Sun Yijiong, deputy general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicles (Source: SAIC Passenger Vehicles)
SAIC Passenger Vehicle Sales Data for February 2022 shows that a total of 64,000 units were sold in the month, up 113.4% year-on-year; new energy models sold 9,184 units, up 67.5% year-on-year; and overseas exports quadrupled to 28,000 units, up 243.4% year-on-year. In the past 2021, SAIC Motor's annual sales of passenger cars exceeded 800,000 units for the first time, an increase of 22% year-on-year. In the new energy track, which has been particularly hot in recent years, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has also won 161,000 units, an increase of 107% year-on-year, and the penetration rate has exceeded 20%, which ranks fourth in the domestic new energy vehicle market and seventh in the global TOP10. With its efforts, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has won the first place in China's single-brand sales in overseas markets, with export sales increasing by 68% year-on-year, selling in 80 countries and regions around the world, and entering the top ten sales list in 17 countries.
Even so, Sun Yijiong still maintains a high degree of awe for the future, telling Titanium Media: "The development path of the automotive industry in 2022 is destined to be more extraordinary, and the task goal will be more arduous." ”
In a year's time, it is not easy to win
In the past year, China's auto industry has faced an unprecedented severe test, and production and sales have shown a downward trend for three consecutive years since 2018. At the same time, the supply chain has been tight due to the impact of the epidemic and other factors. If your memory is good enough, you will remember the anecdote of He Xiaopeng squatting in the Ningde era to grab the battery for a week, and you will also remember the circle of friends of Bosch Xu Daquan whether to jump off the building with Chen Yudong, and almost every car company will be helpless in front of the battery and chip.
Roewe family portrait (Image source: SAIC Passenger Car)
In the field of new energy vehicles, SAIC Passenger Vehicles also won the seventh place in the global new energy vehicle sales ranking and the fourth place in the Sales Ranking of China's New Energy Vehicle Market with sales of 161,000 units and a year-on-year increase of 107%. At present, SAIC's product matrix for passenger cars includes two major areas: fuel vehicles and new energy, and also covers three categories: cars, SUVs and MPVs, and has its own star models in fuel vehicles, EVs and PHEVs. At the same time, in order to improve the user experience, the network connection is also constantly updated, from the Zebra Zhixing system originally developed in cooperation with Alibaba, to the Venus system based on the Zebra Zhixing self-developed operating system AliOS, and then to the latest upgrade to the intelligent cockpit Roselle system, which has also won a good reputation among users.
A year later, SAIC's passenger cars can finally set off on the road again after a brief breath. Sun Yijiong felt a lot about this year, and when he took office for a hundred days, he said that he had lost ten pounds. This year, ITC Passenger Cars won is not easy, and there may be more problems in the future, but Sun Yijiong and SAIC Passenger Cars, who have experienced this year, will have the confidence to win the battle.
Two brands to meet the diverse needs of users
Sun Yijiong, who is engaged in manufacturing, has said on many occasions: "Use the idea of manufacturing to do brand marketing, be sincere to users, and sell the best products to users with the most rigorous attitude, and the brand will naturally be able to do a good job." ”
The two brands of Roewe and MG under SAIC Passenger Vehicle have different positioning, but they can synergize to meet the diverse needs of users who are young, intelligent and high-end. Sun Yijiong introduced: "As the leader of Internet cars, Roewe focuses on creating high-quality models belonging to a new generation of young people, while MG pays more attention to youth, personalization and globalization. ”
SAIC Passenger Vehicles will promote the upgrading of the Roewe brand from 2021, first of all, from the product level to strive for changes, around the "user-centric" car concept to launch a variety of products, forming a rich product matrix. Although electric vehicles are regarded as more suitable for intelligence, Roewe still gives the RX5 MAX the positioning of "smart fuel vehicles", iMAX8 takes space and technology as the main direction, RX5 Plus applies Roewe's digital design concept for the first time, and the appearance design of i5 combines future technology and national tide aesthetics as well as the whole series of styles. "Roewe wants to convey a new message to the outside world, that is, the change and invariance of Roewe." Change begins with people, and gives all the stage to young people. Roewe's 'unchanged' is the product, brand, national tide culture. This is the definition that Sun Yijiong made for the Roewe brand.
At the marketing level, Roewe has promoted brand renewal by deepening the new national tide IP, whether it is the cross-border cooperation with the national comic "Douluo Continent", or the skillful integration of sound and optoelectronics and other scientific and technological elements with Chinese classical culture at the booth design of the 2021 Guangzhou Auto Show, which has become a link in the upward movement of the Roewe brand. Recently, Roewe debuted in the national auction with the first NFT digital art work "Roewe Meta Universe", taking the lead in completing the layout of automobile brands in the meta universe. In particular, through the cooperation with the Chinese women's football team, Roewe has become its senior partner, and the cross-border cooperation between automobile and sports has further enhanced the brand image.
