IAUTO
Speed Depth Attitude
Introduction |
2022/01/26
Independent brands are not broken, and joint venture brands also need to be transformed and upgraded.
Reporters 丨 Yang Jing, Xu Jinkai
Responsible editor 丨 Cao Jiadong
Editor 丨Zhu Jinbin
Selling of Stellantis shares; high-end new energy off-road vehicle project, construction of Dongfeng Honda electric vehicle factory; Landu FREE 10,000 vehicles off the production line; Mach Power's first hybrid SUV Hao extreme cold test; the first batch of E70 equipped with solid-state batteries successfully delivered; Infiniti returned to Dongfeng Nissan; coupled with frequent personnel changes, Dongfeng Company ushered in a series of adjustments and changes at the beginning of 2022.
Behind the changes is on the one hand to deal with the drastic changes in the automotive industry, on the other hand, to start towards a new goal.
"The operation maintains high quality, and the sales volume is challenging 4 million units." This is the goal set by Dongfeng Company for itself at the 2022 work conference recently. In the past year, Dongfeng's overall sales volume was 3.2753 million units, of which 2.5768 million units were sold for passenger cars and 698,500 units for commercial vehicles. From such a data comparison, it is not difficult to find that Dongfeng Company is still under a lot of pressure in 2022.
Frankly speaking, due to the impact of unfavorable factors such as the epidemic and lack of core, the development of Dongfeng Company in recent years has not been outstanding, but it has carried out substantial reforms, and the release of the "Oriental Wind Rising Plan" last year made people see the determination of Dongfeng Company to change, and such a change is mainly concentrated in the independent business sector.
Targeted and coordinated development
"By 2025, sales of commercial vehicles, autonomous passenger cars and new energy vehicles will reach 1 million each, and the scale of Dongfeng's own brands will enter the top three in the industry." "Dongfeng insists on taking advantage of both business and business, consolidating the leading edge of the first domestic brand in the commercial vehicle industry, focusing on building Lantu, Dongfeng Fengshen and high-end electric off-road brands." This is the planning goal in the Plan of Dongfang Fengqi, and it is also the beginning of Dongfeng Company's development towards a clearer goal by abandoning the influence of "Dongfeng Great Autonomy".
If from China's accession to the WTO, the car began to enter the homes of ordinary people, China's auto industry after a blindfold, crazy expansion of 20 years, of which the first ten years is the runway of the joint venture brand, Kia, Honda, Nissan and many other brands are at this time with Dongfeng to come together; after that, the independent brand with the "pull space, pile configuration" tactics to open a rapid catch-up decade.
In this context, Dongfeng Company has gradually extended a number of independent brands such as Fengshen, Scenery, Fengxing, Grace, and Venucia and Nazhijie, and the brand sequence of "Dongfeng Great Autonomy" has gradually taken shape.
"More children are good to fight" In the era of barbaric growth, there are more opportunities for brands, more brands mean that enterprises can open up a wider market space in a short period of time, coupled with the strong support of Dongfeng Company, "Dongfeng Great Autonomy" has developed quite rapidly, and the scenery is unlimited for a time.
However, with the intensification of the industry's internal volume, the barbaric growth has also brought no small problem. Take the "four winds", in the hot market state of the SUV, the wind god, the wind, the wind, the wind, the demeanor respectively launched AX7, 580, Jingyi X5, M5 and other products, not only the product overlap is quite high, and are hung Dongfeng "double flying swallow" LOGO, so that consumers are stupid and unclear, resulting in great internal friction.
In addition, since 2018, the auto market has returned to a range of slow growth or even decline, which has further aggravated the internal friction of the "four winds", thereby limiting the overall development of "Dongfeng Great Autonomy".
Dongfeng has also gradually realized such problems, which has led to the "Oriental Wind Rise" plan to focus on the creation of Fengshen, Lantu and high-end electric off-road vehicles. And Dongfeng demeanor has entered the history, popularity, scenery have also changed the standard, in their own direction of development, coupled with the launch of Nazhijie mainland, Venucia returned to Dongfeng Nissan, the original huge and complicated "Dongfeng great autonomy" gradually became clear.
In the "mass market", the wind god, wind and wind, wind and wind parallel, but each focus on each other does not interfere with each other, in the high-end market, with the help of the automotive industry to electrification transformation opportunities, focus on creating Lantu and high-end off-road vehicle brand, the previous situation of parallel internal consumption gradually turned into a high, medium, low and personalized pattern of mutual cooperation, which is quite beneficial to the development of the entire independent plate.
