Producer: Observer Network Car Channel [Official Number: Engine Sight]
Author: Zhang Jiadong
Edit: Lou Bing
From Lingzhi, which was popular all over the country 20 years ago, to now in the group's passenger car brand awareness, even less than Huawei's well-off, Dongfeng Fengxing, who led the Dongfeng Group from business to ride, once again stood on the cusp of transformation.
21 years ago, with the title of the first independent MPV in China, Dongfeng Fengxing Lingzhi quickly became the leader of the public commercial vehicle camp with its outstanding cost-effective advantages and all-round characteristics of business and commercial balance.
In the following 10 years, with the entry of Dongfeng Liuqi, the parent company of Fengxing, into the joint venture company between Dongfeng and Nissan (Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd.) and the full introduction of Nissan's management model, Lingzhi Models continued to deepen the commercial vehicle market. In 2013, With an average monthly sales of more than 9,000 vehicles, Lingzhi beat the Buick GL8 to win the championship.
Lingzhi's excellent market performance has provided a solid foundation for the Dongfeng Fengxing brand to enter the passenger car market in an all-round way after 2010.
On the basis of ensuring the market position of MPV, Dongfeng Fengxing has successively launched Jingyi sedan and Jingyi SUV since 2013 to continuously enrich the product system to cater to the rapid development of the Chinese market in the golden 10 years.
01
Stall with the 2.0 era
During this period, Dongfeng fengxing took only 7 years to sell from 50,000 vehicles in 2009 to 260,000 vehicles in 2016. Excellent sales have made The popular line once rise to 8th place in the sales ranking of independent brands, with an annual growth rate of more than 30%, and has created a "popular speed" praised by the industry in one fell swoop.
However, the good times are not long, in the years of explosive sales growth, Dongfeng Fengxing with the production of the Jingyi series and lingzhi, which occupies half of the brand for many years, is still limited to the pricing range of 60,000-100,000 yuan. However, from the perspective of the market, Lingzhi, which once sank to the 80,000-yuan market and focused on the grass-roots public business market, has lost the appeal of the high-end business market at the beginning of the listing.
In the third- and fourth-tier markets, it is difficult for the wind to keep up with the changes in demand in the mainstream consumer market. In the face of the beginning of 2017, consumers' all-round demand for vehicle comfort, driving, design, performance and other all-round demand has been widespread, and sales have shown a serious decline.
In fact, Dongfeng Fengxing's growth is weak, starting from 2015, in 2015, The Fengxing brand sold a total of 250,000 vehicles, an increase of only 10,000 vehicles over 2014, an increase of 4.1%. In 2016, Fengxing once again increased by 10,000 vehicles year-on-year, and the 4% growth rate slowed down in the market.
Even so, Fengxing still set an annual sales target of 400,000 vehicles for itself in 2017. What provides hope for the popularity is the prelude to the transformation of the 2.0 era carried out by the brand at the end of 2016.
At the end of 2016, relying on the listing of the new Jingyi X5, Dongfeng Fengxing's quality strategy officially entered the 2.0 era. Yao Liwen, then deputy general manager of Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile Co., Ltd., even said at the press conference, "If the sales volume of this car is not more than 10,000, it will not pass." ”
At the product strategy level, in addition to Jingyi X5, Dongfeng Fengxing also further launched Jingyi S50, Jingyi X6 and other products in 2017, hoping to help it find a new breakthrough in the market by focusing on young cars and SUVs.
Although it is one of the earliest brands to move to the high-end MPV market at the quality end, the first transformation time of Dongfeng Fengxing is two years later than brands such as Chery and Geely.
From the perspective of product positioning, when Geely has moved towards the SUV and sedan market of more than 100,000 yuan by drawing on the FE platform built by Volvo, Dongfeng Fengxing still continues its own image of a follower in design and power, and has always been trapped in the passenger car market within 100,000 yuan.
