Great Wall Motor's sales exceeded one million for the sixth consecutive year.
Author | Li Baiyu
Edited | Gao Yan
Source | Mustang Finance
At the Shanghai Auto Show in April 2021, someone walked into the exhibition area of this international A-class auto show activity, and after a walk, he suddenly had a sigh: Haval, Great Wall Pickup Truck, WEY, Euler, Tank 5 Great Wall Motors brands, more than ten new cars appeared together, forming a huge "aircraft carrier combat group", which is at the Shanghai Auto Show, it feels like watching a "Baoding Auto Show".
The same lament, which occurred at the Chengdu Auto Show at the end of August and the beginning of September 2021, and the Guangzhou Auto Show in November (at the Guangzhou Auto Show, Great Wall Motors released the luxury pure electric brand - Salon, which constitutes six major brands), Great Wall Motor's "new car matrix" continued to attract the attention of a large number of people with the momentum of "combat group". The saying that "XX Auto Show turns into Baoding Auto Show in seconds" has spread more widely on the Internet.
The momentum is not small, but in the end, how many cars have been sold? Until recently, Great Wall Motors released new car sales data for the whole year of 2021, and the mystery was finally revealed: 1.28 million units, an increase of 15.2% year-on-year, another record high. This is the sixth consecutive year that Great Wall Motors' sales have exceeded one million, and it is also the only Chinese car company to receive this award.
Photo note: The 8th Great Wall Motor Science and Technology Festival opened
It is worth noting that while the sales of Great Wall Motors are increasing, the price of bicycles is also increasing. According to its financial report data for the first three quarters of 2021, the price of bicycles has reached 102,700 yuan, an increase of 12.5% year-on-year. The transition from "cost performance" to "product price ratio" continues to advance. Are Chinese brand cars rising?
The national tide swept in, and the car butterfly changed
Baidu has jointly released a "Baidu Guochao Pride Big Data" with the People's Network Research Institute, which counts the degree of attention of Chinese brands in the 10 years from 2009 to 2019, and intuitively presents the development process of Chinese brands. In 2009, when it comes to Chinese brands, in the six major industries of electronics, entertainment, clothing, automobiles, cosmetics, and food, the labels of "three noes", "acquisition" and "rough" appear frequently, which can also be seen in the past the inherent impression of Chinese brands.
In the past 10 years, the situation has changed, Haier has become the world's first brand of white electricity, China's high-speed rail has won global orders, and Li Ning has landed in New York Fashion Week. A series of Chinese brands began to enjoy the world's reputation, get more positive labels, Baidu statistics, the proportion of Chinese brands' attention also increased from 38% in 2009 to 70%, "independent research and development", "going to sea", "core technology" and other more positive labels appeared.
The national tide is sweeping, and the automotive industry is also undergoing profound changes. In the past, luxury brands and joint venture brands had unparalleled advantages of most independent brands in terms of brand accumulation, product quality, and technical level. The label of "low price, high matching, low quality" restricts the development of independent brands to a higher selling price range, and some domestic independent brands and products that are initiated upwards are like a flash in the pan.
"In the 90s, most of the popular brands in color TVs, refrigerators, and washing machines were foreign brands, but now, almost no one will feel proud of buying a foreign brand of home motors, let alone feel inferior because they bought home appliances of domestic brands." Industry analysts pointed out that from the early years of mobile phones, laptops and other digital products, to the current car, are undergoing almost the same changes, the attractiveness of foreign brands is gradually declining, and the recognition of Chinese brands continues to rise.
According to data released by the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, in 2021, the cumulative sales of Chinese brand passenger cars reached 9.543 million units, an increase of 23.1% year-on-year, and the market share reached 44.4%, an increase of 6 percentage points year-on-year; the export of complete vehicles was 2.015 million units, an increase of 1 times year-on-year, a record high.
To achieve such results, Chinese car companies represented by leading enterprises such as Great Wall Motors have contributed to it. In particular, it is worth mentioning that the increase in sales of Chinese brand cars may also be accompanied by an increase in the price of bicycles. Taking Great Wall Motors as an example, the financial report shows that in the first quarter of 2021, its average bicycle price was 91,900 yuan, which has increased to 100,800 yuan in the second quarter and 108,600 yuan by the third quarter. Through continuous investment in building high-end models, Great Wall Motors has opened up the gap with the average bicycle price of about 70,000 yuan for the same type of Chinese brand cars, and competed with the joint venture brand.