The results are the best proof.
In addition to lantu, which took 205 days to achieve 10,000 vehicle types of off the production line, the Dongfeng Fengshen, which focused on building, has also achieved rapid development. According to the data, the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Fengshen last year was 120,300 vehicles, an increase of 71.4% year-on-year, and the target of annual sales of 120,000 vehicles was successfully completed.
If the rapid growth of Fengshen is the result of Dongfeng's focus on building, then the growth of Fengxing and Fengguang largely shows that the strategy of "differentiated" development is a correct choice.
Although last year's results were good, the independent business sector still has a long way to go.
Not to mention the cumulative sales of 542,000 vehicles last year is far from the goal of 1 million sales of independent passenger cars in 2025, just in the case of the continuous intensification of the industry, how to create labels, wind, wind, and scenery, and constantly strengthen their own competitiveness, still testing the leaders' decision-making; in the case of Huawei, Xiaomi and many other technology companies to build cars, how Lantu highlights its own advantages to expand the competitive territory, it is also worth thinking about.
It starts with the product trapped in the brand
It is undeniable that in the torrent of China's auto market, any joint venture car company is doing a "choice of destiny" project. The powerless fled into the wilderness, the powerful became more powerful, and under this unchanging main theme, the joint venture of Dongfeng Company was more clearly interpreted.
Nissan, Honda, Kia, Citroen, Peugeot, Renault, Infiniti, Nazhijie, from the perspective of scale, Dongfeng has more international resources and foreign brands than other automobile groups, and once enjoyed the title of "the largest joint venture car enterprise in China". It's just that after the tide has faded, There are only a few joint venture brands that Dongfeng can leave and stand firm.
Counting the time, Dongfeng Company and the joint venture brand have been sonorous for nearly 30 years, reaching the top and twists and turns. Today, the only remaining Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda, DPCA automobile and Dongfeng Yueda Kia have become the last reliance of Dongfeng Company. Some time ago, it was also rumored that Dongfeng Company wanted to withdraw from Dongfeng Yueda Kia and DPCA's equity or adjustment, and everything came too suddenly and reasonably.
Last year, Dongfeng sold 2,576,800 passenger cars, of which 2,034,800 joint venture brand passenger cars were sold, accounting for nearly 79% of the share. Among the joint venture brands, Dongfeng Ri has 1,000,300 product brands, Dongfeng Honda has 761,900 units, Dongfeng Yueda Kia has 163,400 units, and Dongfeng Yueda Kia has 100,600 units.
For these four joint venture brands, what will be handed over in 2021 is a sad and heroic report card. Dongfeng Nissan almost stopped the threshold of one million vehicles; Dongfeng Honda fell 10.4% year-on-year; Dongfeng Yueda Kia fell 36.7% year-on-year; and Dongfeng Dongfeng Dongfeng Yueda Kia fell by 36.7% year-on-year; and Dongfeng Dongfeng Peugeot Automobile sold more than 10,000 vehicles in a single month for three consecutive months, completing the annual target of 100,000 units ahead of schedule.
As the old saying goes, "In a good situation, it is better than danger; in adversity, it is sad but stable." "At present, Dongfeng Company is indeed developing rapidly and has great potential for development, but the potential risks should not be underestimated, and products, policies, and markets may affect its future development." Especially at a time when the joint venture share ratio is open and the competition situation in the domestic automobile market is becoming more and more severe, Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda have become the last bastion.
With the push of the times, how to stay ahead of the challenge, for any car brand, the product is always the first. The highlight of Dongfeng Peugeot This year is inseparable from the blessing of Versailles, which finally understands the Chinese market, and has received its own rewards, and has driven the joint growth of the two major brands of Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen.
On the contrary, Dongfeng Nissan's all-new generation Of X-Trail, which was officially launched on July 30, did not find the glory of the previous X-Trail model because of the three-cylinder engine problem. The darkness of Qijun made Dongfeng Nissan passive a lot.
In terms of traditional business, with the gradual fierce competition in the market, Dongfeng Yueda Kia continues to decline, all participants in the Chinese auto market must understand one thing, no one wants to move forward in the twists and turns, but now must grow in the twists and turns. Dongfeng Company's heavy burden of challenging the target of 4 million vehicles in 2022 is on the heads of these joint venture brands.
