When it comes to hongqi, the car brand, everyone often associates with keywords such as "military parade" and "Olympic Games", and where there are major events in the country, it is certainly indispensable to the figure of hongqi automobile.
At this year's Beijing Winter Olympics, Hongqi Automobile not only appeared again as a courtesy car, but also launched the Hongqi premium car project for China Glory athletes to cheer for national athletes. On April 16, Hongqi Automobile officially delivered the Hongqi premium car for the Glory athletes of the Winter Olympics at the Beijing Capital Gymnasium.
From the national car to the national car
Among all the independent brands in China, Hongqi Automobile is the most profound, the most stories, and the most qualified to be called a luxury brand, and the history of Hongqi Automobile is also the most moving.
From the first domestic car, to the Hongqi CA7220 in the 90s of the last century, and then to today's Hongqi H9, Hongqi Automobile has witnessed the whole process of the domestic automobile industry from scratch, and has also completed a major breakthrough from reverse research and development to forward development.
From the very beginning, Hongqi Automobile is not facing ordinary users, which has also led to Hongqi Automobile being doing "loss-making business" for a long time. Because at that time, the cost of a Hongqi car was as high as 200,000 yuan, and the price sold to designated units or users was 50,000 yuan, but it could not make a profit by selling it to ordinary consumers.
The most important thing is that as a "national car", there can be no quality problems, and at that time, the domestic automobile industry was in the most difficult period, and there was not even a mature standard modern production line.
But Hongqi Automobile has never given up, there is no modern production conditions, then use a hammer. This is no joke, if you are lucky enough to be in the Hongqi Culture Pavilion, you can see a lot of very "original" car-making tools, neatly arranged in the display case.
However, the backward automobile industry is difficult to reverse with this spirit of not accepting defeat alone. With the reform and opening up, a large number of imported cars entered The country, Hongqi Automobile stopped production in 1981 due to limited technology and high engine fuel consumption.
But Hongqi Automobile did not give up, but immersed itself in learning. In 1993, driven by the policy of "the state encourages individuals to buy cars", Hongqi Motors, which had been dormant for 12 years, finally ushered in the opportunity to return, that is, from this year, Hongqi Motors began to move towards the ordinary user market, but the development has been very slow.
In the next 20 years, Hongqi Automobile has been trying to revitalize the civilian car market through various means, including merging into the Pentium brand sales network, improving independent research and development efforts, increasing investment, etc., but the effect is minimal.
Until 2018, Hongqi Automobile released a new brand strategy, and since then Hongqi Automobile has officially entered the transformation stage. It was also from this time that Hongqi Automobile decided to take off the aura of "national car" and devote itself to the development of "national car".
From 5,000 per year to 300,000 per year
In 2017, the year before Hongqi Motors launched its new brand strategy, Hongqi Motors sold only 4,665 vehicles for the whole year. At the 2018 Hongqi brand strategy conference, the sales target of Hongqi Automobile is "to reach 100,000 units in 2020, 300,000 units in 2025, and 500,000 units in 2035".
This was heard by many people as a "joke" at the time, but what everyone did not expect was that the cumulative sales of Hongqi automobiles reached 33,028 in 2018, an increase of 602% year-on-year. On December 26, 2019, Hongqi Automobile released the news that the cumulative sales of the new Hongqi brand exceeded 100,000 vehicles in 2019.
In less than 2 years, Hongqi Automobile has done what everyone was not optimistic about at the beginning, and it has been completed beyond expectations. So, how did Hongqi Auto use just 2 years to do what had not been done in the previous decades?
The first point is the new brand strategy of Hongqi Automobile, that is, the transformation from the national car to the national car mentioned above. Although Hongqi Automobile was the "eldest son of the Republic" before, it is precisely because the user's impression of it is too "official car", and many users "dare not" buy Hongqi car.
However, with the strategic transformation, Hongqi Car began to become grounded, not only inviting Jin Dong as a spokesperson, but also launching a series of "out of the circle" marketing, which made many young people begin to pay attention to and like Hongqi Car.
Second, Hongqi Automobile began to exert efforts in sales channels and built a large number of marketing stores throughout the country. By the end of 2018, the 4S point of Hongqi Automobile increased from a few at the beginning to more than 100 a year, which made many users begin to have a "confidence" in Hongqi Automobile.
Of course, the most important point is the product, on the one hand, the expansion of the product matrix, on the other hand, the investment in product research and development, after all, there is no good product on the market, everything will be in vain.
First of all, talking about the product matrix, Hongqi First planned out four series of L, S, H and Q, corresponding to different consumer groups. One of the most representative products is Hongqi H5, as a grounded medium-sized family car, Hongqi H5 with excellent comprehensive product strength, as well as reasonable pricing, only in 2018 one year, it contributed more than half of the sales to the Hongqi brand.
After that, Hongqi Automobile hit the iron while it was hot and continued to launch two blockbuster products, HS5 and HS7, which also laid a solid foundation for the sales of Hongqi Automobile. In the next two years, Hongqi car sales were like hanging, selling 200,000 vehicles in 2020 and 300,000 units in 2021.
Then let's talk about product development, the brilliant design of Hongqi Automobile is also a key point in the success of the entire brand. The addition of giles Taylor, the former design director of Rolls-Royce, has made the product image of Hongqi Automobile more in line with the user's understanding of luxury and very grounded.
What remains is the improvement of technical strength, whether it is the supercar "Hongqi S9" unveiled at the 2019 Frankfurt Motor Show, or the self-developed 3.0T power installed on the Hongqi HS7, which is a strong evidence of the technological growth of Hongqi Automobile.
Although it has become a national car, it is still "tall"
The most attractive thing about Hongqi Automobile is that it has both the momentum of "national car" and the simplicity of "civil car". Although Hongqi Car is now very close to the people, its position in the hearts of domestic users will always be a unique luxury brand.
On the one hand, Hongqi cars will still appear on most important occasions and be used as "official cars". On the other hand, it has always been "sought after" by many well-known entrepreneurs, such as Cao Dewang and Wang Jianlin.
Hongqi Automobile has also always regarded it as an "honor" to those worthy of respect. For example, at this delivery ceremony, Hongqi Automobile not only gave Hongqi high-class cars to the athletes who won gold, silver and bronze medals at the Beijing Ice and Snow Festival.
And at the same time, it was announced that the silver and bronze medal athletes of the previous Tokyo Summer Sports Event, the one-year use rights of The Red Flag H9 they received, will be upgraded from use to gift, which is the responsibility of the Red Flag Automobile as the "eldest son of the Republic".
This charm is something that all independent brands cannot imitate or surpass. Today's Hongqi Automobile, whether it is research and development, design, service, are at the forefront of the industry, including new energy products are also gradually making efforts. I believe that the future of Hongqi Automobile will be like the red of the front of the car, all the way to the long rainbow.