The domestic "small transparency" which was diss is secretly doing the top stream abroad

Coldplay Labs

2024-06-27 18:39Creators in the field of technology

The full text is 3899 words, and it takes about 12 minutes to read

Highlight the point

01Chery Automobile did not perform well in the domestic market, but it was warmly welcomed in foreign markets, and its export volume reached 253,000 units in the first quarter of 2024, surpassing BYD's export volume in 2023.

02Chery Automobile's main competitive advantage in foreign markets lies in its robust product quality and local improvements, such as power enhancement and sealing treatment for models in the desert areas of the Middle East.

03In addition, Chery Automobile also achieved freedom of transportation capacity and reduced the risk of trade friction through the acquisition of the bankrupt Wuhu shipyard.

04Despite the challenges faced in the domestic market, Chery Automobile still adheres to independent research and development, exporting core components such as engines, gearboxes, and chassis.

05However, Chery Automobile's high-end route in the domestic market has not yet succeeded, in contrast to the rise of domestic new energy.

Technical support is provided by Tencent Hybrid Model

There is a hurtful joke circulating in the automobile circle:

"It's impossible for a man to have both Land Rover and low self-esteem, unless you're driving a Chery Jaguar Land Rover Range Rover Evoque L."

In the past, Chery has always been the default representative of low-end domestic cars.

If you drive a BMW X5 and later change to Chery, then you are likely to be cricked behind your back, is it a bad mix.

In China, Chery is open and lacks face.

But abroad, Chery is a face-to-face.

A middle-class family in Mexico who likes to drive Chery to the United States for vacation.

The Brazilian president used the Tiggo 8 as a campaign car and used it to receive Musk.

Qatar's local tyrant opens Chery, which is similar to opening a BBA.

In the first quarter of 2024, Chery exported 253,000 units, a figure that exceeds BYD's export volume in 2023.

In the first five months of 2024, Chery exported 435,000 units, defending its position as the export champion of Chinese automakers.

Image courtesy of China Association of Automobile Manufacturers

As of 2023, Chery has ranked first in the export of Chinese brand passenger cars for 21 consecutive years.

When BYD's new energy vehicles are shuttling through crowded Europe.

Chery's fuel vehicles have long dominated the streets of the Middle East, Latin America, and Russia.

It can't be rolled up in China, but it is praised as a "magic car" abroad.

How does Chery secretly do the top stream outside?

01 The domestic "small transparent" is harvesting foreigners at a higher price

Chery has always given people the impression of three words: no impression.

It is like an outdated Internet celebrity, 20 years ago far ahead, 20 years later faded out of the rivers and lakes.

In 2003, the first generation of Chery QQ was launched. With its compact appearance and low price of less than 50,000 yuan, it became the domestic "little overlord" that dominated the small car market at that time.

As the first car in the lives of many post-80s generations, Chery QQ not only carries the memory of a generation.

It also once accounted for 80% of Chery's total sales, creating the sales myth of China's first independent automobile product.

In 2003, BYD had not yet started making cars, and Geely was still ranked behind Chery.

Chery, as the only seedling of a local independent brand, has relied on QQ for ten years.

Until one day, the mini car could not be sold, and the first generation of road Internet celebrities fell off the altar.

"Chery Chery, car repair queue" also spread among taxi drivers in Wuhu.

What we later learned was that Chery had never made a big hit in China.

What we don't know is that Chery has been secretly doing things abroad, and even carried out dimensional enhancement strikes:

Cars that can't be sold cheaply at home have become fragrant and sweet to sell abroad at a higher price.

Chery's double-standard pricing does not mean to look down on foreigners:

Arrizo 5 sold 60,000 in China and 112,500 abroad.

Tiggo 5X sells 7-90,000 yuan in China and more than 150,000 yuan in overseas sales.

Xingtu Lanyue sold less than 200,000 in China and 500,000 in Russia.

Tiggo 7 is sold for only 7-140,000 in China, and more than 260,000 in Russia.

According to the data, Chery sold 1.88 million vehicles in 2023, of which 937,000 were exported, accounting for 49.8% of the total sales, and overseas profits accounted for more than half.

The export business has become Chery's "cash cow".

Back in 1997.

In 1997, Chery was founded in Wuhu, Anhui Province. In 1999, the first Chery sedan rolled off the assembly line.

The price of the first batch of Fengyun sedans on the market is 88,000 yuan

At that time, no one could have predicted that Chery would soon become the first company to start exporting domestic cars.

In October 2001, less than nine months after the launch of Chery's first-generation Fengyun sedan, it was targeted by a Syrian car dealer.

After many inquiries, the Syrian car dealer finally learned that this was a Chery car produced in Wuhu, Anhui Province.

So he chased all the way from Beijing to the door of Wuhu Chery Company.

Yin Tongyue, then executive deputy general manager of Chery Automobile and now chairman of Chery Automobile, was on a business trip to Shanghai.

