On December 28, 2021, three days before the end of 2021, DPCA released a poster announcing that it had completed its annual sales target of 100,000 units in 2021 ahead of schedule. It was really early, three days in advance.
So what is the total sales volume of DPCA in 2021?
The answer is 100,580 vehicles, ranking 34th in the 2021 car company sales list (insurance volume), ranking ahead of the three new force car companies of Xiaopeng Automobile, Weilai Automobile, Chehejia (ideal) with a slight advantage, but it should be noted that DPCA includes peugeot and Citroen two brands, while the new force car companies are single brands, and the car and home even have only one ideal ONE model.
Even if you don't look at the new force car companies that are pressing forward, the sales volume of Dongfeng Dongfeng Automobile is also less than that of Dongfeng's other two car companies, Dongfeng Fengxing and Dongfeng Passenger Car (Fengshen). Dongfeng Motor Group is also powerful, and its subordinate car companies are all "goalkeepers" who sell 100,000 vehicles a year.
If the top five car companies are introduced, then the sales volume of DPCA will become very "short" due to the increase of the horizontal coordinate. In 2021, a total of 7 car companies sold more than 1 million vehicles a year, and Geely Automobile, which ranked first, reached 1.33 million, which is 13 times that of Dongfeng Dragon Automobile.
Judging from the sales of the two brands alone, it is even more "tragic". Peugeot and Citroen ranked 51st and 52nd in the 2021 brand sales list, ranking ahead of the two second-echelon new energy vehicle companies of Zero Run and Weima, and even less than Infiniti, which has little voice. Of course, Infiniti is also a joint venture brand under Dongfeng Group.
Interestingly, the last time Dongfeng Peugeot announced sales on Weibo was on December 31, 2015, with annual sales of 406,107 vehicles.
The same is true of Dongfeng Citroen, which has been sold for 710,000 vehicles since 2015, and there have been no specific sales on Weibo.
In the past year, Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen have raised the most not sales, but growth rates.
For example, in August this year, Dongfeng Citroen released a poster announcing that the cumulative sales volume increased by 75% compared with 2020, and the annual data of some media calculated a growth rate of 137%.
Dongfeng Peugeot officials also released a poster, announcing a 74% year-on-year sales growth rate in 2021.
But in 2015, the year when DPCA sold the highest sales in China, the mainland announced that it had fully popularized nine-year compulsory education. That is to say, all consumers know that they can not only look at the growth rate, but also look at the basic sales volume.
Behind the high growth rate of 100.31% of DPCA's sales is its sales of only 49,326 units in 2020, which is less than the 7% of the peak of 700,000 vehicles. If DPCA wants to return to the top, it needs to maintain the same growth rate for the next three years.
In fact, in addition to a few car companies like Young Skylark, which are not operating normally, the sales growth rate of DPCA automobile in 2021 can only rank 22nd.
And this year's domestic market, the overall is the growth trend, in addition to the shutdown of the Jinbei Renault, Zotye and other car companies, this year's positive sales growth of the number of car companies reached 46, accounting for 61% of the total number of normal operating car companies.
Therefore, it is difficult for us to judge whether the sales growth of DPCA in 2021 is the general trend of the automobile market or the resurrection of DPCA. After all, as Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi mobile phone, said, standing on the wind outlet, pigs can fly.
Finally, let's take a look at the trend chart of the annual sales of Dongfeng Citroen from 2014 to 2021, which is the biggest irony of Dongfeng Citroen's so-called "137% growth rate".
Of course, as a Peugeot owner, I think that what makes DPCA plunge into the sales quagmire is not the product problem. Taking 2015 as the demarcation point, with the application of 1.2THP, 1.6THP engine and EMP2 platform, the product strength of Shenlong has been upgraded to the mainstream level.
What makes DPCA decline in the domestic market is the rise of its own brands, the decline of France's international influence, and the quality problems before 2015.
But you ask me can the dragon return to the peak? My answer is that it's hard. This is because the French side, that is, PSA Group, does not have the technology to hand in the gasoline vehicle, let alone electrification.
Unless Shenlong can be like SAIC-GM, the compact car like Buick Yinglang can be discounted to 100,000.
At any time, the price of the product is the attribute that consumers care about first, and the attributes of product strength and quality, only when there is a certain user base, will play a role in promoting sales growth.
Just as BYD, which doubled its sales from 410,000 to 730,000 in 2021, if it were not for the price of Qin PLUS DM-i to the level of ordinary pure fuel sedans, few people would know that BYD is excellent in hybrid technology.
Before 2021, BYD, like Peugeot and Citroen, is a typical representative of some consumers who are applauded, but the overall is not popular.