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Whether it is the Japanese side or the Chinese side, if they want to save Infiniti from water and fire, they are afraid that they have more than enough heart and insufficient strength.
Author: Nan Ge
For any car company, being able to successfully launch its own luxury brand can play a great role in boosting the brand image and profitability, just like Audi to Volkswagen, Lexus to Toyota, and even Lynk & Co to Geely.
However, there is such a brand, but it is "the opposite", in the case of already having a certain market foundation, it actually dug its own city wall, intending to pull its own luxury brand down to the height of ordinary brands. I'm sure you all know who I'm talking about, yes, Nissan and Infiniti.
Infiniti and Dongfeng Nissan "merge"
Yesterday, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. issued a statement through official channels:
"Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. (DFL) today 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 other words, Dongfeng Infiniti will become a sub-brand of Dongfeng Nissan, which also means that in addition to Nissan and Venucia, Dongfeng Nissan Business Unit will have a third brand. At the same time, Dongfeng Infiniti's history as an independent joint venture car company will also come to an end.
This "historic" change is obviously caused by two major reasons: First, Dongfeng Infiniti's sluggish sales in recent years are no longer enough to support its continued development as an independent joint venture brand. The second is related to the overall strategy of the Japanese product brand, as early as the previous year, Infiniti executives had said in public that Infiniti would be transformed into a "Nissan Plus" in order to attract more consumers.
Sluggish sales
According to the data released by the Association of Automobile Manufacturers, Infiniti's cumulative sales from January to November 2021 are less than 10,000 vehicles, which is still a huge decline of 65% compared with the same period in 2020, which is known as the "cold winter of the car market". While major brands are warming up in 2021, this Japanese luxury brand has not been able to stop the decline.
As a very "young" joint venture brand, Dongfeng Infiniti was officially established in 2014 and launched the Q50L extended sedan and SUV model QX50. The freshness of the market and the reputation brought by the old Infiniti imported models in the past have brought quite good sales to Dongfeng Infiniti, but their subsequent localization process is quite slow.
Until 2018, the official replacement of QX50, Dongfeng Infiniti can be regarded as the real significance of launching its third domestic model in the Chinese market, and at this time, the competition in the second-tier luxury brand market has become extremely fierce, only an old Q50L and a new generation of QX50 Dongfeng Infiniti, the presence in the market is becoming lower and lower.
At the same time, Infiniti's imported model QX60 was exposed to transmission quality problems at the 315 party next year, which once again pushed this marginal brand into the public eye. What's even more tragic is that after this hard-won quelling, Infiniti, who wanted to use the localization of a new generation of QX60 to fight a turnaround battle, asked Wang Lihong as the spokesperson for the new car... It took less than 48 hours from the official announcement to the termination of the contract, and this "car endorsement flash mob" made Infiniti once again a victim of negative news.
Is the Nissan Plus project the culprit?
In mid-2020, Infiniti's global COO (Chief Operating Officer) said that due to the continuous decline in global sales, Infiniti is seeking a new market positioning, and Infiniti will use more technologies and platforms from Nissan in the future, and face consumers as "Nissan Plus".
Under the influence of the overall strategy of the brand, the Chinese market, which has become a chicken rib, has naturally become infiniti's first place to "open the knife". However, while major luxury brands are trying to clear their relationship with ordinary brands, Infiniti's approach will obviously only further damage its brand appeal.
Loss of attractiveness is the trigger
In fact, in the past, Infiniti models have a certain unique charm, large displacement self-priming and advanced design is also the biggest attraction of this brand. Of course, this also has a lot to do with its original luxury brand for the US market.
However, with the establishment of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance and the takeover of the new chairman Ghosn, known as the "cost killer", this practice of creating an independent platform for niche models and spending a lot of money is obviously unacceptable, so we can also see that Infiniti's models slowly begin to appear green and yellow. At the same time, some new cars, such as Q50L, QX30, etc., have also begun to choose to cooperate with other brands to build, and the new QX50 has also switched to a lower cost horizontal front-drive platform, and with the resistance of emission policies to large-displacement engines, this once unique brand in the market has slowly become invisible.
After localization, the last trace of halo on Infiniti's head has also faded, and they can only watch Lexus, which was once a Japanese luxury brand, harvest the Chinese market at a high price, while they only have to watch the lively share.
China also wants to "open source and reduce expenditure"
However, in addition to Infiniti's own problems, Dongfeng Group's recent "open source throttling" will also be an important force to promote the merger of the two major brands. Previously, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. had seven divisions - Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Venucia, Dongfeng Infiniti, Dongfeng Motor, Zhengzhou Nissan, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. Equipment Company and Dongfeng Motor Parts Co., Ltd.
With the merger of Venucia and Infiniti into Dongfeng Nissan, the seven business units have now been reduced to five. In addition, in the operation of other joint venture brands, Dongfeng is also constantly reducing the scale, first terminated the cooperation with Renault, and at the end of last year, it parted ways with Yueda Kia, all indications show that after experiencing the previous expansion, the current Dongfeng Group has put more energy into streamlining operations and wants to abandon those brands that have become baggage.
Infiniti's China executive Gao Zhenghao once said that the Chinese market is Infiniti's most important development area, and Infiniti also needs to speed up the introduction of new products, but in fact, clear-eyed people can see that whether it is the Japanese side or the Chinese side, if you want to save Infiniti in the water and fire, I am afraid that it is more than enough and insufficient.
At the moment when electrification and intelligence are sweeping the automotive market, Infiniti will seize the opportunity to achieve a salted fish turnover, or it will be left behind by the train of the times, perhaps in 2022.
(Some image source network)
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