Category: personal_noteS

German car market 2023

Based on German’s official passenger car registration, here are some takeaways:

  • 2023 total German market is ~2.84mn cars, up 7.3% yoy from 2022; but in 2019 that number is 3.6mn, so still down 21% from 2019-level (most decline happened during 2020 and 2021)
  • German brands got ~52% market share and the three German companies got ~59% market share

  • Audi (+16%), Mercedes (+14%), and BMW (+11%) brands are all share gainers from 2022
  • Skoda (+17%) and Seat (+19%) brands, owned by VW, are also share gainers
  • Tesla, although with a local factory, only got 2.2% market share in 2023, and is losing shares in German vs 2022; German market is less than 4% of Tesla’s global deliveries
  • Ford got 4.1% market share in 2023, and keeps losing market share. Pressure continued since covid. Ford new registration in German dropped over 30% in 2020 and dropped another 35% in 2021. Its 2023 number is still a bit lower than 2021
  • Two South Korean brands, Hyundai and Kia, are flattish in number of cars, but lost small share as the market grew.
  • Toyota new registration PV dropped 4% yoy, also a share loser in German.

Market share in 2023 by origin of brands

 

Japan’s capital market to thrive (?)

Japanese gov has been pushing for corporate governance reform for years.

It has drawn lots of attention, but how effective is the result? Several things to watch:

1/ new M&A guidelines – aim to spur M&As. But can real deals happen soon? can these deals not only give shareholder returns, but also easy for acquirers to consolidate/get synergies after the deal?

2/ “Doubling Asset-based Incomes Plan” – aim to let more retail investors buy more stocks. Seem to be a good idea and retail investors can pay higher p/e, but will people just buy more US stocks? will people really buy in the improved corporate quality narrative?

3/ investors communication / forums etc. – maybe can make more info available in english first?

It seems harder to move money (in & out of JP to the US) compared with say HK.

Nikkei 250

After a 20-year [1982 to 2002] journey, Nikkei 250 index was back to the starting point.

And it hasn’t yet reached the previous high 34 years ago (1989 level) as of 2023.

What happened?

A lot of things to unpack.

GDP

I am looking at GDP (in local currency terms) first – equity market should be a ratio of GDP.

Japan already enjoyed a robust growth (1972-1982) with GDP almost tripped in 10 years (!), which translates to 11.4% cagr. 

The miracle continued for another decade.

1991 GDP also grew 6.4% yoy vs. 1990; however, GDP growth dropped to 2.5% in 1992 and to 0.0% in 1993.

During the second phase of which ended on 1991, Japan’s GDP still compounded at ~6% cagr (1981 – 1991), although not as high as the last decade. And Nikkei index climbed during this period as well.

What’s wrong then?

The “10-year GDP cagr” would drop continuously from 1991’s 6% to below 1% in 2002. 

Remember, Nikkei index peaked in 1989 (red mark).

While in 1990 and 1991 Japan’s GDP still enjoyed 7.6% and 6.4% growth, 1992 would be 2.5% and 1993 would be 0%.

It was the mid-term / 5-year projection that’s worrisome. And indeed, the 10-year GDP cagr would start to decay, with no reversal in sight.

Nikkei index bottomed in 2003, when the dot-com bubble also came to an end. S&P 500 dropped ~24% in 2002 (after double-digit drop in 2000 and 2001), but grew 26% in 2003.

The index bottomed as the 10-year GDP growth would be bottoming and things won’t go much worse from here.

 

Nikkei index is now (2023) ~4x the 2003 bottom though, what happened?

Nikkei index climbed 4 consecutive years (2003 – 2006), before the Global Financial Crisis hit.

Japan’s 10-year GDP cagr would still be ~0% in 2007, but from 2004 to 2007 it experienced a 4 consecutive year of GDP growth.

Things would look better in 2012, when Japan GDP would be re-entering a growth mode. 10-year GDP cagr would bottom in 2011 at -0.7% and recovered to 0.1% in 2015 and to 1.2% in 2019 before covid.

To make it a full graph.

As mentioned above, although 10-year GDP cagr still has pressure from 2003 onward, actually yearly GDP growth is positive from 2004-2007. Therefore the 3-5 year outlook would actually be reversing in 2003.

US-China direct flights recovery

Recovery Tracker

after China reopened in 2023, flights were set to increase from 16 per week to 24 per week, announced in March 2023.

In Aug 2023, two sides agreed to double capacity of 48 per week, ramping up to 36 per week on Sep 1, and 48 per week on Oct 29.

Flights would further increase to 70 per week starting Nov. 9.

