(Text/Pan Yuchen Editor/Lou Bing) A few days ago, Dongfeng Motor Group announced the production and sales of automobiles in January 2022. According to the data, Dongfeng Motor sold a total of 303,600 vehicles in the first month of the new year, an increase of 10.01% year-on-year, of which passenger cars sold a total of 263,000 units, an increase of 18.9% year-on-year; commercial vehicles sold a total of 40,700 units, down 25.9% year-on-year.
Dongfeng Nissan, Dongfeng Honda and Dongfeng's own brands have all increased to varying degrees compared with the same period last year.
Specifically, the two Japanese joint ventures still sell about three-quarters of Dongfeng Motor Group's total sales, and after the chip supply problem is alleviated, the market demand for Japanese cars remains at a high level. Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., with Nissan as the main body, sold 149,800 vehicles in January, up 5.11% year-on-year. Among them, Dongfeng Nissan (including Venucia brand) accounted for more than 84% of sales.
In Nissan's product system, the car products play a relatively stable role, in addition to the monthly sales of 50,000 Xuanyi, the seventh generation of Tianlai also set a monthly sales record of nearly 20,000 vehicles; in contrast, Nissan's SUV products mainly rely on a Qashqa model, and the three-cylinder X-Trail, which was listed last year, has not yet come out of the downturn.
In order to save the classic model of X-Trail, Dongfeng Nissan has placed the old four-cylinder X-Trail on the Zhengzhou Nissan channel for sale at the end of last year. In January, Zhengzhou Nissan sold a total of 1,637 passenger cars, up 24.9% year-on-year, but the commercial vehicle business, which is the traditional mainstay, fell by nearly 10%.
In addition, Dongfeng Infiniti's sales of 1,054 vehicles in January increased by 446.11% year-on-year, but due to the low base in previous years, Infiniti's situation in China is still relatively embarrassing. The new QX60, which opened pre-sales at the end of last year, determines whether Japanese luxury brands can return to the track smoothly.
Dongfeng Honda sold 77,400 new vehicles in January, up 7.3% year-on-year. Traditional best-selling models such as the 11th-generation Civic, CR-V, and XR-V have all sold more than 10,000 per month. It is worth mentioning that the B-class car Yingshipai has continued to rise since the replacement in November last year, and the sales volume in January also exceeded 10,000 units, adding a new boost to the overall growth of Dongfeng Honda.
In addition, in order to concentrate on the development of its own brands, Dongfeng Motor has divested the remaining weak joint ventures with sluggish sales and serious losses, and DPCA is the only non-Japanese joint venture that can be retained. With the steady performance of Citroën Versailles in the second half of last year, DPCA sold more than 13,000 units in January, an increase of 85.01% year-on-year.
Despite the low base in previous years, the cheering performance of DPCA also provides an opportunity for it to continue its position in the Chinese market. Recently, the news about Dongfeng Group and Stellantis Group discussing the "two-bedroom, one-room" model, with foreign parties leading Peugeot and Chinese leading Citroën. Although the two shareholders are still negotiating, the general direction of jointly supporting the joint venture has not changed.
At the same time, the independent brand business with electrification and intelligence as the leading direction has also continued to develop within Dongfeng Group.
As the core of Dongfeng's own business, Dongfeng Passenger Vehicle Company (mainly the Fengshen brand) sold a total of 18,600 vehicles in January, an increase of 189.11% year-on-year, making it the largest growth enterprise among Dongfeng Motor Group's subsidiaries.
Within the Fengshen brand, since the launch of the Yixuan MAX model last year, the market presence of the Yixuan family has been greatly improved, with sales of nearly 11,000 units in January, an increase of nearly 130% year-on-year; in terms of SUVs, the monthly sales of the Mach version of the Fengshen AX7 version exceeded 5,000 units again.
In addition, according to Dongfeng's own brand planning, during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, Dongfeng Fengshen will launch 8 new models, including 6 fuel vehicles and 2 new energy vehicles. Among them, the SUV Haoji, which is based on the new platform, was unveiled at the end of last year and is scheduled to be listed in the second half of this year.
Dongfeng Liuqi, which is mainly a popular brand, sold 21,500 units in January, an increase of 9.95% year-on-year. Since the replacement of the brand logo last year, Dongfeng Fengxing has maintained an overall upward momentum. On the basis of the sales volume of 200,000 vehicles in the whole year last year, Dongfeng Liuqi has further set a sales target of 300,000 vehicles this year, and the first new MPV model "Yacht" will be launched in the first half of the year.
In the new energy vehicle market, which is an industry trend, Dongfeng Motor Group sold nearly 20,000 units in January, an increase of about 200% year-on-year, of which passenger car sales alone reached 18,000 units, an increase of nearly 240% year-on-year.
However, at present, the main sales force of Dongfeng new energy vehicles is still the Micro and Small Electric Vehicles dominated by the Fengshen E70, and continues to cover the B-end market with sales of 3,085 units in January. As the focus of Dongfeng Group's electrification and brand upwards, the high-end new energy brand Lantu delivered a total of 1553 vehicles in January, a large decline compared with December last year.
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At the beginning of this year, Dongfeng Motor Group set an annual sales target of 3.471 million units, an increase of 25% year-on-year, of which the expected target for passenger cars is 2.9 million units. At present, Dongfeng Motor has completed 8.7% of its annual target, making a good start in the overall recovery of the Chinese auto market environment, which is still uncertain.
However, due to historical reasons, Dongfeng's own brands such as Fengshen, Fengxing, and Fengguang are many but not strong, and the status quo of fighting for each other has not been fundamentally changed. How to "concentrate on doing big things" through integrated means and let Dongfeng independently get rid of the position of the third line in reality for a long time is a problem that Dongfeng Motor Group deserves in-depth thinking and implementation.
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