In time for the Year of the Tiger, the global auto giant Daimler suddenly released a message - he was going to change his name, and he would not be called Daimler in the future, but "Mercedes-Benz".
This is rare. Because for an auto giant like Daimler with many halos such as "car inventors" and the world's top car groups, it is not difficult to change his name, but it is not as simple as carving a turnip chapter.
But Daimler did. This is in a way indicative that Daimler, or Mercedes-Benz, also knows exactly one thing – that his own time is almost gone, and now is the time for change.
From Daimler to Mercedes
From the perspective of the timeline, Daimler's name change is actually not surprising. This is also not the first time in the company's history that the name has been changed. At the earliest, the company was called "Daimler-Benz", and after the merger with Chrysler in 1998, the name became "DaimlerChrysler", and later the cooperation between the two sides broke down, and it became "Daimler Shares".
At present, "Daimler Shares" has to change its name again, and it is a long-established name change. Because as early as the beginning of last year, the auto giant was driven by the head of Kang Linsong to split its business, the truck business was separated separately, and it is still actively seeking to go public. Since then, work on Daimler's name change to "Mercedes-Benz" has been on the agenda.
The situation was that Daimler's shareholders would make a final decision on the split at an extraordinary general meeting in the third quarter of 2021 – and the fact that the name change now shows that shareholders have made a decision, although this decision means that Daimler as mercedes-Benz's parent company will cease to exist.
This also officially means that the previous "Daimler" will become two independent companies after withdrawing from the historical stage, operating passenger car brands and commercial vehicle brands respectively. Among them, Daimler Trucks has completed the listing in Frankfurt, Germany in December 2021.
"Mercedes-Benz" as a passenger car brand has established a wide recognition in the luxury car market. So CEO Conlinson said that the trident star as the traditional symbol of Mercedes-Benz, as a company name, can make the auto giant look more attractive.
Specifically, he explained that in the past year to a year and a half, people's attention to Mercedes-Benz has increased. Based on this, he vowed to turn the century-old store into a "luxury brand". But to a larger extent, the name change is also a last resort, the most direct reason is that Daimler's performance last year was not so good, which made Coninson unable to account to shareholders and the board of directors.
Declining sales and pressure from the new four modernizations
Kang Linsong is a professional manager, so his assessment is simple and intuitive - to bring enough returns to shareholders, divide more dividends, and preferably the stock price can rise. But it all depends on the fundamentals of the company, where sales are one of the most important indicators.
But the sales volume in 2021 really makes Lao Kang a little unhappy. Mercedes-Benz passenger car sales were 2093476 units, down 5% year-on-year. China, as the largest single market for Mercedes-Benz in the world, is also an incremental market for major luxury brands to squeeze their heads, with total sales of 758863 vehicles, but it fell by 2% year-on-year.
This is not good - it means that whether it is the global market or the most potential Chinese market, Mercedes-Benz has shown a downward trend, although the magnitude is not large, but it is enough to arouse vigilance. Because of its biggest competitor, the BMW Group, it delivered 2.52 million BMW, MINI and Rolls-Royce vehicles to customers worldwide in 2021, an increase of 8.4% year-on-year. In the vital Chinese market, BMW sold more than 846,000 vehicles, an increase of 8.9% year-on-year, completely crushing Mercedes-Benz.
If sales and competitors bring a direct pressure, then the technological changes in the automotive industry represented by the "new four modernizations" have fundamentally shaken the technological accumulation that Mercedes-Benz is proud of, which forces Mercedes-Benz to meet this wave of change as quickly as possible. Splitting into passenger cars and commercial vehicles can also better select development routes with different characteristics according to the characteristics of the industry. One of the key features is that commercial vehicles prefer the hydrogen technology route to hydrogen energy technology than today's passenger cars.
Specific to Daimler's trucking business, it has formed a joint venture with another trucking giant, Volvo, and is focusing on technology research and development, including fuel cells, to ensure that technology can be shared in a new round of competition.
In addition to technical characteristics, passenger cars and commercial vehicles are also very different in many aspects such as use scenarios and promotion methods, which means that spin-off and renaming is equivalent to launching a "two-line development" transformation and upgrading path. This is in line with the transformation logic of a traditional automobile manufacturer.
There are both benefits and challenges
Whether it's a spin-off or a name change, the benefits are obvious. One of the most immediate benefits is that the spin-off and listing of Daimler Trucks will allow Daimler to obtain very substantial financial returns in order to have enough capital reserves in the crucial wave of intelligence - Daimler shares hold as many as 35% of Daimler Trucks, which, if turned into cash, will be very impressive.
The advantage of these funds is that when Mercedes-Benz competes with tough opponents like Tesla, it can continue to fund the development of core capabilities, including self-driving assist technology – for now, Mercedes-Benz is completely behind the "new car-making forces" in terms of intelligent driving.
But there are equal problems and challenges. For example, after the truck business goes it alone, as two independent companies, they can't expect to maintain a close relationship in terms of technical cooperation as before. On the other hand, this may affect the actual performance of the trucking business – the results of 2021 have not yet been fully announced, but although Daimler Trucks' business has achieved a turnaround in 2020, most of the profits have come from overseas, mainly in the US market. In its home market, Europe, Daimler Trucks is barely profitable and sometimes loses money.
But the biggest challenge still comes from China. Over the years, daimler trucks have not yet established their own brand advantages compared to Volvo, and even the passenger car business that once topped China's luxury car sales list has been surpassed by the BMW Group, so to what extent this spin-off can improve the market position of the "car inventor" in China has always been a question mark.
The people evaluate the car
Can another name bring good luck? From the perspective of the capital market, the name change or spin-off is a big breakthrough, but it is only a tactical progress, and it cannot give Mercedes-Benz its core competitiveness from a long-term strategic perspective. The crux of the matter is that whether it's a truck or a passenger car, Mercedes-Benz lags behind old and new competitors, including Tesla or Volvo. Therefore, the money obtained by the spin-off in the capital market has no greater significance than to make the performance of the professional manager team headed by Kang Linsong more beautiful.
To sum up, changing the name does not bring good luck to Mercedes-Benz or Daimler, nor does it have the effect of "rushing joy".