Technical difficulties

US need to avoid Russian airspace, which requires longer distance and thus refueling.

Impact on tourism

e.g. SF: visitors from Mainland would be only ~20% of 2019 level.

“In 2019, 518,000 of San Francisco’s 4.3 million international visitors were from China, according to data provided by SF Travel. Though visitors from Mexico outnumbered them by about 100,000, visitors from China spent the most of any group, accounting for $1.2 billion of the $7.7 billion international tourists spent in the city that year.

This year, visitors from China are expected to number only one-fifth of their 2019 total, and expected to spend just under $450 million. That brings the city’s total international visitor spending down from 2019’s $7.7 billion to an expected $5.9 billion in 2023.”

— SF Chronicle (https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/international-tourism-china-recovery-18188305.php)

 

Other sources:

https://www.regulations.gov/document/DOT-OST-2020-0052-0165

 

US new home sales resilient

Looks like the monthly sales is still health. Month to clear inventory is steady and up a bit to ~7.8 months in Oct 2023.

Currently monthly sales pace is better than 2018 and 2022, despite record high interest rate in recent years.

New homes for sales has gone up more. So the number month to clear new home inventory has gone up to 7-8 months recently vs. an average of 6.2 months in 2018. And is much better than the 2020-21 average of 5.1 months.

Better availability should be good for inflation and soft-landing scenario.

New residential sales Oct 2023

See the other post for China new home sales – the inventory stood at over 20 months the last time I checked.

Commercial real estate problems summary

A good summary from Rob Stuckey, head of Carlyle’s U.S. real estate funds, on US office building weakness, from Insights and Indicators podcast by Carlyle:

  1. Already weak before pandemic
    • oversupplied
    • low operating margin
    • high correction to GDP / exposure to macro cyclicality
  2. Secular trend of work-from-home / technology trend

Factors to value real estate

  • demand drivers (macro/GDP, demographics)
  • technology
  • operating margin (high maintenance/recurring capital expenditure)
  • tenant stickiness (demand ever increasing)

 

Meituan’s changing financial reporting

Back to 2021-2022, Meituan’s quarterly results experienced various changes in reported metrics, which looks a bit dubious and problematic – whether it’s due to conflicts when measuring performance internally and to investors, or gov’s implicit requirement, or regulation changes.

Here are the 4 changes:

1/ Food delivery revenue split (2021q4): “Commission” split into “Commission” and “Food delivery services”, not segment changes.

2021q3

2021q4

2/ no more “GTV of food delivery” and “number of domestic hotel room nights” (2022q1)

2021q4

2022q1

3/ big change in 2022q2: new segment reporting of “Core local
commerce”, which combines previous “Food delivery”, “In-store, hotel & travel” & some business previously in “New initiatives and others”, e.g. Meituan Instashopping (美團閃購)

2022q1

2022q2

This segment reporting is used as of today.

Plus, in operating metrics, “Number of food delivery transactions” is now “Number of On-demand Delivery transactions”.

2022q1

2022q2

This is interesting – according to the footnote, “Number of On-demand Delivery transactions” includes number of transactions from food delivery and Meituan Instashopping businesses. While it’s consistent with “Core local commerce” definition, it’s hard to argue why business like Meituan Grocery (美團買
菜), which is under “New initiatives and others”, is not on-demand delivery transaction.

Plus, since “Core local commerce” now includes in-store, hotels etc., which has nothing to do with “delivery”, it’s hard to know the unit economics for delivery.

4/ No more reporting of “Number of Transacting Users”, “Number of Active Merchants” and transaction per user (2023q1)

2022q4

Gone in 2023q1

US-China recent deals round-up

Biotech

Nov – Modern Shanghai plant break ground; the $1bn deal was signed in July

Oct – Junshi’s PD-1 drug, with US & Canada right purchased by partner Coherus was approved by FDA

Agricultural purchases

Oct – signed 11 purchasing agreements/contracts, worth multiple billions in value

Nov – 600k ton soybeans; and then 3mn+ tons; a good summary here

Industrial / Areospace

Nov –  GE Aerospace’s 25 GEnx-1B engines order from China Eastern Airlines to power its Boeing 787 fleet.

Nov – Xiamen Airlines purchases.

Market is speculating more Boeing orders.

Consumer internet / tech

Nov – Meta’s Oculus is coming to China in late 2024 (w/ a lower-end version of Quest 3), with Tencent as partner; WSJ reported the talk between Meta and Tencent back in Feb 2023.

Nov – Nvidia to release 3 new chips for China market (H20, L20 and L2), available as soon as the end of this year.