In 2017, China’s automobile production reached 29.015 million units, an increase of 3.19% year-on-year; sales reached 28.879 million units, an increase of 3.04% year-on-year. The sales volume of China’s auto industry is close to 30 million vehicles, which greatly stimulates the demand for automotive interior materials such as leather.
In the context of the development of the automotive industry, the development of energy-saving and intelligent manufacturing has driven the development of electric vehicles, lithium batteries and charging piles. At the same time, car light weighting, VOC control is still the main development goal.
According to the statistics of the US auto industry, more than 50% of the cars sold in the United States have leather seats installed. According to analysis, the sales of leather on multi-purpose vehicles have grown strongly! For China’s leather industry, it is a hot topic to provide environmentally-friendly and lightweight artificial leather products for vehicles, as well as functional, post-market leather products that are fashionable, easy to decontaminate, and thermostatic.
In addition, a company has conducted a market research for the Chinese automotive leather market. This report has conducted qualitative surveys for different groups of people (interviewed 15 car owners in Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, and made online in the above cities). Quantitative research, received 1,500 survey response reports, through the analysis of some of the details of these findings, found that the two biggest differences between the Chinese market and the European and American markets, but also unique to the Chinese market.
The first is that Chinese consumers are very concerned about the environmental health and air quality in the car.
Secondly, on the one hand, Chinese consumers are very eager to enjoy high-quality products from international brands; on the other hand, Chinese consumers are proud of Chinese traditional culture, and hope that these traditional cultures can be found in daily necessities. reflect.
The research report shows that Chinese consumers will regard product quality and product safety as the primary considerations for their car purchase, followed by durability, which means that a product can finally be recognized by consumers, and the quality of the product. It is at its core.
With the further development and maturity of the market, in the case of increasing competition, only products with higher quality can finally win the favor of consumers. And local auto companies are also making corresponding adjustments, hoping to win consumers’ attention with better products.
The survey also showed that Chinese car consumers are particularly fond of installing seat covers for new cars (which also drives the huge demand for leather products in the aftermarket), there are three main reasons:
First is to protect the seat;
The second is that consumers feel uncomfortable with leather seats, and they will be more comfortable with seat covers;
The third reason is the need for personalization.
This requires the car leather manufacturers to understand the various needs of customers, the design team should directly reflect these needs in its product design, mainly in the following aspects:
1. Provide more leather seats solutions with customized design to meet the more individual needs of automotive customers.
2, on the need for comfort, such as technically reducing the heat of the seat, by customizing the hole to increase the mobility of the air, etc.
3, consumers want to be able to protect the seat clean, the product which has anti-fouling design can prevent the seat from getting dirty, and easy to clean.
4, the product’s wear resistance must be good.
5. More and more automakers are paying close attention to the lightweight vehicles, and therefore require the development of lightweight leather products too.
6, the focus on environmental protection, automotive leather manufacturers are making some efforts.
Suppliers of automotive leather are mainly divided into leather and artificial leather. The raw materials for leather are raw material suppliers and chemical suppliers. In general, a small number of raw hides are provided by Chinese suppliers, and in terms of chemicals, global suppliers are clearly dominant. For example, Stahl’s acquisition of Clariant and BASF’s leather chemicals division is expected to account for More than 50% market share in automotive leather chemicals. Although most of the chemical raw materials of these international automotive leather suppliers have been imported so far, they are constantly looking for new opportunities and hope to cooperate with Chinese suppliers in the future to further reduce their freight costs. Cost and production costs.
In terms of artificial leather materials, PVC artificial leather is mainly used, but in terms of surface treatment, most of them use water-based surface treatment agents. The middle and high-end surface treatment mainly relies on imported products, and domestic chemicals have gradually made some progress in this respect.
At the same time, with the environmental protection requirements and the gradual improvement of VOC requirements, various automotive interior manufacturers are constantly trying various types of environmentally-friendly synthetic leather products, such as water-based superfiburs synthetic leather, water-based synthetic leather, solvent-free synthetic leather, and TPU synthetic leather etc, we are the one, any questions about the leather product is welcome to contact us.
