Today, in 2022, I don't know what your impression of the Wuling brand is?
Is it a sales myth represented by Wuling Hongguang, a commercial return artifact? Or take the passenger route and step into the high-end Wuling with silver-label models? Or even because of the Hongguang MINI EV big sale, can not get rid of the cheap label of Wuling?
I don't know in everyone's mind, what is the real Wuling in everyone's heart, but from my above sentence, you should also find the performance of Wuling's brand strategy, product planning and market sales in recent years, so that Wuling presents a fragmented brand status quo, it is the Wuling that is extremely eager to enhance the brand value, it is also the Wuling that is popular in the low-end market, and even in the hearts of more consumers, it is still the Wuling that creates the myth of commercial market sales.
But in any case, you can't deny that Wuling is very hungry for the promotion of brand image and value.
The pace of Wuling's high-end can be traced back to 2019, when Wuling released the new Baojun brand, new models and new designs and new Logos, and even station wagons that were regarded as niche and petty bourgeois in the domestic market were built. But spending a lot of effort does not mean that it can succeed, from the price point of view, most of the models of the new Baojun are maintained within 100,000 yuan, and other domestic brands of high-end routes are not the same.
New Baojun RC-5W
Why can't the price sell? To put it bluntly, the problem of uncompetitive products caused by technical substandards, although there is a new design and new Logo, but the three major pieces of technology or the original Baojun set, such a technical level is not to say that with the joint venture, even with Geely, Changan and other first-line independent brands can not fight, with such technical reserves to impact the high-end, is undoubtedly a fool's dream.
Of course, even if it is impossible to go to the high-end, but the new design and new image is indeed easier to please consumers than the old Baojun, plus the brand of new Baojun is enough to recognize itself, and did not forcibly increase the brand premium, so the new Baojun did have a good development at the beginning. However, when Xinbaojun silently cultivated its own "pseudo-high-end market" of less than 100,000, it was stabbed in the back, a knife from its own family.
Squeeze out Baojun in exchange for high sales?
In 2020, Wuling released a "double standard strategy", dividing the Wuling brand into red label and silver label, of which the red label is the "people's Wuling" that we are most familiar with in the past, with Wuling Hongguang and Glory as the typical; and the silver label aims at the passenger car field and steps into the 100,000-level passenger car market that Wuling could not touch in the past.
As the most people-friendly brand in the hearts of the people, the new strategy of Wuling passengerization really makes the people feel happy for its heart, and users also support the transformation of Wuling with actions, and Wuling ushered in gratifying growth under the new strategy. Taking 2021 as an example, the Wuling brand sold 1,449,367 units, an increase of 17% year-on-year, of which the cumulative sales of two silver-label models, Wuling Capgemini, exceeded 100,000 units, and Xingchen sold more than 70,000 vehicles in the five months of listing.
Five Stars
However, behind the success of Wuling is that the transformation of passengerization has sucked out the market share that originally belonged to Baojun and New Baojun. Before Wuling and New Baojun played the brand up card, SAIC-GM Wuling had a clear positioning distinction between the two brands of Wuling and Baojun: Wuling went commercial, and Baojun went for passenger use. When Wuling chose to use it, it did not seize the market share of external competitors such as Geely and Chang'an, but stole the market share of Baojun, which was of the same origin as its own family.
According to the data, baojun's annual sales in 2021 were 136434 vehicles, down 50.79% year-on-year; new Baojun's annual sales were 79,628 vehicles, down 32.82% year-on-year; the total annual sales of the two brands 216062 vehicles, down more than 45% year-on-year. Don't forget that Baojun has achieved an annual sales volume of more than one million as early as 2017, from one million sales to 210,000 sales in just four years, although there are factors in the overall environment, but there is also a lot of reason because of the sales sucked away by Wuling Passenger.
Baojun 530
So in fact, it seems that Wuling's sales in 2021 ushered in gratifying growth, but in fact, the high-end of the share belonging to Baojun and new Baojun also sucked up the past, Wuling inner volume to catch up with the brand sales, but there is not much improvement on the growth of total sales of enterprises; in addition, do not forget the Wuling Hongguang MINI EV as the representative of cheap electric vehicles, Wuling These small electric vehicles sold a total of 452238 last year, the price of "make a friend" made it pull Wuling on the sales figure (really not profitable, Mainly selling points), which masks the fact that Wuling's overall performance has seriously declined.
Of course, brand transformation always ushers in a painful period, high-end can not be achieved overnight, you always have to accumulate, always have to survive. However, it is precisely because of the popularity of Wuling Hongguang MINI EV that it has locked the cheap label of Wuling again. Your girlfriend may not know what kind of car Wuling Capgemini and Wuling Xingchen are, but she must know wuling hongguang and wuling hongguang MINI EV, a cheap car that sells for 30,000 or 50,000.