When the Syrian businessmen heard about it, they chased them to Shanghai without stopping.

Later, the two finally met in Shanghai, and one said wildly: "I want to import 200 vehicles." The other said, "No, I can only export you a maximum of 10 cars." ”

In the end, it took only 10 minutes for the first batch of 10 Chery Fengyun cars to go abroad, and Chery has since opened the Middle East market.

Later, Chery entered Iran, and then Chery sold its cars to more than 80 countries around the world.

In April 2024, Chery invited more than 3,000 overseas dealers and overseas media personnel to the Beijing Auto Show to warm up.

On the second day of the auto show media day, Chery also chartered a high-speed train and took more than 3,000 foreigners to Wuhu, Anhui Province to visit the base camp.

From the despised domestic small transparent to the wind and rain to go to sea, Chery seems to have just started another set of scripts reserved at the beginning.

02 Special forces go to sea and pick up leaks

Going overseas seems to be an insurance policy that Chery has prepared for itself a long time ago.

In the spring of 1997, in an abandoned shed in Wuhu, the masters laid the first pile for the construction of the factory.

Without the help of capital and no political support, Chery can go to sea smoothly mainly because it knows the Dafa of leakage earlier than others.

1. Go to low-potential countries to pick up leaks 

There is no car company that does not want to enter the U.S. market.

Toyota's exports are first penetrating from developed markets such as the United States and into developing markets.

But Chery is not Toyota, and it does not go to the United States because it doesn't like it, but because it can't get in. Chery's overseas thinking is similar to that of Hyundai Motor, starting with the less developed country market, and then adding up the developed market.

So Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Israel, Iraq, Ukraine, ...... Wherever there is chaos, Chery will go.

These countries lack their own auto industry, are highly dependent on imported cars, and the traditional auto giants there do not pay as much attention, so Chery can "take advantage of the situation".

Although picking up leaks in the third world, where giants can't sell, is not the highest ideal for car companies to export, it can at least maintain the original accumulation of exports.

Chery as a taxi in Damascus, Syria

Chery is popular in Iran

In 2009, Chery's research team arrived in devastated Iraq, but was blocked at a checkpoint.

The research team was held in a "small black room" for three hours, and the situation was extremely tense, with ambushes and explosions outside at any time.

Three hours later, the leaders of the checkpoint showed up and explained that they were from China and had come to Iraq to do market research.

However, the other party was still suspicious and refused to let him go.

It wasn't until he heard that the research team was from Chery Automobile and saw some Chery's documents and promotional materials that the other party's tone softened.

It turned out that the leader happened to have a Chery, and when he heard that this group of people was from Chery, the next interrogation turned out to be a Chery fan meeting.

Chery police car in Egypt

My mom didn't know Chery, but the Iraqi soldiers did.

In this way, Chery made a name for itself in the third world. And maintain the export rhythm of more than 100,000 units per year.

Until 2021.

Before 2021, European, South Korean, and Japanese brands dominated the Russian auto market.

After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2022, 50% of the production capacity of the Russian auto industry collapsed, and car companies in Japan, South Korea and Europe also withdrew.

Like a fisherman catching the sea alone when the tide goes out, Chery frantically picks up leaks on the beach after the tide recedes.

In 2020, Chery exported only 114,000 vehicles globally, but in the first quarter of this year alone, China exported 176,000 vehicles to Russia.

In 2021~2023, Chery's overseas sales will be 269,200, 451,300, and 937,100 respectively.

When Chery became a street fighter in Russia, Russia also became Chery's most important overseas market.

 2. Pick up leakage shipyards 

Some people say that car companies fight to go to sea, and what they fight is logistics costs.

In the past three years, the freight rate of automobiles and ships has skyrocketed.

This year, BYD spent 4.2 billion yuan to buy ships in order to export.

It is not cost-effective not to buy your own ship, because "when the freight is the most expensive, the price is even equivalent to the production of a car".

"Printing money at sea"

Back in 2007, some people questioned Chery's lack of business, but Chery still bought the nearly bankrupt Wuhu shipyard.

At that time, China's shipbuilding industry was not developed enough, there were no ocean-going ro-ro ships, and if you wanted to export, you had to look at the faces of Japanese and South Korean shipbuilders.

In addition, Chery sold 380,000 vehicles that year, of which 119,800 were overseas, and it is planned that the annual sales volume will reach 1 million units, and exports will account for 40%.

Although the actual sales volume was not as expected, Chery saw the return money after more than ten years by picking up the shipyard that year.

In 2023, Chery will cooperate with its Wuhu shipyard to build a car carrier construction base in Weihai.

The purpose is to build 6,000 car carriers and 80,000-ton Panamax bulk carriers in batches, which are expected to achieve an annual output value of 5 billion yuan after reaching production.

This is the key to Chery's freedom of capacity.

However, going to sea is not a sea rush after all, and it is not enough to pick up leaks.

