Following the spokesperson Wang Lihong's "thunderstorm", Infiniti has once again attracted attention. As the only luxury joint venture brand under Dongfeng Motor Group, due to the continuous sluggish market performance, it has decided to lower its posture and promote recovery.
On January 5, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. (DFL) announced that Dongfeng Infiniti (DFI) will be included in dongfeng Nissan's (DFN) management system as an independent business headquarters, and together with Nissan and Venucia brands, Infiniti will become DFN's third brand.
In fact, the rumors of Infiniti's Chinese headquarters "going south" and merging into Dongfeng Nissan have been rumored in April this year, although Infiniti has previously stated that there is no merger plan, but Infiniti's decline in the consumer market is an indisputable fact. As Infiniti's global market shrinks, independent brand development is a costly investment for both Nissan and Infiniti.
Sales have fallen continuously, and the pressure of independent operation is high
Earlier, after the success of the North American market, Infiniti began to expand globally and listed the Chinese market as Infiniti's key market. In 2012, Infiniti moved its headquarters to Hong Kong, China to achieve brand independence and internationalization.
After the establishment of the Dongfeng Infiniti joint venture in 2014, it set a goal to achieve annual brand sales of 100,000 vehicles in 2018. In the first year of localization in 2014, Infiniti's sales increased to 30,000 vehicles, ushering in the first growth peak. In 2015, it continued to grow by 33%, the second fastest growth rate of luxury car brands.
Unfortunately, since then, Dongfeng Infiniti's sales have not been able to exceed 40,000 vehicles.
From 2016 to 2020, Dongfeng Infiniti sold 17,415 units, 20,164 vehicles, 19,114 vehicles, 10,820 vehicles and 8,951 vehicles, respectively. From January to November this year, Dongfeng Infiniti's cumulative sales of only 7691 vehicles, down 64.7% year-on-year. That is to say, the average monthly sales of Dongfeng Infiniti are now less than 700 vehicles.
Looking at the overall market background of luxury cars, the data shows that in the first 11 months of this year, the domestic luxury car market sales were 3.112 million units, an increase of 19.5% year-on-year, outperforming the market. Among them, Cadillac, which belongs to the second-tier luxury brand camp with Infiniti, sold 187,000 vehicles in the first 10 months of this year, an increase of 4.68% year-on-year.
An insider at Infiniti said. Infiniti's return to the Dongfeng Nissan system is due to a number of reasons. On the one hand, the market performance in China continues to be sluggish, and if it continues to operate as an independent joint venture, the cost is large; secondly, this is also related to Nissan's strategic adjustment in the world.
Dongfeng Limited said that Infiniti will make full use of the advantages of the DFN value chain in research and development, manufacturing and management, from planning to execution of seamless connections, explore new travel business models, contribute to Infiniti in electrification, autonomous driving, mobile Internet and shared mobility services, and further explore opportunities in the luxury car market.
After the integration and synergy, DFN, which owns nissan, Venucia and Infiniti brands, will focus on the high-quality development of the passenger car business, optimize the organizational and cost structure, improve decision-making and operational efficiency, strengthen corporate governance, and provide Chinese consumers with diversified products and technologies. In 2022, Infiniti's new round of product introduction, led by the new QX60 and others, will further meet the needs of Chinese consumers for luxury brands.
It should be noted that while Infiniti's development in China is in a downturn, Infiniti's global market performance is not optimistic.
According to the data, Infiniti's global sales in 2018 were 230,000 vehicles, down 5.2% year-on-year. Meanwhile, Infiniti sold 149,000 units in the United States, the world's largest single market, in 2018, down 2.7 percent year-over-year, and sales fell 218,000 units in 2019, down 21 percent year-over-year.
As sales declined, Infiniti made a series of personnel adjustments. In May 2019, Christian Monière, who had been Infiniti's president for only four months, announced his resignation. In the Chinese market, Dongfeng Infiniti also changes coaches frequently. After leaving Dai Lei to build a car, Lu Yi, general manager of Dongfeng Infiniti Automobile Co., Ltd. and general manager of Infiniti China, left his post in December 2018, and his tenure was less than 3 years.
Localization is not a panacea, close to the market is the key
Although the global market is facing shrinkage, the industry generally believes that Infiniti, which has been working in the Chinese market for many years, cannot give up its layout in China, but relying on its own brand is not enough to turn over, and it will not be a good way to return to Dongfeng Nissan as its high-end brand?
Che Yunxin believes that from the past, the main reason why Infiniti has not been able to achieve sales increase through localization is the lack of market foundation, it is difficult to achieve a surge in the short term, and it is difficult to have new models introduced without subsequent increments, and then it cannot keep up with the rhythm of market updates.
Since the domestic production in 2014, Infiniti only has two domestic models, Q50L and QX50, to support the overall situation, and such a product line obviously cannot support Infiniti's domestic market. It wasn't until this year's Guangzhou Auto Show that Infiniti released the all-new QX60.
During this period, the first-line luxury brand BBA and the second-tier luxury brands such as Cadillac, Volvo, and Lexus continued to introduce new models, and Dongfeng Infiniti, which has not updated the product matrix for a long time, has also begun to enter the brand downturn.
Taking Cadillac, a competitor of the second-tier luxury camp, as an example, it has laid out three models of CT4, CT5 and CT6 in the sedan market, and XT4, XT5 and XT6 in the SUV market. Even Lincoln, which was later in localization, has gradually found a sense of existence, and in the past year this year, The cumulative sales of Changan Lincoln have approached 100,000 units, reaching 91,621 units, an increase of 48% year-on-year.
Industry analysts pointed out that if the sales volume of luxury brands continues to be sluggish before localization, they should start from their own brands and products to find the reasons why they do not adapt to the Chinese market, rather than relying only on localization to solve all problems, otherwise even if localization is realized, products may not be able to meet the market.
And this is also the case, Lexus, Infiniti, Acura, respectively, as the Three Major Brands representatives of Japanese car companies Toyota, Nissan and Honda to impact the luxury car market. It has landed in the Chinese market at an adjacent time, and now the situation has become polarized.
It should be said that before localization, foreign brands in the Chinese market were blocked, in addition to the price and brand factors, a large reason is also due to the lack of understanding of the Chinese market, resulting in products that do not meet the market demand. However, in the process of localization, the dominant product technology is still foreign, so localization is not equivalent to the localization of product demand, and it is not surprising that the phenomenon of "water and soil dissatisfaction" appears.
Can Infiniti be reborn after returning to Dongfeng Nissan?
Che Yunxin believes that the key depends on the model of cooperation between the two sides, if it is only to reduce Infiniti's operating costs, then the stimulation effect on its sales may be limited. However, after returning to Dongfeng Nissan, on the one hand, it is possible to share the technical production line to reduce cost development and launch more competitive price products. On the other hand, with the help of Dongfeng Nissan's marketing network, Infiniti has expanded its sales channels and increased sales. In this way, the current merger may be a feasible solution.
However, how to maintain Infiniti's brand tone and product positioning after the merger requires attention. After all, as a second-tier brand, it is in the gap between first-line luxury brands and high-end joint venture brands to survive, and it should actively cater to the domestic market in terms of products, prices, and marketing, and form brand labels. And these are the lack of second-tier luxury brands such as Infiniti, Acura and DS.