SAIC Roewe becomes senior partner of China's national women's football team (Source: SAIC Passenger Cars)
In the planning of SAIC Passenger Vehicles: "The brand is upward, and a series of conditions such as sales volume and products need to complement each other in order for the brand to become bigger and stronger." Roewe and MG brands will have a strategy to promote the brand upwards, and there will be a series of product layouts in the follow-up. ”
This year, MG launched the MG ONE, which focuses on Zhichao Technology, the MG6 XPOWER with the track beast as the keyword, and the third-generation MG6 PRO, which is known as the king of sports, all of which meet the needs of young users who do not need to be segmented in the market. In terms of marketing, NG created the world's first pure electric supercar e-sports cockpit MG Cyberster in a crowdfunding co-creation model, allowing users to become participants, decision makers and beneficiaries of supercar co-creation, and also established the first automobile brand real co-creation organization Cyberbur Storm Bureau, so that users' super running ideas can come to fruition. In addition, in the fashion circle, MG cooperated with fashion ICON and trend IP such as Mi Fan and Han Huohuo; in the animation circle, MG cooperated with minions and launched the industry's first avatar spokesperson "Electromechanical Tideman", and co-created and launched a customized extra-chapter with the national comic "Under One Person"; in the e-sports circle, MG jointly held an e-sports invitational tournament with Bilibili E-sports, and joined hands with the Hangzhou Lightning Team and BLG team to compete in major e-sports events; in the tide reform circle, MG and Dong Youlin, Sun Shiqian and other hipsters established a tide reform certification group. Joined hands with Sun Shiqian to build the first concept spacecraft device in china's automotive industry. These marketing campaigns have become an effective means for MG to connect with young users.
MG also has a good performance in 2021 (Image source: SAIC Passenger Cars)
The bigger surprise MG gave was the performance of overseas markets. On the one hand, SAIC Intelligent Network Technology is recognized by overseas users through MG, and is called by People's Daily as a Chinese brand that "is at the forefront of the world in the electrification and intelligence of mainland vehicles"; at the same time, MG has successfully created an overseas "tide brand" overseas with the strategy of deepening the communication between the local market and youth. In addition, MG has also launched online interaction with internationally renowned brands, with overseas social media fans exceeding 6 million, and has reached strategic cooperation with many sports organizations in France, Italy, Australia and other countries, and has greatly increased brand awareness with the help of sports events.
"Is the new marketing to B or to C?" For car companies, I think it is no longer a simple to B or to C, but to A, for all customers with needs for marketing, face-to-face, peer-to-peer, marketing will also return to the essence of business to provide users with a better experience and create more value. For SAIC Passenger Car and Sun Yijiong, this "A" includes both domestic users and overseas users, including both young users and traditional users, as long as the product and word of mouth are done well, marketing has an incomparably solid foundation.
In three directions, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has a comprehensive layout
In the field of three electrics, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle has been laid out for many years, and is one of the few enterprises in China that has mastered key core technologies in "battery, electric drive and electronic control", and has won national awards such as the second prize of the National Science and Technology Progress Award. This year, SAIC Passenger Vehicle will launch a new generation of pure electric architecture, together with the global intelligent module architecture SIGMA to promote SAIC passenger cars into the era of dual-architecture car manufacturing.
In the field of intelligent driving, SAIC Passenger Vehicles has a full-stack self-developed high-end intelligent driving solution PP-CEMTM, which has built the world's only all-weather, all-scenario, ultra-visual distance, multi-dimensional "six-fold fusion perception system" in the world.
SAIC provides users with a new experience in the field of smart cockpit (Image source: SAIC Passenger Cars)
In the field of intelligent cockpit, SAIC Passenger Vehicle also launched the first mass-produced multi-core heterogeneous fusion intelligent cockpit system Roselle OS in China, making many useful attempts in semantic recognition in terms of intelligent related experience. Relying on the world's largest semantic library built by SAIC Million Internet owners and Alibaba's 300 million smart homes, SAIC Passenger Cars is providing users with a new experience of smart cabin.
In addition to the three layouts of new energy vehicle technology, SAIC Passenger Vehicle is also actively promoting digital transformation, and has built a full-service chain digital transformation and innovation system of "digital research and development + intelligent manufacturing + digital supply chain + digital marketing". Previously, SAIC Passenger Vehicle was not only selected into the list of national "intelligent manufacturing benchmarking enterprises" in 2021, but also became the first vehicle company in the world to obtain CMMI5 certification, an authoritative standard for measuring the ability of enterprise software business.
In addition, SAIC Passenger Vehicles is also trying to change the traditional business model. In the past, the revenue of automobile manufacturers mainly came from the sales of complete vehicles and parts, and for the profitability of new intelligent species from interactive products to post-interaction upgrades, more software payment, fee payment, service subscription and other business models were opened. In the near future, SAIC will also realize that the hardware can be replaced and upgraded, and the software can be bought or sold and defined, which will also become one of the directions of SAIC's passenger car efforts.
China's automobile production and sales have finally ended three years of continuous decline, and the task of SAIC passenger cars will be more arduous
In the past 2021, China's automobile production and sales have finally ended three consecutive years of decline, and ranked first in the world for 13 consecutive years. As the world's most important, most active and most open automobile market, the Chinese market is full of variables, coupled with the implementation of new policies such as the cancellation of foreign ownership restrictions on passenger car manufacturing, as well as the epidemic and chip shortage will continue to affect this year's supply chain, SAIC Passenger Vehicles knows that there are tigers in the mountains and tigers in the tigers: "In 2022, the development path of the automotive industry is destined to be more extraordinary, and our task goals will be more arduous." ”
To this end, SAIC Passenger Vehicle has clearly defined the goal of creating a user-centric, digitally driven, all-energy multinational technology enterprise in the field of mobility. In terms of products, SAIC Passenger Cars will launch high-quality new cars such as Roewe Whale and pure electric coupe MG Cyberster; in terms of services, SAIC Passenger Cars will focus on improving the quality of after-sales service, improving overseas product quality, and establishing an overseas after-sales service system. At the same time, SAIC Motor Passenger Vehicle will continue to deepen strategic cooperation with chip manufacturers, promote chip localization and alternative solutions, and ensure supply. This year is worth looking forward to.
(This article was first published on titanium media APP, author | Cui Zhiqiang, editor| Wang Zhenchao)