Not only Infiniti needs Dongfeng Nissan, dongfeng Nissan also needs Infiniti
Text/Donald
At 10:00 a.m. today, Dongfeng Infiniti announced important personnel appointments:
Xin Yu, General Manager of Dongfeng Nissan Automobile Sales Co., Ltd., will concurrently serve as the head of the headquarters of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company Infiniti Business Headquarters of Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd.
Wang Baojun, former director of the sales department of Dongfeng Nissan Automobile Sales Co., Ltd., will serve as the deputy head of the Infiniti business headquarters.
Mao Limin, former General Manager of Dongfeng Infiniti, will serve as Vice President of Special Projects of Nissan (China) Investment Co., Ltd. and General Manager of Infiniti China Management Committee.
The appointment is the largest adjustment since Dongfeng Infiniti was placed under the umbrella of Dongfeng Nissan since January this year.
On January 5, 2022, Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd. officially announced that Dongfeng Infiniti will be included in Dongfeng Nissan's management system as an independent business headquarters, and Infiniti will become the third brand under Dongfeng Nissan.
At that time, the organizational restructuring heralded today's personnel changes, but after 4 months, the boots finally landed.
However, when it comes to the "Infiniti" brand today, the most common doubts from the outside world are more, "Will it withdraw from China like Acura?" ”
In the face of this question, both shareholders, whether Nissan or Dongfeng, have answered with a series of adjustments since January - Infiniti will not only not quit, but also increase investment in China.
A month ago, GAC Honda announced that it would not produce and sell GAC Acura brand products from 2023, announcing the official end of acura brand's six-year-long road to China.
Since then, another Japanese luxury brand representative Infiniti has become the focus. It is not unreasonable for the outside world to pay attention to Britain and the Philippines. In August 2014, Dongfeng and Nissan established a joint venture to establish the company. In November 2014 and March 2015, two models, the Q50L and QX50 models were launched successively.
After achieving a good start, Anglo-Philippine sales in China have been tepid, but after 2018, they began to decline gradually.
For the full year of 2021, Infiniti sold 13,000 vehicles in China, while its old rival Lexus achieved 227,000 units, and the gap is widening.
There are two ways in front of Dongfeng Infiniti, either follow the pace of Acura, terminate the Chinese business, and stop the loss in time. Or further integration with existing businesses to reduce expenses. Obviously, both China and foreign countries have chosen the latter.
The results are also quite obvious, although affected by the chip and the epidemic, in the first quarter of this year, Infiniti brand sales increased by 320.37% year-on-year, which is a bottoming out.
The three new seniors are all considered "veterans" of the Nissan and Dongfeng systems. Among them, Xin Yu joined Dongfeng Nissan in 2018 as the general manager of Dongfeng Nissan Automobile Sales Co., Ltd.
At the same time, he is also the general director of the Infiniti brand, and among the three sub-brands of Dongfeng Nissan (Nissan, Venucia and Infiniti), it highlights the special attention paid by the senior management of both sides to the Infiniti brand.
Since joining Dongfeng Nissan in 2003, Wang Baojun has served as the deputy director of the Marketing Department of the North District of the Marketing Headquarters of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company and the chief of the Sales Management Section of the First District of North China; the deputy director of the Regional Support Office of the Marketing and Sales Headquarters and the deputy director of the Business Development Department; the deputy director of the Dealer Development Department of the Marketing and Sales Headquarters; and the director of the Sales Department.
In the front row, third from left, Wang Baojun is visiting the market in July 2020
As a cadre who has been busy in the sales line for a long time, he was transferred to Infiniti this time, highlighting the determination of both shareholders to boost Anglo-Philippine sales.
Mao Limin, who has just announced his new appointment today, also talked about his views on the two "new ministers" in an interview with the "Daily Auto Telegraph", and Mao Limin said that Xin Yu and Wang Baojun are his old colleagues for many years, and they know the roots of the two of them, these two people are very good, and it is a great thing to be able to take charge of Dongfeng Infiniti's business.
In fact, not only Infiniti needs dongfeng Nissan's system capabilities, on the other hand, Dongfeng Nissan also needs Infiniti.
Constrained by supply chain problems such as chips, Dongfeng Nissan's cumulative sales from January to March this year were 242,000 units, down 16.2% from the same period last year, although it rebounded slightly in April, achieving sales of 102,000 units, an increase of 4.5% year-on-year.
However, Dongfeng Nissan needs to make the brand high-end, which is already a consensus. In this way, Infiniti has become one of the three major brands under Dongfeng Nissan, and it may become the driving force of the entire system in the future.