As a technology maniac in Chinese car companies, we must give foreigners a little industrial shock.

03 Rely on localization to control foreigners

It is far ahead of domestic fuel vehicles

In 2021, the "Auto Business Daily" published such a story:

A Russian Chery owner bought a Tiggo four-wheel drive (2.4-liter engine) in 2007 and drove 200,000 kilometers without dropping a breakdown in 12 years.

For the first 100,000 kilometers there were no problems with the car. Later, the muffler broke first. At 160,000 kilometers, the bearings and shock absorbers were repaired. Then the engine began to stall, and he spent 35,000 rubles (more than 3,600 yuan) to overhaul the engine. The overhauled power performance is the same as that of the new engine.

Due to the heavier snow on the roads in Russia in winter, the chassis of the car has rusted. It was clanging to drive, but otherwise it was pretty good.

"The neighbor's contemporaries of the Russian own brand cars will be in worse condition." Car owners said that Chinese cars, such as Tiggo 7, are preferred when changing cars.

When you are still doubting the tap water, the tap water has spent real money to turn the Tiggo 7 into a magic car.

In 2023, Chery won the global sales championship of Chinese SUVs, and the Chery Tiggo series also won the global sales championship of Chinese brand fuel SUVs in 2023.

To achieve such results, is it only by the advantage of low prices? Of course not.

Ruggedness and durability are the same taste in these countries, but Chery's core competitiveness lies in its ability to make local improvements in the details.

It's like Transsion Mobile Phone has entered Africa by solving the problem of black selfies.

Sometimes the key to opening a market is just because you have made a very small incision to solve a very practical problem that others disdain to do.

For example: "How can I make my black friends look better in most light scenes?" ”

Chery may not be sure of the taste of the Chinese, but it is really hard to grasp the foreigners.

For example, the road conditions in South America are not good, there are many mountain roads, and many families live on the slopes, so the requirements for car power and starting are very high.

Chery has upgraded the power of vehicles exported to South America to improve acceleration and hill climbing performance.

In the Middle East, due to the desert terrain, sand particles floating in the air tend to accelerate the wear and tear of vehicle components.

Chery specializes in internal reinforcement and sealing of vehicles exported to the Middle East.

In 2001, Chery built a joint venture with Iran's SKT Company. Two years later, Chery Automobile was manufactured and sold in Iran using the CKD (Whole Component Assembly) method.

Chery became the first Chinese car company to build a factory overseas for export.

It bypasses tariff barriers, reduces the risk of trade frictions, liberates the pressure on transportation capacity, reduces manufacturing costs, and accelerates the transformation of localized production.

Of course, "exchanging technology for the market" has driven employment and boosted the economy, and the local government's hand is about to slap in pain.

Therefore, technology can be exchanged for money, and Chery happens to have deep technical genes.

When others are still buying technology from foreigners, Chery has begun to engage in pure independent research and development.

Chery can not only sell cars, but also export core components such as engines, gearboxes, and chassis.

In 2006, the first batch of 2,000 Chery engines was successfully exported to Generac in the United States.

After that, Chery engines were exported to Russia, India, and Germany, and even Japan, the representative of the engine class, bought Chery.

This has led to Chery's technical obsession getting deeper and deeper: when others are pushing the intelligent driving system of new energy, Chery is still studying what kind of engine can save two liters of fuel consumption.

Chery lives in the glory of fuel engine technology.

It's like a good teacher who used to stand on the podium and teach the principles of automobile construction, even in 4202, he was reluctant to replace his own oil car.

End

Other brands are "recognized in China, who are you abroad". Chery is full of flowers inside the wall, and the fragrance outside the wall.

But this is not to blame domestic consumers for not having a vision, after all, the domestic and foreign car markets are very different.

My second uncle doesn't look at anything else when he drives, only at fuel consumption, the fuel of the Middle East tycoon is cheaper than water, and he cares more about four-wheel drive performance than fuel consumption.

listed Chery's various quality scores, and in the end, only the Middle East, Latin America, and Russia turned chairs.

This is also Chery's embarrassment:

In foreign countries, Chery has conquered the traditional market, but it can't knock on the door of Europe and the United States.

In China, it is difficult to turn around after a long time on the low-end route, and it is difficult to make a Range Rover Evoque L and is ridiculed by the group.

When other car company bosses engage in marketing on Weibo and Douyin, they get closer to users.

Chery's marketing, forget it, forget it.

The lingering status quo is that it has been tinkering in traditional car-making factories for too long, and suddenly it has raised its head, and domestic new energy has been in full swing.

Did Chery do something wrong? It seems that nothing was wrong.

In this era, Chery is like a master with technical cleanliness, strictly abiding by the precepts of the era of fuel vehicles, and it seems so stubborn and out of place.

But who says this game is over now?

Whoever has made history once may create a second time.

View original image 233K

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•