Infiniti "homecoming", whether Dongfeng Nissan can alleviate the "new member" dilemma

Following Dongfeng Venucia, Dongfeng Infiniti also returned to Dongfeng Nissan. On January 5, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfeng Limited") announced that Dongfeng Infiniti will be included in Dongfeng Nissan's management system as an independent business headquarters. This is not the first time that Dongfeng Nissan has adjusted its structure, and when Dongfeng Venucia, which has been "flying alone" for many years, is included in the dongfeng Nissan company in 2020, the ownership of Infiniti's joint venture in China has attracted much attention.

Today, with the incorporation of Dongfeng Infiniti into dongfeng Nissan's management system, Dongfeng Nissan, which has three brands, will further expand its market share. However, in the eyes of industry insiders, in the past two years, Dongfeng Infiniti has gradually fallen behind in the luxury camp, and this adjustment is not unrelated to its downturn, Dongfeng Nissan wants to further expand the market, how to help Dongfeng Infiniti to solve the difficulties has become the key.

Liu Xiaomeng/Photo

Dongfeng Nissan's "New Brand"

With an official announcement, the Rumors of infiniti's attribution of the Infiniti brand to Dongfeng Nissan came true.

In 2006, Infiniti entered the Chinese market as an import. In 2014, its joint venture in China, Dongfeng Infiniti, was established, which and Dongfeng Nissan belong to Dongfeng Limited.

The announcement shows that Infiniti will become the third brand under Dongfeng Nissan. This is consistent with Dongfeng Nissan's spirit of promoting the development of strategic business, achieving high-quality operations and further promoting the development of Infiniti's career in China. After the integration and synergy, Dongfeng Nissan, which has three major brands, Nissan, Venucia and Infiniti, 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.

It is worth noting that from April 2021, the news of Infiniti's organizational adjustment in China has come out. At that time, it was rumored that Infiniti in China would lay off the existing four sales region divisions, and the four regions would be split into more than 10 small areas to implement more refined management of the market. At the same time as the organizational adjustment, Infiniti China headquarters will also move to Guangzhou to "converge" with Dongfeng Nissan Corporation. At the same time, Dongfeng Infiniti will be downgraded to the division of Dongfeng Nissan.

However, in response to the above news, Infiniti said at the time that in the future, Dongfeng Infiniti will work with employees to face industry challenges together. In order to better coordinate with Dongfeng Nissan, individual departments will go to Guangzhou to work, but the headquarters is still in Beijing, and there are no merger plans at present.

"Judging from previous rumors, Dongfeng Limited and Infiniti have made a number of preparations for the adjustment before the official announcement." Yan Jinghui, a member of the expert committee of the China Automobile Dealers Association, said that at the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, Dongfeng Nissan and Venucia brand jointly participated in the exhibition for the first time, which has released a clear signal of "Dongfeng Nissan" to the public. After Venucia, Infiniti was included in the management of dongfeng Nissan system, that is, Dongfeng Limited wanted to further enlarge Dongfeng Nissan. For Dongfeng Nissan, with the addition of the Infiniti brand, it has also completed the layout of high, medium and low brands, as well as the full coverage of various market segments, which can further seize market share.

In view of how to adjust Dongfeng Infiniti's channels and personnel after being included in dongfeng Nissan's management system, the Beijing Business Daily reporter contacted Infiniti and had not received a reply as of press time.

Administration is just the beginning

Although the addition of the Infiniti brand has given Dongfeng Nissan a luxury positioning brand, the first thing to solve if it wants to further expand the market is the problem of the Infiniti brand falling behind.

At the beginning of localization, Infiniti set a target of 100,000 vehicles sold in China by 2028, and its Chinese models accounted for more than half, but the sales volume of the joint venture company has not exceeded the 50,000 mark since its establishment. In the first 10 months of 2021, Dongfeng Infiniti sold only 6433 vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 65.3%.

While the Infiniti brand is in a slump in sales in China, China's luxury car market is strengthening year by year, and the data shows that in the first 11 months of 2021, the domestic luxury car market sales were 3.112 million units, an increase of 19.5% year-on-year.

The shrinking sales volume of infiniti brands in China is not unrelated to the slow pace of product advancement. Since its domestic production in 2014, Infiniti has only had two domestic models, Q50L and QX50, to support overall sales. It wasn't until the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show that Infiniti released the all-new QX60. Competitor Cadillac has already laid out three cars, CT4, CT5, CT6 and XT4, XT5, XT6 three SUVs. The slow introduction of new models has become one of the reasons restricting the development of Dongfeng Infiniti.

In order to alleviate the dilemma of the Infiniti brand, the announcement mentioned that after the Infiniti brand is included in the management system of Dongfeng Nissan, it will make full use of the advantages of the DFN whole value chain in research and development, manufacturing and management, from planning to execution, to explore new travel business models, contribute to Infiniti's electrification, autonomous driving, mobile Internet and shared mobility services, and further explore opportunities in the luxury car market. At the same time, a new round of product introduction by Infiniti, which is led by the new QX60 and others in 2022, will further meet the needs of Chinese consumers for luxury brands.

However, for the layout of the Infiniti brand, the industry still maintains a wait-and-see attitude. In fact, when rumors were circulating, the industry had speculated that Dongfeng Nissan would help Infiniti readjust the price of new products in order to open the market as soon as possible. Then, as the key to Infiniti's breakthrough, Infiniti QX60 gave a pre-sale price of 450,000-660,000 yuan, and after the pre-sale price was announced, there were netizen comments: too expensive!

From the data point of view, the Infiniti QX60 is 5127mm, 2005 mm and 1767 mm respectively. Cadillac XT6 is 5050 mm in length, width and height, 1964 mm and 1777 mm, respectively, and is priced at 392,700-552,700 yuan, and the terminal discount is about 50,000 yuan. The Lexus RX is 4890 mm, 1895 mm and 1710 mm in length, width and height, and the 2.0T is priced at 405,000-585,000 yuan. In contrast, in terms of body size, the Infiniti QX60 is slightly larger than the Lexus RX and Cadillac XT6. But in terms of price and brand power, Infiniti QX60 is difficult to take advantage of.

In addition, the transformation of Nissan's electrification is also generally considered to be slow. At present, Toyota, Volkswagen and other brands have launched new pure electric brands in China, and the products have gradually landed. On the other hand, Nissan's pure electric products in China are still based on the pure electrification of Dongfeng Nissan's existing models. Industry insiders believe that the Infiniti brand that has been deeply cultivated in the Chinese market for many years cannot give up its layout in China, but it is difficult to rely on its own brand. After returning to Dongfeng Nissan, it can reduce costs with the help of its shared technology production line. But this is only the first step, how to get consumers to re-accept the Infiniti brand, accelerate the landing of new products, electrification transformation, is still Dongfeng Nissan, Nissan Automobile and Dongfeng Limited need to think about the problem.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Liu Xiaomeng