The new strategy and new image have made no progress from the product side that cast the cornerstone, and the failure of Dongfeng Fengxing in the 2.0 era is also doomed. Since 2017, the cumulative annual sales of the Fengxing brand have reached 221,000 units, down 12% year-on-year. Although the new model Jingyi X5 took away Lingzhi's top spot in the brand with its annual sales of 71,000 vehicles, its average monthly sales were less than 10,000 units, and it still hit Yao Liwen in the face when he swore an oath.
02
The radical 3.0 era
In 2018, Dongfeng Fengxing still did not realize the root cause of its decline in sales. At the beginning of 2018, Yao Liwen still said that the company will continue to rise through the 2017 transition pain period, and set a sales target of 330,000 vehicles in 2018.
This not only means that Fengxing needs to achieve explosive volume during the product adjustment period, but also means that Dongfeng Fengxing needs to achieve a year-on-year growth rate of 44% in the market environment of slightly increasing the automobile market.
To this end, Dongfeng, which has not yet gained a firm foothold in the 2.0 era, can't wait to release the 3.0 era strategy. It is expected to create a new model with higher appearance, higher quality and more intelligence on the product side.
However, the transformation and implementation of any car company at the strategic end is destined to undergo a cycle of practice from the beginning to the execution to the market precipitation for verification. Dongfeng fengxing urgently from the 2.0 era to the 3.0 era in one year, will undoubtedly damage the brand's image and product value in the hearts of consumers.
From the product quality is not difficult to see, Dongfeng Fengxing in the 2.0 era launched a new product, the original technical precipitation is insufficient, in the public complaint information, the 2017 model from the engine to the gearbox to the brake system, have presented a variety of problems.
It is precisely because of the radical 3.0 era transformation, the lack of technical precipitation of the Fengxing brand, although in 2018 successively created the Three major product series of Fengxing X, Fengxing M, fengxing T, and launched a new English logo, but on the market side, Fengxing is swollen and has not shown signs of improvement.
In 2018, Dongfeng Fengxing sold 143,000 vehicles in the whole year, down 35% year-on-year, completely bidding farewell to competition in the mainstream market.
03
Continuous transformation, weak heart
In 2020, with the official listing of the new Lingzhi M5, Dongfeng Fengxing once again launched the strategic concept of "quality up, brand up". However, for Dongfeng Fengxing, the clichéd topic is that since it has established the goal of high-end transformation, its product quality control and technical strength need to be strengthened urgently.
As one of the best-selling models under the brand, the Fengxing T5 and T5L models have repeatedly thundered, and in the crash test of C-NCAP of China Automobile Research Institute in 2018, the Fengxing T5 only received a score of 63.2%, and only received a two-star evaluation. By 2020, the problem of broken door handles has also been repeatedly exposed by car owners.
More importantly, in the process of strategic transformation of the popular brand for many years, independent research and development has always been not in its strategic planning. The old T5 before 2021 uses the BMW 1.6T Prince engine, and its technical system has been a product of 10 years ago. When the entry-level positioning of Wuling Capgemini all uses 177PS horsepower 1.5T engines, the Fengxing T5 under the same Dongfeng system has been difficult to assume the responsibility of high-end.
Obviously, the so-called "high-end" strategy is more like a powerless self-consolation.
Under the high-end transformation strategy without any endorsement, in 2020, the cumulative sales volume of Dongfeng Fengxing was only more than 90,000 vehicles. It was only at this time that Dongfeng Fengxing truly realized that the strategic transformation at the brand level needed to rely on the technical foundation and comprehensively innovate from the brand and service system.
04
Belated renewal
In 2021, under the differentiated competition strategy of Dongfeng Group's sub-brand "Dongfang Fengqi", dongfeng fengxing of "Jinshi Biao" was used instead, and officially moved towards the high-end market. Tang Jing, general manager of Dongfeng Liuzhou Automobile Co., Ltd., said: Under the brand renewal, Dongfeng Fengxing will evolve from three dimensions of technology, quality and service according to the "Wind Plan".
In November 2020, the first new car dongfeng Fengxing T5 EVO under the new logo and new brand strategy has already made a pioneering test in the market. At the same time, the T5 EVO is also the first model born on the EMA framework developed by Dongfeng Liuqi for three years and with a cumulative investment of 800 million yuan.
