There are fewer and fewer French cars on the street, visible to the naked eye.
The production capacity planning of millions of vehicles corresponds to the production and sales of 100,000 vehicles, and "slimming" and "reform" are the topics that today's DPCA cannot bypass.
Who is DPCA? Many people may not be familiar with it, but they must be familiar with its two major car brands - Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot.
After French car brands such as DS and Renault have faded out of the Chinese market, DPCA has almost become the representative of French cars.
Today, French cars are in rapid decline in China's auto market. According to the data of the Association of Automobile Associations, in 2021, the market share of French cars in China is only 0.4%.
Image source: Multiplying Association
Sluggish sales have further highlighted the problem of overcapacity. According to the recent announcement issued by Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd., the second plant of Dongfeng DPCA in Wuhan Economic and Technological Development Zone has been taken over by Dongfeng Honda, which will transform the plant into a new factory specializing in the production of pure electric vehicles. Previously, the plant mainly produced the Peugeot 508 and Citroën C5, C6 and other models.
At the same time, it is reported that DPCA will adjust its internal structure, its Peugeot brand will be dominated by the French side, and the Citroën brand will be dominated by the Chinese side. Dongfeng internally refers to this new architectural form as the "two-bedroom, one-hall" model. In this regard, DPCA responded: "At present, the two shareholders are still negotiating, and the share ratio of DPCA will not be adjusted, but the internal division of labor may change." ”
Can the DPCA after "slimming down" realize the revival of French cars?
plight
Dongfeng Dongfeng Motor and PSA Group jointly invested in 1992. By 2022, DPCA will celebrate its 30th anniversary.
Dongfeng Citroen brand under DPCA was once very popular with Fukang. At its most glorious time, Fukang, together with Santana and Jetta, was called the "old three" of the Chinese car, and almost everyone knew it. In 2002, the Peugeot brand was introduced into China, and DPCA owned two major automobile brands at the same time, Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot.
DPCA car has been brilliant. Unfortunately, after reaching an all-time peak of 704,800 units in 2015, its market performance has declined. From 2016 to 2020, the sales decline of DPCA was 15.2%, 36.85%, 32.89%, 55.17%, and 55.74%, respectively, and the sales volume suffered "waist cut" for two consecutive years. By 2020, its annual sales have fallen to 50,200 units, which is not even as good as the monthly sales of some popular models.
In 2020, french cars suffered another setback: in April, Renault and Dongfeng Motors "broke up", and after the defeat of Dongfeng Renault, the only remaining hope of French cars naturally fell on DPCA.
However, DPCA only sold more than 50,000 vehicles in the whole year, which is a huge irony for automobile companies with dual brands and model price ranges for the mainstream market, after all, Xuanyi, Langyi and other models of the same level can sometimes reach this figure in a month. Even Suzuki, which has withdrawn from the Chinese market, sold more than 80,000 units in China in the year before it withdrew from China.
In order to cope with the downward development trend, DPCA has successively launched the "Yuan" plan and the "Yuan +" plan for self-help, and achieved certain results. In 2021, with the help of Dongfeng Citroen Versailles C5 X, 2021 Tianyi, Dongfeng Peugeot mid-term redesign model Peugeot 4008/5008, etc., the annual cumulative sales of Dongfeng Peugeot Automobile returned to the level of 100,000 vehicles, but there was still a large gap compared with the peak period, and it was far from the competitors of that year.
The continuous sluggish sales volume makes the problem of overcapacity of DPCA particularly conspicuous. Previously, DPCA had four production bases in China, with a planned annual production capacity of 300,000, 150,000, 300,000 and 360,000 vehicles, with a total production capacity of more than 1 million vehicles. According to the total wholesale sales of DPCA in 2021, the total wholesale sales of DPCA are only 100,500 units, and more than 90% of its planned production capacity is idle.
In contrast, Dongfeng Honda's "out of the same door" but constantly expanding production capacity is in a "full load" operating state. According to the data, Dongfeng Honda has an annual production capacity of 768,000 units. In 2019 and 2020, Dongfeng Honda's annual production reached 791,000 units and 840,000 units, respectively. This has also become the main reason why Dongfeng Honda took over the Shenlong Second Factory.
way out
In fact, the Peugeot brand has decent sales in the global automotive market. According to European Automotive News, the Stellantis Group's Peugeot brand sold 5% year-on-year to 1.21 million units in 2021. Peugeot's head of branding said the good performance over the past year has been driven by growth in its European home base as well as in several emerging markets.
The benign growth of the global market is in stark contrast to the decline in China, the world's largest auto market. Stellantis Group has said that more details about the Chinese market plan will be announced at the global strategy conference on March 1 this year. This also means that the future development plan of Dongfeng Peugeot will also be clearer.
The development of Dongfeng Citroen will most likely be dominated by china in the future. It is understood that within Dongfeng, the "two rooms" in the "two rooms and one hall" model of Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen refers to Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen, which will be led by the Chinese side and the French side respectively; "one hall" refers to the sharing of existing public areas such as commodity planning, technology, quality, and industrial production.
DPCA's sales plan for 2022 is to reach 170,000 units, challenging 200,000 vehicles. Reach 200,000 vehicles, after the profit, it will be stable again, the foundation will be consolidated a little, the future will not pursue 500,000 vehicles, 700,000 vehicles, stable at three or four hundred thousand vehicles, high-quality development, and the products behind to keep up.
Although DPCA did not put forward the goal of restoring the grand situation of the year, even the above sales plan is still difficult in today's market situation. At present, luxury car brands continue to explore the price and seize the market share of low-end cars. Chinese auto brands continue to insist on brand upwards, grabbing the market with richer configurations and lower prices than competitors. In the joint venture brand market, with the enrichment of models and the development of electrification strategies, the competition between companies is becoming increasingly fierce.
Moreover, DPCA has never had such a phenomenon-level explosive model as Fukang again, official data show that Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot under Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot are on sale in a total of 15 models, none of which are well-known popular models, and the annual sales of models with more than 10,000 sales are only Versailles C5X (annual cumulative sales of 12,100 vehicles) and Tianyi C5 AIRCROSS (annual sales of 10,600 vehicles), and the competitiveness of DPCA in the market segment can be seen.
The reason is that french cars have accumulated more and more problems in recent years, such as lack of brand power, lack of ace products, and insufficient product strength. Compared with Chinese brands, the low-end model configuration of French cars is "simple", taking the current flagship model of Dongfeng Peugeot Peugeot 5008 as an example, only the top and secondary top have driving assistance functions such as active braking and adaptive cruise, and even the navigation function is not even on the low-end model. Correspondingly, chinese brands of the same class are almost fully equipped. And such a product strategy also makes it impossible for each model under Dongfeng Peugeot to achieve "volume".
Under the pressure of Chinese brands upwards, mainstream joint venture brands rolling up, and luxury brands descending, the market share of marginal brands represented by Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot under Dongfeng Citroen automobiles is being further squeezed. Coupled with the large number of new entrants in the car market, the pressure of "time is not waiting" can be described as overwhelming. Judging from the current situation, if DPCA cannot win by surprise in the next few years, it may not be far from the full withdrawal of French cars from the Chinese market.
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