Recently, a map of Great Wall Motors' bidding documents was exposed on the Internet, which clearly showed that Great Wall will launch a sixth brand, with the internal code name BC. It is reported that the project is currently in the "channel image design and sample store building" related work, at the same time, the Great Wall channel image design project bidding documents can also be further inferred that "BC" or for the car brand.
After the news was exposed, the market did not stop speculating about BC. Some analysts believe that BC may be the salon launched by the Great Wall last year, and some analysts say that BC or the beam car cooperated by the Great Wall and bmw group, after all, the first model of the former is a pure electric coupe, and the latter's cooperation project is also around the electric MINI, and it is in its infancy.
However, when the news of the Great Wall about to launch a sixth new brand was reported last year, some Great Wall Motor insiders revealed: "Great Wall Motors is indeed preparing a new car brand. ”
Previously, the Great Wall was not uninvolved in the car market. In 2007, the Great Wall Car qualification was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission, and the following year, the Great Wall launched the first car wizard, which opened the mouth of the car market, and then successively launched cars such as Xuanli, Tengyi C30 and C50, but finally due to poor market response, in 2014, the car business was suspended, focusing on resources to specialize in SUVs.
In recent years, with the gradual stabilization of development, the return to the car market has also been put on the agenda by the Great Wall. On April 12 last year, at a media communication meeting held by Great Wall Motors, Li Ruifeng, vice president of Great Wall Motors and general manager of the WEY brand, revealed that Great Wall Motors has restarted the car project, and the first car will be placed under the WEY brand, which is scheduled to be released in May. But today, the brand still only has three SUV models: Mocha, Latte and Macchiato.
Obviously, The Great Wall's ambition for the car business is not satisfied with just the SUV brand's car model, but more hopes to rely on the size of the car market to achieve its future sales growth.
In June last year, Great Wall Motors announced its sales target for the next five years, according to the Great Wall plan, by 2025, Great Wall will achieve global sales of 4 million vehicles, of which 80% are new energy vehicles, operating income of more than 600 billion yuan. However, based on its sales of 1.28 million vehicles in 2021, Great Wall's sales target for 2025 is to triple its sales in 2021.
For any car company, especially a car company that has formed a certain scale, it is a challenge to achieve 3 times the sales growth in 4 years. What's more, the growth trend of the Great Wall in recent years has gradually slowed down.
At present, Haval is still the core of the Great Wall's sales. The data shows that in 2021, the cumulative sales of the Haval brand reached 770,000 vehicles, accounting for 60% of the overall sales volume of Great Wall Motors, and from 2017 to 2021, Haval has also maintained a sales share of more than 60%, of which more than 80% in 2017. At the same time, the great wall has only achieved sales growth of about 210,000 vehicles in the five years since 2017.
In this case, the sedan with a market volume larger than the SUV has become an inevitable move for the Great Wall to move towards 4 million volumes. According to the data released by the Association, from January to December 2021, the cumulative sales volume of the domestic car market was 9.846 million units, an increase of 6.4% year-on-year, outperforming the overall market, and also ahead of the SUV and MPV markets with cumulative sales of 9.221 million units and 1.079 million units in the whole year.
Whether the "BC" under the veil is a salon or a beam, or a new track opened by the Great Wall, is unknown until the project is landed.
Some analysts believe that BC is unlikely to be a salon brand and a beam of light. Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, said in a previous interview with the media: "The Salon Zhixing brand must enter the high-end market of more than 300,000 yuan. In the "Letter to Salon's New Partners", Wen Fei, CEO of Sharon Zhixing, also made it clear that Sharon Zhixing will become the world's first hydrogen-electric dual-energy luxury brand.
It is understood that the first model launched by the luxury brand - the mecha dragon, positioned as a medium-sized family car, the guidance price is 488,000 yuan, the new car is sold in a limited edition of 101 units worldwide, which belongs to a limited edition model, the possibility of going is not large, and the Great Wall should be as far as possible to clear the relationship between the salon and the Great Wall Motor, in case the brand impression of the Great Wall affects the high-end attributes of the salon.
Beam Auto is a joint venture company established by Great Wall and BMW in 2019, both sides hold 50% of the shares, some insiders believe that Beam is a joint venture company between Great Wall and BMW, AND BC is a sub-brand of Great Wall in the tender, and the identities of the two sides are contradictory.