Jetta's three years of independence: for two consecutive years, sales did not meet expectations, and the image was thrown away by its own brand

Economic Observation Network reporter Gao Feichang, as a jetta that has been upgraded from a classic national model to an independent brand and hopes to form a "dimensionality reduction blow" for China's own brands from top to bottom, is currently suffering unprecedentedly.

According to the official sales data of FAW-Volkswagen for the whole year of 2021, the Jetta brand sold 169,012 vehicles in terminals throughout the year. This result is more than 30,000 vehicles worse than the 200,000 vehicles expected by Volkswagen China CEO Feng Sihan at the beginning of 2021. At that time, Feng Sihan said that he hoped that Jetta could maintain more than 1% of the market share, that is, to achieve annual sales of about 200,000 vehicles.

When the Jetta first announced its independence three years ago, Volkswagen had higher goals. In February 2019, jetta as a new sub-brand of Volkswagen Group unveiled at the German headquarters, FAW-Volkswagen foreign executives told the Economic Observer Network reporter: "The Jetta brand will sell at least 400,000 vehicles / year in 2021 after three years. This doesn't seem like much difficulty for the young Jetta brand. ”

With a target of 400,000 vehicles and less than 170,000 vehicles, the Jetta brand has experienced the embarrassment of going from being anticipated to being cold in the market.

Of course, in 2020 and 2021, China's auto market will continue to be plagued by the epidemic and chip shortages, and the overall market performance will be sluggish. But this is only an external reason affecting the performance of the Jetta brand market. Jetta itself, after launching three cars in one go at the beginning, seems to have come to a standstill ever since.

The market heat is cooling down rapidly

An important reason why jetta chose independence is the prestige of the old jetta in the Chinese market. As a classic model, the Jetta is a generation of Chinese people's memories of cars. In 2018, before independence, the Jetta was the highest-selling model for FAW-Volkswagen, with cumulative sales of 327,700 units that year. The suspension of a model with an annual sales volume of more than 300,000 yuan and its independence into a brand is the strategic layout of FAW-Volkswagen in order to compete for the young market and connect with its own high-end "short soldiers".

In fact, upgrading a model to a single brand is not without precedent in the automotive industry, such as Citroën's DS, which also uses the high-end car series DS as a brand building. But the results are not ideal. At that time, no matter from which point of view, the Jetta had independent conditions, and the feelings of the national car and the aura of the Volkswagen brand made the Jetta full of market expectations.

After independence, the new Jetta brand, hung a new LOGO to start the journey. At the beginning of 2019, three models were unveiled, namely the compact SUV VS5, the compact sedan VA3 and the mid-size SUV VS7, which quickly formed a preliminary coverage of the mainstream market. The jetta model is priced at less than 150,000 yuan, and from the perspective of market segment positioning and pricing, it is benchmarked against its own brand models.

Mass quality, Ashkenazi genes, these are the two unique tools of the Jetta brand to conquer the market. 2020 is the first full sales year after the jetta brand became independent. However, this year, the Jetta brand first tasted defeat, and the cumulative terminal sales of the three models for the whole year were 155,223 units, only 77.6% of the sales target of 200,000 vehicles set at the beginning of the year.

By 2021, jetta once again set a target of 200,000 vehicles, but once again ended up not meeting expectations. The brand's expected annual sales target of 400,000 vehicles when it became independent looks more like a fantasy.

What is even more difficult to understand is that in the face of market disadvantages, FAW-Volkswagen Jetta has not had any other new cars on the market after launching three models. This led to a rapid cooling of the Jetta's presence in the market. At present, consumers who choose models below 150,000 yuan usually consider their own brands with richer products first, rather than jettas with thin product lines.

Some industry views believe that the three models of jetta have a certain test nature, if the market sales continue to be substandard, it is not excluded that jetta may be "strategically abandoned".

