Ming Luo Guanzhong's Romance of the Three Kingdoms 49th time: "If you want to break the Cao Gong, you should attack with fire; everything is ready, only the East Wind is owed." In the end, the Cao army was defeated. However, Kia failed to take advantage of this "east wind", which eventually led to a situation of one shot and two scatters.
At the end of 2021, Dongfeng and Kia officially broke up peacefully, ending this 20-year-long cooperation. Dongfeng Motor officially withdrew from the joint venture company Dongfeng Yueda Kia, and Dongfeng Yueda Kia also became the shareholding of Yueda and Kia, while the shareholding ratio of the joint venture company is still under discussion, and the results will be announced in April 2022.
On February 7, Kia Co., Ltd. of South Korea signed an expansion investment agreement with Yancheng People's Government and Jiangsu Yueda Group, and Kia and Yueda intend to form a new joint venture company to open a new era of joint venture. According to the agreement, the joint venture plans to increase its capital by US$900 million to revitalize capacity utilization and boost vehicle sales by expanding investment, introducing new models, developing new energy vehicles, and setting up export bases.
In the view of Uncle Zhong, this capital increase shows Kia's determination and courage to deepen the Chinese market. After gradually de-"Dongfeng", the brand image will be reshaped through new joint ventures to further enhance product performance and market competitiveness. For the future development vision, Kia has set a goal of more than 4 million units in China in the past ten years.
It is foreseeable that Kia will have a series of drastic changes to the personnel structure, products, electrification, localization and other aspects of the Chinese market. It is understood that the new joint venture company will build a new organizational structure, establish an innovative organizational culture, actively introduce local outstanding talents and professionals, accelerate the localization work, and achieve the strategic goal of "more China".
Public information shows that in the five years from 2015 to 2020, Dongfeng Yueda Kia has changed five general managers, how to lead the good development of Kia Automobile in China and promote brand remodeling, I believe that Mr. Liu Changsheng, general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, will give us a satisfactory answer sheet in 2022.
At the product level, based on the new third-generation i-GMP strategic platform, Kia's products have undergone qualitative changes. Liu Changsheng has said that after gradually stopping the sale of models below 100,000 yuan in the future, it will no longer use low-cost routes to obtain short-term sales. Instead, through high-quality products and excellent competitiveness, we will be recognized by consumers.
Whether it is Kaiku or New Kahua, the competitiveness of products is obvious to all. A large number of safety auxiliary configurations and intelligent interconnection configurations are the most basic operations, and the overall driving texture and power experience have been greatly improved compared to Kia's previous models, and the large-scale rollout of the product matrix through the third-generation i-GMP platform will be one of Kia's important strategies in the future.
For the hot new energy vehicle market, Kia will introduce the E-GMP pure electric platform, starting from the new pure electric vehicle EV6, launching a new electric vehicle every year, and gradually building an EV matrix of 6 electric vehicles by 2027, setting off a new round of product offensive in China.
It is worth mentioning that although Kia has performed poorly in the Chinese market in recent years, its international market performance is still quite good. Global sales in 2021 were 2.777 million units, up 6.5% year-on-year. Therefore, it is very necessary to deeply cultivate the Chinese market, which is less affected by the epidemic, make good use of excess production capacity to build it into a global factory, and lay a solid foundation for exports.
In 2022, which happens to be the 20th anniversary of kia brands entering China, it is also actively presenting "New Kia" and sustainable future business visions to Chinese consumers. Through the new agreement content, it can be seen that Kia has made more targeted adjustments to the Chinese market, including organizational structure, localization process, innovative marketing, product strategy, etc., and constantly explores the management system that is most suitable for the Chinese market.
How to bring the strong competitiveness of the international market to China, reshape the brand image and product tone, this will be the key element of Kia's revival.