvious due to the following factors:

a. The sales base of sleeper buses is small and it requires high demand on highway buses in the place where the railway is not open or the economy is not developed.

b. The advantage of medium and high class buses reduces because of the increasing of electricity multiple units, the competition of high-speed railway for long distance transport, and the extension of railway and improving of service awareness of railway departments.

c. The operation efficiency reduces over 20% after it is regulated of the seat layout of  "1+1+1" due to the requirement of national policy. The demand on rating is higher and higher. Although the sales of sleeper buses is going up, the increasing of high class sleeper buses and large-sized sleeper buses is not big yet.

d. In next several years, the service time on the long distance route will be shortened; the technology of seat buses will further improve; the objective market of sleeper buses will continue to shrink. It is possible that there is stricter technical regulation for the sleeper buses such as the limitation of length and height of sleepers, so the operation efficiency keeps reducing. There is fiercer competition for sleeper buses for highway transport because of price discount of flight and quick construction of railway. However, it possibly owns a comparatively steady market in the place where the railway is not reachable or for the people who have a favor of highway transport.