As the world's largest automotive market, China's strategic position is beyond doubt for foreign brands. But BMW is still one of the few who are willing to call China "home."
On December 16, BMW held the 2022 "New Year Online Annual Meeting", which described the company's Strategic Upgrade in China with the emotional theme of "Home in China".
In the video, Mr. Gao Le, President and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, begins by riding a grounded "shared bicycle" to visit Beijing's hutongs. With the courtyard, plaques and couplets with Chinese characteristics emerging in front of you, this BMW family banquet can be described as the ultimate interpretation of traditional Chinese culture.
At the annual meeting, the BMW Group said that in the future, it will maintain synergy between its corporate strategy and China's development goals, uphold the principle of "China first", give priority to the needs of the Chinese market in the development of new products, and continuously strengthen the co-creation of win-win results with Chinese partners. Looking ahead to 2025, the BMW Group will accelerate its electrification, digitalization and sustainable development in China, and maintain the same frequency with China.
In just 102 words, the number of mentions of "China" reached 6 times, which fully demonstrated the BMW Group's determination to strengthen its counterparts with China. As Dr. Peter, BMW Group's Director of Global Finance, puts it: "Every time I come to this great country, I feel like I'm coming home. Because it's full of energy and countless family-like partners."
"China First", electric product combination punch
"China first" means maintaining strategic synergy with the world while maintaining sufficient independence to respond quickly to market changes. That is to say, in the product concept stage, BMW will give priority to and fully consider the needs of Chinese customers. Judging from its successful cases in the field of fuel vehicles, the strategy of deepening "China first" in the process of electrification is even more exciting.
According to the data, in the first 11 months of this year, the BMW Group delivered more than 42,000 new energy vehicles in the Chinese market, an increase of nearly 66% year-on-year. Among them, the domestic new BMW iX3 is expected to sell up to 20,000 vehicles this year. This is a good start compared to the other two competing models in the BBA lineup.
Today, Shenyang has become one of the three major new energy vehicle production bases of the BMW Group in the world, and the iX3 produced by the base meets the supply of the domestic market while also feeding back a number of overseas markets. This also proves that the position of the Chinese market in the global strategy of the BMW Group has been greatly improved.
By 2022, the BMW brand plans to bring five pure electric models to Chinese users, including the innovative BMW iX, the innovative BMW i4, and the pure electric BMW 3 Series. By the end of 2023, the BMW Group's pure electric products in the Chinese market can be increased to 13 models. In particular, the "new generation" models that the BMW Group will release in 2025 will be the key to BMW's delivery of 10 million pure electric vehicles in the next 10 years, according to Gaole.
Digital innovation, the road with Chinese characteristics
"China has become a global leader in electric vehicles and a key driver of digitalization, with the ideal environment and excellent partners to drive transformation." Dr. Peter believes that China's movement will lead the way in the world.
At present, the BMW Group has established the largest R&D and digitalization system outside Germany in the Chinese market, and has established R&D and digitalization bases in Beijing, Nanjing, Shanghai and Shenyang, fully penetrating into all related fields such as R&D, production, vehicle intelligence and digital services.
In the field of manufacturing, BMW Brilliance's digital factory can be called a model of "Industry 4.0" technology application, which integrates innovative technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, 5G technology and Internet of Things, making the entire manufacturing process more efficient and flexible, and leading the future development prospects of the automotive industry.
In terms of digital development, the BMW Group has set up the "Digital Vehicle" division and the "Lingyue Digital Information Technology Co., Ltd." respectively, which are responsible for integrating all digital-related departments and businesses such as automatic driving and intelligent interconnection, as well as opening up vertical parallel business segments and online and offline user experience.
In order to actively integrate into China's digital ecology, BMW Group has also cooperated with more local Chinese technology companies to make it easy to get on the car with more Chinese characteristics such as Himalaya Mini Programs, Watermelon Video and WeChat Car Edition; at the same time, BMW Group has also launched the My BMW App to better understand customer feedback and provide users with a more convenient and pleasant service experience. It is not difficult to see that BMW's digital innovation road is full of "Chinese flavor".
Explore sustainable pathways
It is no exaggeration to say that "home in China" is not only the emotional talk of the leaders of the BMW Group, but also a true portrayal of bmw's continuous promotion of localization since it entered China.
As we all know, China has clearly put forward the "double carbon" goal, and bmw group is also the first German car company to join the 1.5 degree temperature control target of the Paris Agreement. But the BMW Group's sustainability strategy goes far beyond electric vehicles, focusing on carbon emission reduction throughout the life cycle of the vehicle from supply chain, production, use to recycling.
In June this year, BMW held the first BMW Group Sustainable Development China Summit in Beijing, and jointly launched the "Green Transformation Initiative for the Industrial Chain" with partners and suppliers. In addition, from this year onwards, all production sites of the BMW Group will realize the production of renewable energy power supply, and jointly establish a power battery management system with partners to realize the greening and traceability of power battery production.
In 2021, BMW Brilliance once again ranked first in the "Green Development Index of Automobile Enterprises" and won the honor of "National Green Demonstration Factory" for the fourth consecutive year. Electrification and digitalization go hand in hand, and we strive to explore ways of sustainable development. This echoes Mr. Gao Le's couplet at the end of the annual meeting: the upper link "Blue Sky and White Clouds Are Always There", the lower link "Green Water and Green Mountains are Beautiful", and the horizontal batch "Home in China".
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Deeply rooted in the Chinese market for many years, China has long become the "second hometown" of the BMW Group. The localization strategy from "in China, for China" to "China first, home in China" is enough to witness the importance that the BMW Group attaches to the Chinese market, which is its deepest and longest commitment in the Chinese market.
Before BMW, no foreign brand could form such a close relationship with China, which may be the reason for BMW's repeated success in the Chinese automotive market. In the first three quarters of this year, the BMW Group delivered 669637 BMW and MINI vehicles in the Chinese market, an increase of 19.6% year-on-year. If there is no accident, it will lock in the throne of China's luxury brand sales crown in advance, and become a model for Chinese and foreign car companies to advance together, develop together and create a win-win situation.
When BMW installs its "home" in China, a new situation may come.