Where do "cheap brands" go from here

The birth of the Jetta brand began with Volkswagen's "cheap car" plan a few years ago. Volkswagen hopes to seize the share of its own brand with cheaper products. The industry expected volkswagen to launch a car with the Volkswagen logo on it, but the result was a brand new brand of Jetta. Not only Volkswagen, but also Toyota at that time also had plans to launch cheap cars, but they did not become a reality. Up to now, only Volkswagen has taken the step of "cheap cars" in the joint venture.

However, the rapid changes in China's auto market have exceeded the expectations of the joint venture. After years of development, independent brands have changed from the past, whether it is product quality, brand rejuvenation, or marketing services, there is a strong signal that independence is better than joint ventures.

In terms of products, jetta's main model, THE 7, although it has the endorsement of Volkswagen's 1.4T engine and German tuning, but in addition to these two points, there is no more comparative advantage with autonomous models. In the compact SUV segment, Haval H6, Changan CS55PLUS, and Geely Boyue have always remained at the forefront of the market sales list, and the Jetta VS7 is not as competitive as its own models.

In terms of marketing, Great Wall Motors' "animal naming", female owner marketing, SAIC MG and Bilibili e-sports cooperation, SAIC-GM-Wuling and Disney cooperation, these actions have caused strong repercussions among The Z generation. In contrast, Jetta also has a related Generation Z marketing plan, but the effect is not ideal.

Wang Hao, director of the brand sales division of FAW-Volkswagen Jetta, once said that the Jetta brand always reminds us that we do not belong to the past, but to the future, which is also the basic attitude of our Jetta brand to Chinese Z-era consumers. In August this year, the Jetta brand announced the use of actor Huang Bo as the brand spokesperson, but this move was pointed out by some netizens as "the Jetta brand began to return to the traditional image in positioning and marketing".

China's independent brands such as Geely, Great Wall and Chang'an have broken away from the label of "low quality and low price" and launched a strong attack on the high-end market. A number of independent high-end brands such as Lynk & Co and WEY have risen, and the price of models has reached about 150,000 yuan, forming a positive confrontation with joint venture brands. Not to mention that in the field of high-end new energy vehicles, there are new brands with weilai, ideal and xiaopeng with a price range of 300,000 yuan.

In addition, independent brands also have their own "cheap brands". Changan Auchan and Chery Jietu, these passenger car brands made from commercial vehicles, are currently performing fiercely in the market. Jetway will sell 150,000 vehicles in 2021, an increase of 30.29% year-on-year. Changan Auchan has accumulated more than 210,000 vehicles in the first 11 months of 2021. These independent brands can grow against the trend, the core lies in higher quality, richer configuration and application and more perfect services, which is difficult for the Jetta brand to do.

Behind the sales volume that did not meet expectations, the quality of Jetta's products also caused a lot of controversy. According to incomplete statistics, in 2021, jetta flagship vs7 received a total of 67 complaints, in addition to the failure of conventional interior electrical devices, such as transmission, brake, front and rear axles and suspension systems and other core components of the vehicle are also frequently problematic. The Problem is even more serious with jetta VS5, with Car Quality Network receiving as many as 142 complaints about VS5 models in 2021. In addition to the vehicle problems that include the VS7, quality problems that affect the normal operation of the vehicle, such as insufficient engine power, burning oil, and the inability to shift the gearbox, are prominent.

From the perspective of the whole industry, in fact, there are some brands born out of joint ventures, such as Dongfeng Nissan Venucia, which is born in a joint venture, and it forms a "high-low relationship" with Japanese product brands. Venucia has been launched since 2010 and therefore has a better market base. Even so, Venucia's development has been full of twists and turns. Venucia was once independent from Dongfeng Nissan, and then returned to Dongfeng Nissan. In 2021, Venucia sold 87,800 units, achieving a rebound of 11.6% year-on-year.

However, there is still a difference between Venucia and Jetta, Venucia is usually regarded as an independent brand, and according to the positioning of Jetta, it is usually not regarded as an independent brand. But when the "Ashkenazi gene" is no longer aura, the pace of product updates has stagnated, and Volkswagen's "cheap brand" is getting farther and farther on the road of getting lost.