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Top three self-developed automakers enter new track of transformation

From:Internet Info Agency 2021-03-26 17:49:29

In recent years, the sales gap between the top three self-developed brands Geely Automobile, Changan Automobile, and Great Wall Motor (GWM) has gradually narrowed, and the competition for the “first” position of self-developed brands has been extremely fierce. In 2020, Geely’s cumulative sales exceeded 1.32 million units, and it continued to be the sales champion of Chinese brand passenger vehicles. The sales of Changan's Chinese brand cars exceeded 1.5 million units, of which the sales of passenger cars approached the one-million mark. The sales volume of GWM exceeded 1.11 million units, a record high.

Entering 2021, the competition between the three will become more intense. Changan Automobile recently announced that it won three sales champions in the domestic passenger car market in February, namely, the sales champion of Chinese brand passenger cars, the sales champion of CS75 in domestic SUVs, and the sales champion of Eado in self-developed brand sedans. In this regard, GWM and Geely Automobile expressed "not convinced" for the first time.

On March 9, Changan Automobile took the lead in announcing that its own sales and products have won multiple championships. In terms of overall sales, the monthly sales of Changan passenger car brands reached 103,800 units, surpassing GWM’s 89,000 and Geely’s 77,200 units, took the top spot in the autonomy. The monthly sales of its CS75 series of SUV products reached 32,600 units, surpassing the 31,700 units of the Haval H6, becoming the new top domestic SUV sales. With its monthly sales of 15,000 vehicles, its Eado series surpassed Geely Emgrand’s 12,400 vehicles and became the first of its own brand cars.

On March 10, GWM announced that the Haval H6 has been the champion of SUV sales in China for 93 months.

Who is lying about claiming that its models have become SUV sales champions? In fact, there is nothing wrong with the sales figures of the two companies. It's just that the two statistical calibers are different. Among them, Changan Automobile uses the "wholesale volume" of the automakers itself, and GWM uses the "insurance number" of the user terminal. China Automotive Center’s February insurance data showed that the Haval H6’s February insurance number was 24,700 units, and the Chang’an CS75 was 20,900 units. The Haval H6 still beats the Chang’an CS75 by nearly 4,000 units.

In addition, judging from the February insurance number announced by the China Automobile Center, Geely Automobile’s position in the independent brand has not been shaken with 91,000 vehicles, and it still ranks first in the single-month insurance number, closely following it. The following independent brands are Changan Automobile (85,000 units) and GWM (69,000 units). This means that from the above insurance numbers, Geely is still the monthly sales champion of independent auto brands.

Different statistical sources result in different sales data, which leads to deviations in sales rankings, which means that the competition among the top three independent brands has entered a fierce stage. No matter which car company is a little bit slack, it may fall behind in sales. The sales, growth, and ranking of the three brands are catching up with each other, which also shows that the competition in the Chinese auto market is becoming increasingly fierce.

Facing the sales dispute, Zhu Huarong, chairman of Changan Automobile, immediately sent an internal email to the executives, stating that the real serious challenge for Chinese brands is the strong joint venture brand and the difficult strategic transformation, not the battle for the first name. Chinese brand cars go hand in hand and achieve win-win development. Only if they have the potential of Chinese brands, it is the great fortune of Chinese brands.

In fact, the top three independent brands have been actively seeking transformation in recent years and have achieved certain results. Both Changan, GWM and Geely have been fully upgraded in technology and products. Specifically, GWM puts forward the goal of transforming into a "global technology travel company"; Geely is committed to transforming to a "tech travel service provider"; Changan said it will accelerate its transformation into a "smart travel technology company", and the top three independent brands are all moving towards A new stage of development.

Separately, Changan Automobile put forward its third entrepreneurial plan in 2018. Now it has been transformed and upgraded to the 3.0 stage, and it has begun to make new breakthroughs for the 14th Five-Year Plan, from internal organizational structure to scientific and technological strength to comprehensive product upgrades.