With 117 standardized modules, 70% universality of parts and 2615-3200mm wheelbase expansion capacity, it covers three categories: cars, SUVs and MPVs, making the plastic-rich EMA architecture continue Dongfeng's outstanding spatial architecture capabilities. Under the EMA architecture, Dongfeng Fengxing has created a full-flat floor and a step floor compatible scheme, which increases the utilization rate of driving space by more than 7%, and can realize more than 10 seat variations in the future.
As the first strategic model after the renovation of the Dongfeng Fengxing brand, the impact of the EMA architecture on the Fengxing T5 EVO is also very significant, the new car not only increases the wheelbase to 2715mm, but also improves the utilization of the driving space of the vehicle, at the same time, the vehicle is also equipped with the latest technology research and development achievements of Aerospace Mitsubishi 4A95TD (1.5T) engine, thus achieving the market mainstream power performance of maximum horsepower of 197Ps and maximum torque of 285N·m.
In the new product, the Fengxing T5 EVO is also equipped with mobile EyeQ4 visual perception chip, which realizes L2+ level driver assistance functions.
In 2021, Dongfeng Fengxing's annual sales reached 134,000 units, an increase of 47% year-on-year, of which the Fengxing T5 car series sold a total of 59,000 vehicles, with a growth rate of 82.5% to drive the brand's new round of transformation.
From January to February this year, Dongfeng Fengxing once again handed over 26,000 vehicles, an increase of 35.6% year-on-year, maintaining the growth trend after the brand renewal. According to the planning of the "Wind Plan", by 2025, Dongfeng Fengxing will cover the product matrix in the fields of SUVs, MPVs and new energy at the rate of 3-4 new models per year.
As of April this year, in the first natural year after Dongfeng Fengxing opened the brand renewal, the Fengxing T5 EVO model has launched two models, the Goddess Edition and the Heatwave Edition, to cater to different products in the emerging market segment, and on April 15, the second MPV model Fengxing Yacht based on the EMA architecture was also officially unveiled, indicating the acceleration of the Dongfeng Fengxing brand in the new level, and also showing its desire for the sales target of 300,000.
However, at the same time that Dongfeng Fengxing opened a comprehensive renewal, some industry analysts pointed out that "Dongfeng Fengxing's products and positioning have been in the low-end market for a long time, and it will be more difficult to transform the high-end market, and it is necessary to be prepared for a protracted war." "Due to the long-term trapped in the low-end market below 100,000 yuan, the popular brands that are currently fully upgraded on the product side can still only raise the brand value to the 100,000-130,000 yuan market at the same level as Haval H6 and Changan CS75 PLUS."
However, from the perspective of the market change trend shown in 2021, car companies led by BYD to develop the new energy field have rapidly threatened the traditional fuel vehicle products in the mainstream market. In the February sales list, BYD Song new energy models have comprehensively surpassed the Haval H6 and become the sales king of the new generation SUV market.
At the overall market level, from January to February this year, the wholesale sales of new energy passenger cars in China totaled 733,000 units, an increase of 162% year-on-year. In contrast, Dongfeng Fengxing has only sold 3787 vehicles in the new energy market, and the models on sale are the Lingzhi M5EV and Fengxing S50EV models launched in 2020.
Obviously, even with the technical blessing of the new platform, the multiple transformations in the past 6 years have made Dongfeng Fengxing lose its previous opportunities and brand advantages in the market. Dongfeng, which has just returned to the right track of the fuel market, urgently needs to face the baptism of comprehensive transformation of the industry's electrification.
Although Dongfeng Fengxing already has a certain manufacturing capacity for electrified products when it is laid out from the EMA platform, and according to the electrification transformation plan proposed by Dongfeng Fengxing when the brand is renewed, Dongfeng Fengxing will increase the electrification rate from 25% to 100% within 3 years, and launch 3-4 pure electric new products by 2025.
However, from the current point of view, Dongfeng, which has not yet formed a systematic structure of products, is still busy with transformation. 【END】