Wuling Hongguang MINI EV
It is not that it is wrong to sell 30,000 or 50,000 cheap cars, but when the cheap models in the brand are too strong, it is bound to affect the high-end process of the brand. Maybe it's wrong that Wuling shouldn't go to the high end?
High-end models are not recognized
To make the model high-end, there are two conditions that are very important: one is the brand image, and the other is the accumulation of technology and quality. The brand image is not much to say, but in terms of technology and quality, Wuling Silver Standard models can not satisfy users.
In the past, when Wuling's car sold for 30,000 or 50,000, the car was a little strange and a little bit of a problem, we can all accept it, because we all know that at this price, don't think about any bicycle. But when you sell the price to the 100,000 level and enter the passenger car market, the user's ideas and requirements are more.
We take Wuling Capgemini as an example, which is the first model equipped with Wuling Silver Label, the current official guidance price is 8.58 ~ 134,800 yuan, the model is positioned as a compact MPV, equipped with a 1.5T engine, there are manual and CVT transmission options. As the pioneer of the silver label model, whether in the publicity or design, Wuling has spent a lot of thought on it, coupled with the user's trust in the Wuling brand, so that many old Wuling users will accept it as the first choice for "improved car replacement", of course, Capgemini's sales are indeed competing, from November 2020 to the present, the cumulative sales have exceeded 100,000 vehicles, which is a proud achievement in the MPV field.
Wuling Capgemini
However, from the sales trend of Wuling Capgemini listing so far, we found that Capgemini's sales are in a state of continuous decline, from the second month of listing to now fall below 2,000 vehicles, what is going on?
Some people say that Wuling's low-end and low-cost brand image has not been able to support the high-end identity of silver-label models, and some people say that the essence of its "big four-seat MPV" is the reason for the poor practicality of the third row space, and even some people say that its insistence on not launching a 7-seat version is also a problem of plummeting sales. But in fact, there is another problem that has been overlooked by everyone: product quality.
From the complaints of Wuling Capgemini owners on the network platform in the past year and the feedback in the forum, this Wuling Capgemini that takes the quality upward route has not improved the product quality in the actual product, and the complaints of major car owners about Wuling Capgemini include, but are not limited to: car and machine system problems, workmanship problems, fuel consumption fraud problems, abnormal sound problems, frequent failure light problems, button failure problems, water leakage problems, electronic equipment problems, etc., which can only be called what you can't think of, no it is bad.
Complaints from some car owners on the online platform
Some car owners posted on the forum
As I said before, if some small problems appear on Wuling Hongguang, everyone may not complain, but when you set the price at the 100,000 level and take the passenger route, you don't have to build cars with old standards. By the way, in the posts complained about by many car owners on the Internet, one of the owner's posts is quite interesting: the owner said that his Wuling Capgemini gearbox and brakes have a serious abnormal sound, because the 4S shop can not be solved, they found the manufacturer's engineer, who knows the manufacturer's engineer after arriving at the scene and frankly admitted that in the existing technical reserves of Wuling, it is impossible to solve this "clucking" sound...
Two days ago, wuling silver standard of the third model - Wuling Jiachen announced pre-sale, the price of 6.98-10.58 million yuan, the essence is an iterative product of Baojun 730 (did not say that the shell has been very much to save face), combined with its price and design, this Wuling Jiachen does have the shadow of the explosion, but in the silver label high-end has not yet succeeded and then back to take the cheap route, and look at this momentum is to further squeeze the share of Baojun to exchange for Wuling's sales, this wave of operations really makes people obsessed...
Wuling Jiachen
Or honestly do the people's Wuling!
It is undeniable that in the low-end market, Wuling has an unbreakable advantage, and years of hard work and accumulation have created an extremely positive brand image and formed a solid moat, but this moat protects Wuling at the same time, but also imprisons Wuling itself, others can not attack, they can not go out.
In this case, if Wuling wants to break through itself and create a high-end image, the simplest and most effective thing is to rebuild a new brand, just as Geely's Lynk & Co, Great Wall's Wei brand, Chery's Xingtu and Changan's UNI series do, but unfortunately Wuling's high-end has always been linked with low-end products, the three major pieces and model structure have not been significantly improved, to put it bluntly, it is the work of changing soup without changing medicine, and it is undoubtedly ridiculous to impact the high-end with such preparations.
According to me, Wuling really does not need to always read the brand upwards, correct their own positioning, the Wuling that really do a good job of the people is already enough to stand in an invincible position, and forcing things that do not belong to them will only outweigh the losses. Since Wuling has established itself as a national brand, it must not pick up sesame seeds and lose watermelon.