What is the philosophy behind the success of the product? Is it technical or not? Obviously not, since BMW, Peugeot and Buick launched three-cylinder engines a few years ago, the Chinese automotive market has instinctively rejected this latest and most advanced technology in the field of internal combustion engines. Buick Yinglang broke the sand in China, and continued to use the four-cylinder engine after painfully thinking about it, and sales soared.
There is nothing wrong with the technology, and neither is the Chinese auto market. The momentum of the flood tide of the times makes everyone in the depths want to seize the trend of the times and grasp the brush of rewriting the rules of the game. But sometimes reality and ideals cannot be unified, which is the choice that Dongfeng Nissan has to face. With the advent of the era of electrification, there are more choices for joint venture brands.
Heroes start out of the grass
There is no doubt that China's auto market is moving towards a comprehensive competition with "electrification" as the core. Compared with Volkswagen Toyota's elephant turn, Nissan and Honda's electrification plans are not radical. But Nissan and Honda, which have distinct brand characteristics, have an absolutely deep historical precipitation, but in the Chinese auto market, they have to speed up.
In fact, Nissan's electrification technology is not weak. If you compare according to energy consumption, whether it is official data or private test data, from more to less, they are fuel vehicles, dual engines (sharp and hybrid), e-POWER, PHEV and BEV. It can be seen that nissan's e-POWER advantage is obvious compared to "two fields", but due to the late entry into the country, it is slightly passive in the state of squeezing "two fields" and unveiling independent brands.
What about between the "two fields"? In the sales table of the passenger association in December last year, the Toyota brand installed dual engine power for 11 models, while Honda only had 9 sharp hybrid models, and Dongfeng Honda only had 4 sharp hybrid models.
At this moment when new forces and new models are emerging in an endless stream and the trend of new energy is immediate, these two brands are obviously facing greater pressure and more arduous challenges, not to mention in the field of pure electric.
According to the data, the cumulative sales of the Volkswagen ID. series in China in 2021 were 70,600 vehicles, and Akio Toyoda also put up a battle of 15 new electric vehicles at the end of last year. Last year, BYD sold 590,000 new energy vehicles, and Tesla China sold 480,000 new vehicles. It can be seen that in the field of new energy, independent brands and wholly-owned brands each account for a share.
Where is the blank space left for the joint venture brand? Is it an electric product like BYD or a technology product like Tesla? The answer is unknown, the only thing that can be clear is that the capture of the market, the grasp of the product, the precision of marketing... The areas that I used to excel in, many of the methods that worked in the past, and the familiar layouts, did not work.
If there is good news, at least for now, no joint venture brand has set a successful sample in the field of electrification, which also happens to be an opportunity for Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda. According to the plan, Nissan will introduce Aria to the Chinese market in 2022, and the model e:N1, which undertakes the mission of Shaping Honda's new pure electric vehicle brand e:N, has also arrived.
When the electrified products representing the brand characteristics were released, Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda are currently in such a similar and so different situation. Dongfeng Nissan, which has a scale of one million vehicles for 7 years, needs more electrified products, and occupies every electrification market segment like it did in the fuel vehicle market before, acting as a moat for the brand to deepen the Chinese market.
The "dream" written by Soichiro Honda still stands at the entrance of the Honda Museum today, and it is this pursuit of dreams that gives Honda fans the belief in the internal combustion engine. When Dongfeng Honda resists the banner of electrification, it needs to find a way to fit its own and Honda, so that Honda's spirit and brand value can continue to be inherited, and Dongfeng Honda needs to give Honda fans a new harbor in the era of electrification.
The Chinese auto market is a real and terrible place, no matter how many highlight moments you have had before, once you are stuck in a certain stage, a steady stream of doubts will be mercilessly smashed. Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda, the two former strong families, are now also suffering from the pain of doubt, so when faced with obvious problems, whether they can take the initiative to adjust to their strengths and avoid weaknesses has become the beginning of a redemption.
At the crossroads of a turning point, all beings are equal. Whether in the field of traditional fuel vehicles or in this electrification revolution, only by maintaining sharpness and sharpness can we always stand at the forefront of the tide. Whether it is an independent brand or a joint venture brand, it has to find answers in the Chinese car market.
The market is always simple and rude to sell heroes, is Dongfeng Company difficult in 2021? In terms of sales alone, the answer is obvious. But this does not mean that Dongfeng Company, which has the spirit of the horse lantern and the spirit of the Reed Mat Shed, will stumble in the same place many times, and after many "breaks", a more robust Dongfeng company will be more vivid.