In terms of organizational structure, small headquarters, business groups, sharing platforms and incubating innovation will become the measures for the implementation of Chang'an organizational reform. Among them, the function of the small headquarters is to accelerate reform and innovation, accelerate integration and development, and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of various business sectors; the core responsibilities of the business group are mainly user research, brand promotion and product marketing to better integrate the entire product line. Sharing platform means that the entire group, including human resources, manufacturing resources, and R&D resources, is integrated and fully shared. Incubation of innovation is the establishment of several innovation incubation centers to meet the different needs of different talents. The Beidou Tianshu company and software company are under preparation to rebuild the management mechanism to support the efficient incubation of Changan's new products and technologies.

In terms of scientific and technological strength, Changan Automobile will release the new car-building architecture Ark architecture on the brand day in November 2020. As a new car-making concept in the 4.0 era of Changan Automobile’s R&D, the Ark architecture completely covers all models from A0 to C, and will use intelligence and big data to empower the iterative evolution of the basic performance of the entire vehicle such as the body and chassis, and integrate high-end autonomous driving. The front-end layout and smart growth-type electrical and electronic architecture are equal to one.

In terms of product upgrades, UNI's high-end sequence complements other product pedigrees, and together they help Changan passenger brand to move up. In addition, Changan, Huawei and CATL are jointly building a new high-end smart car brand. The first product has completed the preliminary research and development work and is about to enter the mass production stage.

After GWM announced its transformation, the first step of the transformation has fallen on the technical level. In 2020, three major technology brands-Lemon, Tank, and Coffee Intelligence have been launched. With the empowerment of new technology brands, "Lemon Hybrid DHT" and "Coffee Smart Drive" were also released one after another.

Based on the latest technology, GWM launched the third-generation Haval H6 in 2020, and also released a number of new SUV models designed for young consumers, such as Haval Dog, Haval First Love, Haval Chitu, Tank 300, WEY Mocha, etc. Win the favor of the majority of young users.

At the same time, driven by the core concept of "user-centered", GWM will reform its organizational mechanism in 2020. Based on the concept of “one car, one brand, one company”, models and brands become “start-up companies” that directly face users; at the same time establish enterprise digitalization centers and product digitalization centers to promote digital transformation with users as the center; in the management management, GWM promote The "Rotating President" model is to coordinate resources; accelerate the implementation of the rotation mechanism and improve the assessment and evaluation mechanism.

Geely's transformation is also firm and rapid. In 2020, after four years of continuous investment of more than 18 billion yuan, Geely has successfully developed and released a new pure electric architecture, SEA. Through the integration of hardware layer, system layer and ecological layer, it will build an open and inclusive future travel service system. Users create a zero-boundary travel experience.

At present, based on SEA, there are already more than 7 brands and a total of more than 16 new models have started research and development, and they are deployed in different market segments. The ZERO concept, a luxury pure electric coupe based on SEA, is the first to debut. Its mass-produced car has successfully rolled off the assembly line at the Ningbo SEA plant and completed the first dynamic test. It will be officially launched this year.

Entering 2021, Geely's strategic adjustments will be even more rapid. On January 11, Baidu announced the cooperation with Geely to build cars. On January 13, Geely announced its cooperation with Foxconn to establish an automobile foundry factory. On January 19, Geely and Tencent signed a strategic cooperation agreement to carry out all-round strategic cooperation in areas such as smart cockpits, autonomous driving, and digital marketing. On January 29, Geely and FF officially announced the cooperation and discussed the possibility of providing foundry services by the joint venture between Geely and Foxconn. On February 24, Volvo Cars Co., Ltd. and Geely Automobile Holdings Co., Ltd. jointly announced that the two parties have reached the best merger plan. On the premise of maintaining an independent company structure, deepen cooperation in the electrification, intelligence, networking and sharing of automobiles.

Summary: The knock-out competition in the auto market is accelerating. In the foreseeable future, the competition among Geely, Changan, and GWM will become more intense. It is gratifying who can become the top seller of independent brands, but more importantly, it must be able to Drive the overall strength of Chinese auto brands to continuously improve. Judging from the pace of the transformation of the three car companies, no matter who can stand out in the future, it will not be surprising.

Editor:Yuan Honglei