Great Wall Motors: Where do you have the confidence to "flip the table"?

Car K-line

2024-06-27 14:47Creators in the automotive field

Introduction: The sales of many brands are declining, and in the increasingly volatile market competition, Great Wall Motors, which has a bottom line and adheres to long-termism, has compromises and changes.

On June 19, at the launch conference of the new generation of Haval H6, Li Ruifeng, CGO of Great Wall Motors, said, "The market competition in the automotive industry is like playing cards at the table together, and if you can't keep up, you can shout 'pass'." But if there are people on the table who are 'out of the old thousand', the Great Wall will issue an early warning, stand up and 'knock on the table' or even 'flip the table'! ”

However, in the face of the decline in sales of its many brands, where does Great Wall Motors have the confidence to lift the table?

On the evening of June 3, Great Wall Motors disclosed the latest production and sales data, in May, Great Wall Motors' production and sales were 94,400 and 91,500 respectively, down 6.75% and 9.51% year-on-year respectively.

"Image source: Great Wall Motor Production and Sales Express"

What is worrying is that, in addition to the Spring Festival holiday in February, this is the third consecutive month that Great Wall Motor's year-on-year sales growth rate has declined, and it has entered a negative growth mode in May.

The next day, Great Wall Motor's Hong Kong stock fell 10.96% to close at HK$12.18 per share; A shares fell 3.46% to close at 24.78 yuan per share.

However, with the signing of the "HUAWEI HiCar Integrated Development Cooperation Agreement" between Great Wall Motor and Huawei, and the launch of the new Haval H6, investors have become interested in Great Wall Motors again. As of June 26, Great Wall Motor's Hong Kong stocks and A shares closed at HK$12.52 per share and RMB25.48 per share respectively.

1) Five brands, four hindered legs

Judging from the sales performance in May, the Haval brand, WEY brand, Great Wall pickup, and Ora brand all pulled back in sales.

Specifically, as the pillar of Great Wall Motor's sales, the Haval brand, sales fell 15.35% year-on-year to 47,100 units in May, which is not only the second consecutive month of year-on-year decline in sales of the Haval brand, but also the decline increased by 5.38 percentage points from the previous month, which may be preparing for the replacement of the former "god car".

However, in the first five months, the cumulative sales of the Haval brand reached 252,000 units, still maintaining a year-on-year growth rate of 7.86%.

According to the data, in May this year, only the wholesale sales of Haval H6 exceeded 10,000 units and 15,400 units, while the wholesale sales of Haval Big Dog and Haval M6 were 5,776 and 3,420 respectively, and the sales of the remaining models on sale did not exceed 1,000 units.

As one of the important sectors that carry the banner of Great Wall Motor's sales, it is difficult for Great Wall pickup trucks to occupy an absolute dominance in the market as in the past under the intensification of market competition.

In the first five months of this year, the cumulative sales of Great Wall pickup trucks were 76,700, a year-on-year decrease of 10.93%; Sales in May were 15,100 units, down 18.83% year-on-year, which was the fourth consecutive month of negative sales growth for Great Wall pickup trucks.

As a high-end brand created by Great Wall Motors, the WEY brand is still not improving even if it is fully transformed into a new energy brand.

In the first five months of this year, the cumulative sales of the WEY brand were only 16,900 units, a year-on-year increase of 46.59% against the backdrop of last year's low base, but its average monthly sales were only 3,386 units, which is far from the average monthly sales of BYD Denza, Geely's high-end brand Lynk & Co, Zeekr, and Chery Xingtu.

In May alone, the sales volume of the WEY brand fell to 2,862 units, a year-on-year decline of 50.4%, leading all segments of Great Wall Motors.

As a new energy brand, the ORA brand was short-lived, and sales continued to decline. In response to what Wei Jianjun said at the shareholders' meeting, if you don't make money, you will do less or even don't do it.

In the first five months of this year, the cumulative sales of the ORA brand were 25,700 units, a year-on-year drop of 31.01%, the largest decline among the five sectors. Its sales in May were 6,005 units, a year-on-year decrease of 43.43%, second only to the WEY brand.

For those who make money, Wei Jianjun also said that he should do more and vigorously promote.

2) Only the tank carries the Great Wall Motor

Judging from May, only the tank brand is left to carry the banner of Great Wall Motor's sales growth.

In January ~ May this year, the cumulative sales of the tank brand were about 90,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 97.52%, and the sales contribution ratio increased to 19.49%, second only to the 54.6% of the Haval brand. In May this year, the sales volume of the tank brand was 20,300 units (second only to the 20,500 units in April), a year-on-year increase of 94.9%.

