The 4,500 cars sold by Neta in China this October is apparently down 40% from the prior month.
While the headlines may seem to suggest that the Chinese auto industry is taking away all the sales of legacy automakers, internal competition among themselves have unfortunately also since saw more than a few fall by the wayside as well. And the latest one to show signs of being on death’s door is actually one that some Malaysians might have heard of, as Neta has recently been reported to have halted production of its cars amid slowing sales in its local market.
According to a report by Chinese outlet DoNews, Neta’s Tongxiang factory in Zhejiang has recently been ordered to idle production for half of the month in October. This is to be the brand’s main manufacturing plant with a planned production volume of 200,000 units, and was mainly churning out its L e-crossovers.
Just adding to this brewing bit of worrying news for the company too is the recent reports of some Neta workers claiming that the automaker has failed to pay the previous month’s salary on time, as it owed to suppliers. It has also been alleged that at the same time, the salaries of its high-ranked employees were cut by up to 30% as well.
Now it is worth highlighting here that Neta themselves have yet to publicly address these reports, but this smoke from the fire of its financial troubles unfortunately has not been best hidden by the automaker. This is especially when considering that this October was the first time for the company to have neglected to publish their prior month’s sales data on the first day of the next month.
Industry observers currently reckon for Neta to have delivered around 4,500 cars in October, which is a staggering 40% down month-on-month from September. From the available data of the first three quarters of this year meanwhile, the automaker’s domestic sales of 53,853 units is some less than 30% of its intended annual sales goal.
Neta’s current significant slowdown in sales are commonly attributed to a few factors, with the push upmarket from its traditionally more mainstream offerings to higher priced and more technologically advanced models being one of the more significant factors. The automaker saw success with its affordable V all-electric hatchback, but is currently struggling to shift its more premium GT and S Hunting models.
With Neta struggling in its home market, there may be a potential lifeline for the automaker lying outside of China. The company has after all already established a presence in several markets across Central Asia, Southeast Asia, Latin America, and South Africa. It has also since opened an overseas plant in Thailand that started operations in November 2023, with it incidentally partnered with EPMB too over here for the assembly of its X e-crossover in Negeri Sembilan.
