21st Century Business Herald reporter Du Qiaomei reported in Beijing
"With the official launch of the first new mass-produced model, the smart brand has entered a new stage of full-speed development."
On April 25, at the launch of the new smart genie #1 in Asia, Tong Xiangbei, CEO of smart brand global company, said that as the world's first brand to fully switch from fuel vehicles to pure electric vehicles, smart finally ushered in a "rebirth" after stopping the sale of fuel vehicles in 2019 and forming a joint venture with Geely in early 2020.
It is understood that as the first model of smart to fully turn electrified, the new smart genie #1 by the Mercedes-Benz global design team responsible for the vehicle design, smart R & D team led research and development and production under the Geely Haohan architecture, a total of Pro+, Premium two models, the official pre-sale price range of 190,000-230,000 yuan, will use D2C direct sales agency business model, is expected to start delivery in the fourth quarter of this year.
The new car is equipped with a 66 kWh ternary lithium battery with a maximum pure electric range of 560 km, and a permanent magnet synchronous electric drive with a maximum power of 200 kW, a peak torque of 343 Nm, and an acceleration of 6.7 seconds per 100 km/h. In terms of intelligence, the whole vehicle is equipped with 23 high-precision sensing hardware, which can realize 23 items (including L2+ level) intelligent driving assistance functions.
It is reported that only 24 hours after the opening of the pre-sale, the order volume of smart genie #1 has exceeded 10,000 vehicles. However, Tong Xiangbei did not disclose Smart's sales target for this year.
"This year is the first year of smart's first product launch, and it is also a new starting point in the history of brand development." On April 26, Tong Xiangbei said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald that smart aims to achieve a long-term vision of sustainable and long-term development when the brand is renewed, the product is renewed, and the business model is renewed.
The brand and channel are fully renewed
In the past two years, after experiencing brand renewal and product replacement, the new generation of smart pure electric products will cover more market segments. The smart genie #1, which has just opened pre-sale, is positioned as a new luxury pure electric compact city SUV, and the competitor is the leading brand in the high-end small and compact segment of pure electric and hybrid models.
As an urban pure electric car, from the pricing point of view, smart genie #1 can compete with the Volkswagen ID4 upwards, and will compete with some models of the Great Wall Euler downwards to seize market share.
In terms of target groups, Tong Xiangbei hopes to attract urban avant-garde trend leaders who pursue high-end pure electric experiences in the compact market segment, as well as cool players and fan families with Generation Z as the core, after smart genie #1, smart will also launch products covering more market segments.
"Over the past 25 years, Smart has amassed 2.2 million users worldwide, including a very deep user base in both the Chinese and European markets. Therefore, we are deeply involved in these two mainstream markets, user-centric, and build products around users. Tong Xiangbei said.
Relying on two shareholders, Smart has adopted an asset-light model that is different from other new power companies. In addition to the use of the parent company's technical assets, in the channel model, Smart has not adopted the current popular direct sales model, but has adopted the D2C direct sales agency system.
"In the European market, we work closely with long-term and trusted strategic partners to build the most appropriate network for smart. The newly designed smart showroom will be integrated into the Mercedes-Benz store, reflecting the new design DNA and new luxury appearance of the Smart brand. Tong Xiangbei said that it has established 300 sales and service outlets in 14 European markets, including the United Kingdom and Switzerland.
In the Chinese market, Smart will build a multi-level sales and service network composed of flagship centers, supermarket showrooms, service stations, and service centers. Nearly 150 independent sales and service outlets will be gradually rolled out in 2022. These outlets will cover more than 40 tier 1, new tier 1 and tier 2 tier cities.
In addition, 6 smart flagship centers with different styles and themes but with the same new luxury style will be officially opened in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou and Chengdu.
As an international brand, smart is currently expanding its global business, in January this year, Smart and Malaysia Proton Automobile signed a memorandum of regional cooperation, together with the power of Proton Automobile to jointly develop Malaysia, Thailand and other Southeast Asian new energy vehicle markets, other regional markets are also planning.
Faced with the risks and challenges of the current supply chain, Tong Xiangbei frankly said that in order to ensure product delivery in the fourth quarter, the focus of Smart's next work gradually shifted to production, quality, supply chain management, especially supply chain supply.
"Supply chain issues are an objective challenge for all brands, and Smart's independent supply chain management system gives us an edge in our supply chain. In response to the risk, Smart planned the supply chain foundation in advance and made preventive measures to hedge, and the current progress is stable and has not caused much impact. Tong Xiangbei said.
Can smart start again?
In fact, since its introduction in 1998, smart development has not been smooth. Although the reputation of the product and brand is very high, but due to the product is too niche, Smart's highest sales in the world only sold 150,000 cars; more than 20 years after its establishment, Smart has never achieved profitability. According to Melatus Bank, the smart brand has accumulated losses of about 4 billion euros.
After the weakness of the global auto market in 2018, Mercedes-Benz (Daimler shares) profit growth hit the ceiling for the first time, with revenue rising 2% to 167.4 billion euros in 2018 and pre-tax profit of 11.1 billion euros, but net profit showed a downward trend, down 28% year-on-year to 7.6 billion euros. The decline in profits and the transformation of the industry, traditional car companies are accelerating their transformation. The same is true of Mercedes-Benz, which continues to increase its investment in research and development in electrification.
However, in Mercedes-Benz's electrification strategy, Smart is the first brand to fully transform. At the end of 2019, the gasoline version of the model was discontinued in the Chinese market.
At the same time, in order to seek the development of China, the world's largest single market, on the afternoon of March 28, 2019, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and Mercedes-Benz announced that the two sides will establish a joint venture to jointly operate and promote the transformation of the smart brand on a global scale. The joint venture is headquartered in China and each holds 50% of the shares.
A year later, on January 8, Geely Holdings and Mercedes-Benz officially established a smart brand global joint venture company "Smart Motor Automobile Co., Ltd." with a registered capital of 5.4 billion yuan, and the two parties will each contribute 2.7 billion yuan, and Mercedes-Benz Co., Ltd. will mainly obtain corresponding shares in the form of smart brand contribution.
With global headquarters in Hangzhou Bay New Area, Ningbo, China, and marketing centers in China and Germany, the joint venture will create synergies in R&D, manufacturing and supply chain.
For the cooperation between the two sides, Mercedes-Benz hopes to give the sluggish smart to find market opportunities again, and Geely hopes to open up new ideas in the global business through cooperation with Mercedes-Benz. Both sides have their own needs, but the new Smart joint venture faces huge market challenges.
Some insiders believe that the smart brand that has been established for many years has not succeeded in the market, and global sales have long hovered at the order of 100,000 vehicles, because its brand positioning has been blurred. After the two sides jointly operated the smart brand, it was necessary to re-establish a clear brand positioning for smart.
"If you continue to do such a small car as it is now, it is difficult to meet its high-end pricing, and consumer demand is less; however, if you take the mass route for the sake of sales, it may reduce the brand value of Mercedes-Benz." The above-mentioned industry insiders said.
It is worth noting that with the wave of global car electrification, more and more "players" are cutting into the pure electric market and aiming at the urban boutique car market and the growing Generation Z consumer group.
In addition to local car brands, in 2019, BMW and Great Wall Motors jointly established Beam Motors, and the first pure electric MINI will be listed next year. At that time, smart will also usher in a strong opponent.