Not only that, the gradual rise of Chinese car companies have also rushed out of the country and gone to the world. "In 2021, Great Wall Motor's overseas sales exceeded 140,000 units, reaching 142,800 units, an increase of 103.7% year-on-year, sales accounted for 11.1%, overseas cumulative sales exceeded 900,000 vehicles, and the whole vehicle was exported to more than 170 countries, showing the charm of Chinese cars on a global scale." Great Wall Motors said.
Photo note: Great Wall Motor's sales volume in 2021
Create a blockbuster: one car, one brand and one company
"The WEY brand is the first Chinese luxury SUV brand to achieve sales of 400,000 vehicles. It can be said that its emergence has broken the monopoly of the joint venture brand on the high-end market. The relevant person in charge of Great Wall Motors said.
China's luxury car market, for a long time BBA (Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi) three points of the world, steadily occupying about 70% of the market share, is the "first echelon". In the "second echelon", Cadillac, Lexus, Land Rover and Volvo are competing for the deer, accounting for about 25% of the market share. There are German brands, American brands, British brands, Swedish brands, Japanese brands, but there is no Chinese brand. China's total automobile production and sales have been ranked first in the world since 2009, but Chinese brands have been difficult to occupy a place in the luxury car field.
In 2017, it was still the Shanghai Auto Show. A brand new car brand called luxury, WEY, unveiled two models: VV7c and VV7s. Great Wall Motors, which released these two models, has been deeply involved in the field of SUVs for many years. However, at this time, entering the luxury SUV is still regarded as a big gamble by the outside world.
At that time, although China's total automobile production and sales were still the best in the world, they had reached a peak in 2017, and since then they have opened a "three-in-a-row decline", and the joint venture brand is increasing the investment in SUVs to further compress the market competition space; at the same time, this luxury SUV brand, named after the surname of Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors (similar to Mercedes-Benz, Ford, toyota), personal reputation is also bet on it.
This is a battle that only succeeds, not loses. The WEY brand did live up to expectations, with sales of 86,000 units in 2017 and 140,000 units in 2018, up 61.4% year-on-year, becoming the first Chinese luxury car brand to sell more than 200,000 units. By the end of 2020, the cumulative sales of the WEY brand exceeded 400,000 vehicles, becoming the first Chinese high-end automobile brand to exceed the 400,000 sales mark.
The story of the WEY brand is a microcosm of Great Wall Motors' continuous creation of explosive models. Looking at the past, since the first pickup truck rolled off the production line in 1996, Great Wall pickup trucks have maintained the first domestic and export sales for 24 consecutive years, and the cumulative global sales volume has exceeded 2 million. In 2021, Great Wall sold 233,000 pickup trucks, an increase of 3.6% year-on-year, and overseas cumulative sales of 43,600 units, an increase of 119% year-on-year.
The story of the Haval H6 is better known. In August 2011, Great Wall Motor's first urban SUV model, the Haval H6, was officially launched. Two years later, the Haval H6 sat on the domestic SUV monthly sales champion, which has lasted for 101 months. In 2021, the Haval H6 sold 370,400 units, accounting for nearly half of the Haval brand's annual sales of 770,000 vehicles.
Caption: Third-generation Haval H6
In recent years, 300 hardcore off-road vehicle tanks will be listed at the end of 2020, and 84,600 units will be delivered in 2021; 500 tanks for new models will have more than 22,000 valid orders on the first day of pre-sale on November 19 last year, and more than 27,000 valid orders for that month (the tank series was originally under the WEY brand brand, and in April 2021, the tank brand was officially established and independent). In the Chinese off-road vehicle market, the tank brand has occupied more than 50% of the market share.
After 30 years of evolution, Great Wall Motors has established a 3.0 version of the organizational structure, through the "small front desk, large middle office, strong back office" model, to achieve the transformation from "enterprise-oriented dealer-oriented B2B model" to "B2C model of co-creation with users and direct contact with users".
At the same time, Great Wall Motors will organize "small" and form an organizational form of "one car, one brand and one company", one brand and one company, which completely subverts the function-based process operation mode. All the personnel related to a car are packaged and assembled into a combat group, the captain is the commander-in-chief, and everyone is divided into roles according to the business process, opening up the demand end to the product end, and directly connecting users. It is also under this mechanism that explosive models such as Haval Dog, Haval First Love, Tank 300, and Euler Good Cat can emerge in an endless stream.
