On May 2, Dongfeng Group released the April report card of Fengshen and Shenlong. According to the industry's "guidelines" that are announced earlier and earlier the sales volume, presumably in the heart of the "old father" Dongfeng Group, the sales results of the "younger son" Fengshen in April are still relatively satisfied. Its sales volume in January-April this year increased by 122.3% year-on-year, not only greatly outperforming the market, but also becoming one of the most dynamic brands at present.
In fact, the wind god has not always been so smooth, for a long time before this, its profitability was very worrying, and even in the East Wind system, it was not welcomed.
What happened to cause the transformation of the Wind God? How long can this small "upsurge" last? Let the kung fu car take everyone to see it together.
(1) Set thousands of pets in one, but the start is not smooth
For Dongfeng Group, in fact, the name Fengshen was born earlier than the Fengshen brand. In November 1975, the second automobile officially set the product brand name as Dongfeng, which immediately opened its legend in China.
There is also a small story here, "Dongfeng" in the Chinese context is the meaning of spring wind, warm wind, but in the English context is the meaning of cold wind, cold wind. Dongfeng che wants to export, continue to use the name "Dongfeng", foreign users are often difficult to accept. After discussion, the top management of Dongfeng decided to use the name of "AEOLUS (Wind God)" for Dongfeng's export brand, which did achieve good results.
Therefore, more than 30 years before the birth of the Fengshen brand, the name Fengshen has been of great significance to Dongfeng Group. Giving this name to its own independent mid-to-high-end brands can also see Dongfeng Group's preference for "young children".
But favoritism does not mean success, after the release of the "Dongfeng Fengshen" brand in 2009, sales have been tepid. The strategy it adopts is the vehicle sea tactics, and has launched a series of models such as S30, H30, A60, L60, AX3, AX4, AX5, AX7, etc., but the market feedback is not good.
In the same period, Geely and the Great Wall have realized that the road of "technology is based on renaming" is not feasible, Geely launched Emgrand, Great Wall launched H6, Changan launched Yidong, these models have begun to consciously accumulate word of mouth.
The technical route of the Wind God is also wavering, like its flagship model AX7, which introduced cr-V chassis technology, and used the powertrain system of The Dragon. The epitome of this route is undoubtedly the Dongfeng A9, which is based on the same platform as the Citroën C6, and it is said that the parts sharing rate of the two is more than 70%.
But when such a model was launched, who to sell to, Fengshen did not think clearly. The urban middle class does not look up to such "shell-changing" models, the government does not encourage such development methods, and ordinary people cannot afford to buy them.
This seems to be the epitome of the early wind gods, who want to do everything and do nothing well. Its market experience is not as good as geely and the Great Wall, which have been groping for more than ten years, and the brand reputation and technology are not as good as the joint venture car companies, and it is very uncomfortable to be sandwiched in the middle.
In recent years, Fengshen has gradually changed its strategy. The product line has been contracted, the proportion of self-research has been strengthened, and the marketing service has been continuously improved, and good results have been achieved.
(2) The "big single product" strategy has worked, and the technical precipitation is gratifying
In 2019, on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the Fengshen brand, it made an important decision, that is, to create a "big single product" and promote rejuvenation in order to occupy a place in the future competition.
In 2019, Fengshen's new generation of national tide intelligent control car Yi Xuan was officially listed. Unlike the earlier S30 or A60, this is a truly youthful model. It adopts an interactive geometric aesthetic design, and the lines of the whole vehicle are quite smooth and curved. In terms of power, it uses 1.0T and 1.5T two gold power, which meets the E-NCAP2018 five-star standard, and is also equipped with WindLink artificial intelligence vehicle system and L2+ level intelligent auxiliary driving system. Considering that this is a 70,000-level A-class family car, the attraction is still good.
With yixuan's hot sales, Fengshen activated the AX7 and pushed the electric model E70. Although the product line is much simpler than before, sales are increasing.
In terms of independent research and development, Fengshen has also made new breakthroughs. In the past 2021, the Mach-powered MHD hybrid system equipped with Yixuan MAX won the title of "China Heart" top ten engines in 2021, and it is worth mentioning that its 1.5T fuel version has won the honor of the "China Heart" Top Ten Engines in 2020.
Of course, some people say that the "gold content" of this award is not high, and geely great wall companies take the award the same as playing, and domestic first-line car companies are regular customers. But for a second-tier independent brand like Fengshen, it is indeed a great honor, at least representing that its technology has reached the domestic first-line level. In particular, the award of the hybrid system can explain the research and development achievements of Fengshen in the past two years.
At the beginning of April this year, Fengshen's new SUV Haoji also completed its debut. The new car is built on the DSMA advanced modular architecture platform, and is also equipped with a Mach-powered HD120 hybrid electric drive system, and also introduces an empathetic car assistant "Hao Sister".
Of course, this new model is also plagued by untimely times, and the launch time is stuck at the point of sharp contraction of the domestic automobile market. But to obey the fate of personnel, these are not predictable by car companies. It can only be said that from the perspective of Fengshen's new generation product sequence, the competitiveness has indeed improved a lot.
(3) Do not be high and far-reaching, and be practical can be long-lasting
In recent years, Fengshen has gained momentum, and the various marketing methods are not as flexible as state-owned enterprises. Just Haoji debuted, fiercely pushed a wave of meta-universe concept, before yixuan MAX listed, but also a wave of "blind determination". There are also various shopping festivals such as Double Eleven, which can also be seen.
At the service level, Fengshen has also made great progress, holding an after-sales service skills competition every year, and also inviting users to interact in various ways. Of course, most of the time it is still profitable, and overall it is a continuous accumulation of word of mouth.
But the wind god also has a lot of hidden worries, the biggest drawback is whether it can stick to it, this is not alarmist. For such a "special" brand as Fengshen, it shoulders many "political tasks". For example, in terms of sales targets, 100,000 units were sold this year, at least 150,000 units should be sold next year, and it is best to rush 300,000 units in the following year.
For example, in 2021, Fengshen's annual sales reached 121,570 vehicles, an increase of 73% year-on-year, but this will also reach the annual sales target of 120,000. In this year's market situation, Fengshen's goal is 200,000 vehicles, although its performance in the first quarter is not bad, but it is still very difficult to punch the target.
Then there is the "catching up with the British Super Beauty" that state-owned enterprises often encounter, the research and development system itself is very fragile, and suddenly the development goal of the upper layer comes down, requiring the new model to reach the international advanced level in terms of performance, fuel consumption, and lightweight, or to develop a new D-class car at once. Then the people who really do practical things say that they can't achieve it, and some people who are superfluous have successfully "taken orders", and the result is a chicken feather, and many big people in the industry have left private enterprises for such reasons.
In the past few years, the Wind God has walked relatively steadily overall, but this is related to the fact that the upper echelons do not expect much from it (before it was more of a disappointment). Once the follow-up is taken care of by the "key", whether the wind god can withstand the pressure is not yet known.
(4) Kung Fu shooting
In the past few years, Dongfeng Fengshen has gone relatively smoothly, from products to technology to the creation of service systems, there have been no small progress. But it is still far from the first-line independent brands, even if this year successfully "punched" the 200,000-level sales target, compared with the million-level Geely, there is still a gap.
But from another point of view, today's achievements have also been hard-won. The former "young son" has grown up and become the pride of the parent company today, and even a rare car company that has grown against the trend, and its performance is still worthy of praise. May Dongfeng Fengshen go better and better and bring us more and better products.