Today, the tank brand has achieved full coverage of the off-road SUV market of 200,000 ~ 700,000 yuan, with a rich product matrix, relying on the Hi4-T hybrid system specially built for off-road products, and quickly realizing the transformation of new energy.

Driven by the tank brand, Wei brand, Haval, pickup truck and other brands are also speeding up in new energy, 1~5 months this year, the cumulative sales of Great Wall Motor's new energy was 106,300 units, a year-on-year increase of 59.98%.

In terms of going overseas, in January ~ May this year, Great Wall Motor's overseas sales reached 163,400 units, a year-on-year increase of 65.18%, 40.85% of the overseas sales target of "400,000 units", and 32.68% of the challenge of 500,000 units.

However, in order to achieve the overseas target of 500,000 units, it means that in the next seven months, Great Wall Motor's overseas sales will reach an average of 48,100 units per month.

Since the beginning of this year, Great Wall Motor's overseas average monthly sales have been 32,700 units, and the EU's tariffs on China's imported electric vehicles are on the verge of imminent action, which is very unfavorable to China's electric vehicle exports, including Great Wall Motors.

Because of this, Great Wall Motors will face challenges in overseas markets next.

3) Compromise and conversion

In order to cope with the increasingly volatile market competition and environment, Great Wall Motors has to make compromises while changing.

It is worth mentioning that Great Wall Motor and Huawei recently signed the "HUAWEI HiCar Integrated Development Cooperation Agreement".

According to the agreement, Great Wall Motor will be the first batch of automotive companies to obtain in-depth development resources such as HUAWEI HiCar product source code and development tools. This can not only greatly enhance Great Wall Motor's independent research and development capabilities in handcar interconnection and other products, but also provide strong technical support for the rapid iteration of more intelligent automotive products.

At present, the third-generation smart space system based on the cooperation between the two parties, Coffee OS 3, has been officially unveiled.

In addition, Great Wall Motor is testing the waters of the direct sales model, and plans to achieve the opening of 200+ retail centers by the end of the year, adapting to the sales characteristics of high-end brands and improving sales efficiency.

Of course, in addition to a series of measures and changes, Great Wall Motors has also made compromises.

As Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, said, "In principle, Great Wall Motors sticks to the bottom line in the fierce competition, and we also call it bottom-line thinking; Long-termism, play our longboard. Great Wall Motors has something to do and does not do, and the loss is particularly serious, we will moderately reduce sales, give full play to our long board, and we will vigorously promote it if we do not lose money, slight loss or relatively high profits. ”

And the ORA and WEY brands may be Great Wall Motors' compromise with reality and the market. After all, whether it is the Wei brand with low sales or the Ora brand with declining sales, at the beginning of brand building, which is not pinned on high hopes. In particular, the Wei brand named after Wei Jianjun's surname is even more expected.

However, for the declining Haval brand and pickup truck segment, especially the sales pillar Haval brand, its sales are declining, more due to the decline of Haval H6 and the disconnection of marketing work.

It is noteworthy that the Haval H6, which has been crowned the "national god car" and set a record of more than 100 monthly sales champions, has experienced a significant decline in market performance in the past year, not only handing over the sales crown, but even selling less than 10,000 units in a single month, falling out of the top ten in the SUV sales list.

In the face of the decline of the Haval H6 and the Haval brand, Wei Jianjun bluntly criticized the marketing strategy of the Haval H6, and pointed out that the relevant marketers lack user thinking and market sensitivity.

Wei Jianjun's bitter criticism of Haval marketing workers not only shows Great Wall Motor's humble attitude of admitting, reflecting and correcting in the face of shortcomings, but also shows Great Wall Motor's determination to reverse the status quo of the Haval brand.

Today, Wei Jianjun has set an example and taken the lead in marketing reform, and the former "handle" player Haval H6 ushered in the launch of a new generation of models, coupled with the use of "direct + dealer" dual sales model on the channel to directly connect with customers, whether the Haval brand can take advantage of this to start a sales turnaround, it is worth looking forward to.

It is gratifying that Great Wall Motor's performance in the first quarter of this year is quite outstanding, with operating income soaring 47.6% to 42.86 billion yuan, and net profit attributable to the parent company soaring 1752.55% to 3.228 billion yuan.

Combined with Great Wall Motor's current sales structure, as well as Wei Jianjun's strategy of reducing or cutting loss-making businesses and vigorously promoting money-making businesses, Great Wall Motor's sales performance in the first half of this year may not be much improved, but its profit performance is very worth looking forward to.

As a listed company, it has considerable profit performance, and in the author's opinion, it can also become the "confidence" of Great Wall Motors.

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