Figure Note: 3.0 version of the organizational structure
Facing the future: Grasping Generation Z and looking around the world
"In the increasingly fierce market competition, Great Wall Motors has surpassed a number of joint ventures, its sales performance is extremely gold-rich, many categories of new cars are in line with consumer demand for cars, bicycle prices continue to increase, fame and overseas sales have doubled, and Chinese auto brands really have the confidence and strength to compete with joint venture brands." Some industry analysts said so.
The strategy of "co-creating with users" brings Great Wall Motors's accurate grasp of user psychology. In today's China, the consumption power of Generation Z such as post-95s and post-00s is rising, and they are more concerned about novelty, personalization and interest first, and are willing to pay for the products they love. In the eyes of Gen Z consumers, a good Chinese brand is far more attractive than a foreign brand.
Since 2020, Great Wall Motors' marketing strategy has shifted from product value to "user-centric", which has also become the core of all changes in the year. After opening this change, the connection between Great Wall Motors and users is no longer limited to "buying and selling", but by reshaping the underlying logic of the product, creating new categories with users, creating a personalized brand image, and redefining the relationship between the two.
This year, a model that was code-named Haval B06 was named by Haval from netizens on major platforms. In the end, the number of "Haval Dogs" votes was far higher than that of Haval himself named Haval Long Ranger. The "Haval Dog" thus became the first new car in China to be named by netizens. This case also allowed Great Wall Motors to see the particularity of young consumer groups, and then followed the trend to create IP, co-created theme songs with users, and established "Hagou Gang" to attract users to deeply participate in the product cycle.
Among the automobile brands under Great Wall Motor, in addition to the luxury pure electric brand salon that was just listed in November last year, Euler and Tank are the most "young". The former is a hardcore off-road vehicle brand born from the WEY brand, and the latter is a new energy vehicle brand launched by Great Wall Motors, which is defined as a "car brand that loves women more". The Euler brand was officially released in August 2018, and according to the latest sales data for 2021, the annual sales volume reached 135,000 units, benefiting from the same strategy. With the successful case of "Haval Big Dog", the naming of the "Cat" series launched by Euler is also the result of fully soliciting user opinions. The general manager of the Euler brand has even become the president of the "Meow Planet Council", integrating into the lives of young people and realizing a comprehensive transformation from marketing to products to management.
Picture note: Haval Big Dog
After successively creating explosive models, Great Wall Motors' vision has long been not limited to the domestic market. Following the Tula plant in Russia, on June 9, 2021, Great Wall Motor's second overseas full-process vehicle plant, the Rayong Plant in Thailand, was put into operation, becoming another important base for Great Wall Motor to enter the ASEAN market and even the global market. Including the above two plants, Great Wall Motors has formed 13 domestic full-process vehicle production bases, four overseas full-process vehicle production bases, and five overseas KD plants around the world. According to the plan, Great Wall Motor will also build a new KD factory in Egypt, Pakistan and other markets, further enriching the company's global intelligent manufacturing capabilities and supporting the delivery of a number of hot products.
From the product point of view, in 2021, Great Wall Motors' third-generation Haval H6, Haval H6 HEV, Haval JOLION, Haval JOLION HEV, Euler Good Cat, Great Wall Gun and other global products were listed in many overseas markets, and Haval H6 PHEV, Tank 500 HEV, HAVAL DARGO also ushered in overseas debuts, continuing to help enhance the global popularity of Chinese brand cars. Based on the increasingly perfect overseas product matrix, in 2021, Great Wall Motors will continue to maintain its leading position in overseas markets such as Russia, Australia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Chile, and become the top 3 in the Russian SUV market and the Fastest Growing Chinese brand in the Australian and New Zealand markets. By the end of 2021, Great Wall Motors has exported nearly one million vehicles, leveraging the global market in more than 170 countries.
"Globalization is a battle of survival of the fittest, and only when Chinese car companies gain a foothold overseas can they have the confidence to talk about the future." Some industry analysts said so. Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, also said, "Automobile brands must be globalized, and Chinese cars must go out." "There is still a great opportunity for independent brands to go out and live, and there is only one dead end if they do not go out, and there is no choice." Overseas factories, global layout, sales soared, Great Wall Motors' globalization strategy began to show results, is still on the road.
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