"This year, the goal for the entire overseas is to exceed 800,000 vehicles. Among them, the European market will be fully developed, and the sales of independent brands MG and MAXUS in Europe are expected to reach 120,000 vehicles, and Europe will take the lead in promoting SAIC's first '100,000-vehicle class' overseas regional market. Yu De, assistant to the president of SAIC, general manager of the international business department of SAIC Group and general manager of SAIC International, was full of confident smiles when he talked to the reporter about the market layout of Nanfang + reporter.
The steady rise of SAIC's overseas market is actually a microcosm of the mainland's automobile exports: after years of layout, we have firmly grasped the new opportunities of electrification and intelligence, and the market has ushered in rapid growth. The latest data show that in the case of doubling exports last year, the mainland's automobile exports maintained a high boom in January, with exports reaching 231,000 units, an increase of 87.7% year-on-year. Among them, 56,000 new energy vehicles were exported, an increase of 5.4 times year-on-year.
In fact, SAIC's effective development of overseas markets is behind the systematic, planned and established "going out", and has established an automotive industry chain for the global market integrating research and development, marketing, logistics, parts, manufacturing, finance, and second-hand cars. This will provide more references for Chinese brands to go to sea in the future, with a strong supply chain as a support, grasp services, fall word of mouth, and create a new image of China's intelligent manufacturing.
Broken core: Europe broke 120,000 vehicles this year
According to the data, in 2021, the export of complete vehicles of mainland vehicles was 2.015 million units, an increase of 1.0 times year-on-year. By model, passenger car exports were 1.614 million units, up 1.1 times year-on-year, and new energy vehicles exported 310,000 units, up 3.0 times year-on-year.
Why can mainland brands break through the bottleneck of many years in just one year, and the export scale jumps from 1 million to 2 million?
The key link behind this is that after years of testing the waters, Chinese brands have gained a firm foothold in mature markets such as Europe, Australia and New Zealand, began to show competitiveness, and formed positive interaction with Latin America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa and other markets.
Taking the above automobile as an example, it has formed 6 50,000-level markets in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the Americas, the Middle East, ASEAN and South Asia. "Especially in Europe, last year SAIC's own brands MG and MAXUS sold 73,000 units in developed countries such as the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Sweden (including more than 40,000 new energy vehicles), of which MG's sales in continental Europe (excluding the UK) in 2021 will triple compared with 2020." Yu De said that after several years of early market development, Western Europe, Central Europe, Southern Europe, Northern Europe basically ended the layout, the most difficult time has passed, this year is expected to see better business results in Europe.
More critically, while breaking the key markets in Europe, other regions also show the characteristics of "long and long". SAIC has entered the top ten in the Australian market; the sales of its own brands in the American market have reached 71,000 units; and the MG in the Middle East market has ranked among the top six, ranking behind Toyota, Hyundai, and so on.
"Therefore, the entire overseas target this year, from the level of the group, the entire SAIC Group this year's goal is to exceed 800,000 vehicles, of which MG strives for 500,000 to 600,000 vehicles, or even higher." Yu De said.
Systematic: the whole industry chain goes to sea collectively
"Our development is inseparable from a strong supply chain guarantee, Anji Logistics in recent years overseas layout is being carried out in an orderly manner, the current domestic distribution covers more than 600 cities, overseas also involves 100; both vehicles, but also parts." For the rapid development of SAIC's overseas market, Yu De also explained the reasons.
This is different from the traditional overseas mode, behind the SAIC has a system, planning, into the establishment of the "going out", has established a set of research and development, marketing, logistics, parts, manufacturing, finance, used cars, etc. as one of the automotive industry chain for the global market, products and services throughout the world more than 80 countries and regions.
At the product level, SAIC has also taken a key step, focusing on overseas market demand for "localization" development. According to reports, based on the leading overseas market scale in China and the world's most complete spectrum of new energy products, SAIC motor will build the first "global car" - MG EH32.
"European security is not just the technical standard of double five-star security emphasized by HS in the past. Europe has recently had a large number of globally leading requirements for safety, such as side column collisions, which will not be designed and considered in domestic non-global models. EH32 this product, we are based on European standards to fully meet the European standards in this regard. Zhang Liang, deputy general manager of SAIC's data business department and chief digital officer of SAIC Passenger Vehicles, said.
At present, SAIC Has 5 subsidiaries and 2 parts centers under the European parent company, and MG covers 16 countries in continental Europe.
Heavy word of mouth: service to keep pace
In fact, Chinese brands have been unable to open up the situation in overseas markets before, and they have a close relationship with services. However, this passive situation is also being changed, and the services of China's intelligent manufacturing have begun to be recognized by different markets around the world.
"Last year, we found that near the German-French border, vehicles broke down after a period of time without use, and the number showed an upward trend. Later, after layers of investigation, the number of radio stations in this area exceeded 250, and there was a problem with the storage of digital radios, which caused the radio in the car to crash and the vehicle could not sleep, resulting in continuous power consumption and eventually problems. Later we solved the problem through a software upgrade and the local customers were very satisfied. Liu Xinyu, deputy general manager of SAIC International Europe, said in an interview with Nanfang+that since entering the European market in 2018, it has relied on excellent word of mouth and the accumulation of word-of-mouth effects, which is also an attitude of passing on Chinese brands.
At present, in order to better serve customers, SAIC motor has developed very rapidly in European channels. This year, the entire European continent + the United Kingdom, the sales channel target to exceed 1200. "With an average of one dealer developed every three days over the past two years, we are covering the whole of Europe faster than many people can imagine." Liu Xinyu said.
At present, due to the impact of the global epidemic, although the overseas operations of Chinese car companies have encountered a series of challenges such as rising raw material prices, shortage of parts supply, tight transportation capacity and rising freight rates, SAIC has still achieved profitability in many key regional markets such as Europe. It is foreseeable that in the future, with the acceleration of explosive models and the continuous improvement of logistics, channels and after-sales systems, China's overseas sales are expected to continue to grow at a high speed.
[Reporter] Guo Xiaoge
【Author】 Guo Xiaoge
【Source】 Southern Press Media Group South + client