With the abolition of the restrictions on the foreign ownership ratio of passenger cars in China, the wave of adjustment of the stock ratio of China's automotive industry has been higher than the wave.
At the end of last year, with the official transfer of 25% of dongfeng Yueda Kia's equity, the curtain of Dongfeng Group's re-sorting of its joint venture brands was officially opened.
A few days ago, e-Automobile received the news of the equity adjustment of the joint venture brand under dongfeng group: according to the news, DPCA will carry out a new round of equity adjustment and split into three companies: among them, Dongfeng Peugeot is controlled by a foreign party, and the foreign party increases the capital to 75%; Dongfeng Citroen is controlled by the Chinese side, and the Chinese side increases the capital to 75%; and the original DPCA will become a foundry of Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen.
In 2021, the dragon bottomed out
On December 28 last year, DPCA announced that it had achieved its sales target of 100,000 units in 2021 ahead of schedule. At the same time, from September to November, sales exceeded 10,000 for three consecutive months, achieving positive year-on-year sales growth for 13 consecutive months. Shenlong rushed to report the good news in advance at the end of the year, in fact, this year's sales volume compared with the previous years of "falling and falling", finally has a rebound trend, bidding farewell to the sharp decline for five consecutive years.
In fact, in August this year, the cumulative sales of Shenlong has exceeded that of last year, reaching 50,000 vehicles, a cumulative increase of 75% year-on-year. However, whether it is the annual sales of 50,000 vehicles last year or the target of 100,000 vehicles this year, The Dragon still has a long way to go to return to the peak.
Time pulled back to 2015. In 2015, after DPCA reached the peak of sales of 700,000 units, it began to decline for five consecutive years. This year, the cumulative sales of Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen under Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen under DPCA exceeded 100,000, which is not high compared with the sales of other car companies, but it gives people a feeling of bottoming out.
Behind this, DPCA has also made a series of adjustments.
The most obvious adjustments come from the product level. Since March this year, DPCA has successively launched many new cars such as 2021 Tianyi, the new 4008, the new 5008, the new C3-XR, the 2022 508L, the 2008 THE ONE, the Versailles C5 X and the Tianyi Ride Adaptation.
The introduction of new models has indeed boosted overall sales. Dongfeng Peugeot has always been the main force in the sales of Dongfeng Peugeot, and the data shows that from January to July this year, the sales volume of DPCA vehicles was 44,000 units, of which Dongfeng Peugeot was 30,000 units and Dongfeng Citroen was 13,000 vehicles.
At the same time, a series of personnel adjustments of Theodon Company have also made the Company as a whole good.
In May 2020, Zhang Zutong, member of the Standing Committee of the Party Committee and deputy general manager of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd., concurrently served as the chairman of Dongfeng Automobile; in September, Chen Bin became the executive deputy general manager and secretary of the party committee of Dongfeng Citroen; in October of the same year, Mao Chuangxin, senior director of the sales branch of Dongfeng Citroen brand department, succeeded Ren Guang as the general manager of Dongfeng Citroen.
In June 2021, Luo Ming succeeded Greene as the general manager and member of the executive committee of dongfeng Peugeot brand department of Dongfeng Peugeot Automobile Co., Ltd. With Luo Ming's appointment, DPCA has become the jurisdiction of the Chinese leader, which not only means the eastward shift of discourse power, but also the innovation made in order to completely change the "water and soil".
For DPCA, everything is good is the basis for the adjustment of the stock ratio between the two sides. It is understood that the purpose of this adjustment is for the two brands of Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen to better adapt to the development of China, and some adjustments and explorations may be made in the field of marketing, while accelerating the efficiency of decision-making. But the hidden meaning behind the equity adjustment does not stop there.
"Post-joint venture era", the curtain opened
At the end of 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) promulgated the Special Administrative Measures for Foreign Investment Access (Negative List) (2021 Edition), which stipulates that from 1 January 2022, the restriction on foreign ownership in passenger car manufacturing and the restriction that the same foreign company can establish two or fewer joint ventures producing similar vehicle products in China will be abolished.
This means that the policy red line of foreign investment access restrictions imposed by China's automotive industry for more than 30 years and the policy red line of not exceeding 50% of the Sino-foreign shares of joint venture companies will be completely abolished. This is also a major feedback for the entire 20th anniversary of China's accession to the WTO.
In the author's view, the implementation of this policy will be a gradual process, and the changes will not appear immediately, but the impact on China's automotive industry will be very profound and far-reaching.
Because the automotive industry has a large investment and a long return on investment cycle, joint venture car companies usually sign contracts with a relatively long time, such as ten years, fifteen years, etc. In addition, passenger cars and commercial vehicles are two completely different fields, in the passenger car field, the sales share of joint venture car companies in the Chinese market is more than 60%, and the number of independent brands is only 40%. In the field of commercial vehicles, local brands account for 80%, and joint venture brands account for only more than 10%.
This determines that the opening of the stock ratio has different degrees of impact on commercial vehicles and passenger cars.
For the commercial vehicle field, the sales of commercial vehicle brands that used to be local in China were higher, because their prices were lower, but in terms of product quality, there was still a certain gap with foreign car companies; and when the stock ratio was released, foreign large commercial vehicle companies such as Volvo and excellent heavy trucks and bus companies could introduce excellent technology to China. This means that in the field of commercial vehicles, within nearly a decade after the liberalization of the share ratio, the share of foreign car companies in the Chinese market may be expanded; and through the acquisition of domestic car companies, the share of foreign brand commercial vehicles in the Chinese market will definitely increase in the future.
However, for the passenger car field, after a long period of learning and running-in with joint venture car companies, the competitiveness of Chinese brands themselves is not the same as before; at the same time, the accumulation of Chinese brands in new energy is more advanced than that of foreign countries. Then, after the liberalization of the stock ratio, Under the fuller market competition of China's own brand car companies and the premise of better understanding of Chinese consumers, the capabilities of various aspects will certainly continue to improve within ten years. Coupled with the efforts of some outstanding domestic car companies, such as bydd, Geely, the Great Wall led by traditional car companies; like Weilai, Ideal, Xiaopeng led by the new force car companies; like Baidu, Millet and other cross-border car manufacturers, the future will certainly be able to help Chinese brands market share of more than 50%. Therefore, within ten years, the liberalization policy of the share ratio will promote the continuous growth of the passenger car market share of Local Car Companies in China, and promote the acceleration of Chinese car companies' integration into the global division of labor system of the automobile industry.
In fact, at present, most of the joint venture car companies are no longer the situation dominated by foreign capital, foreign parties dominate technology and products, product localization and marketing are led by the Chinese side, and the operation and management of both Chinese and foreign parties are jointly responsible, which has become a division of labor model recognized by joint venture car companies.
At the same time, in the face of unprecedented technological changes and industrial changes, joint venture car companies are also more inseparable from the Chinese side, and they all need Chinese support in electrification, intelligent networking, automatic driving, big data and other aspects.
It can be said that the withdrawal of joint ventures and independent advancement will be a major trend in China's passenger car market in the next two or three decades.
Write at the end:
The era of joint ventures has run through China's automotive industry for more than 30 years, during which the game between the two sides of interest has become a long and tortuous process. But now that the market has been surging and the pattern has been reshaped, behind the adjustment of DPCA, it actually reflects not only itself, but also the new path of development of car companies in the post-joint venture era.
The new generation of automakers, who have become the mainstay of the automotive industry, how to be enterprising, hard-working, open and collaborative under the rare historical opportunity of opening up the stock ratio and the new track of intelligent electric vehicles will also become the key focus of enterprise development in the post-joint venture era.