Recently, Geely Automobile Holdings, China's largest private automobile group, signed a share subscription agreement with Renault Korea Automobile, a Korean subsidiary of the French Renault Group. Previously, the parent companies of the two sides signed a cooperation framework agreement in January 2022 and decided to jointly expand the Korean market.
After the transaction closes, Geely Automobile will hold a 34.02% stake in Renault Korea Motors through its subsidiary, Centurion Industries Limited. Renault Group will remain the majority shareholder, and Renault Korea Auto will continue to be consolidated by Renault Group.
The parent companies of the two parties, Geely Holding Group and Renault Group, announced in January 2022 that they will launch high-efficiency, energy-efficient fuel and smart hybrid models in the Korean market, and plan to launch the above products in overseas markets. The new car will be produced at Renault Samsung's plant in Busan, South Korea, and mass production is expected in 2024.
The new product will feature Geely's world-class CMA modular architecture developed at its R&D center in Sweden and use Geely's hybrid technology. The new product line will leverage Renault's existing sales and aftermarket network in Korea. As of 2021, Renault Korea's after-sales system has ranked first in the domestic automotive consumer survey for six consecutive years.
In addition to the Korean market, these models will also be put on the market of other countries, which may be the most important starting point for the cooperation between the two sides.
Courtesy of respondents
Renault, due to poor sales, in 2020, Renault withdrew from the Chinese passenger car market, and its commercial vehicle and new energy vehicle projects were also delayed in development. Moreover, Geely should be the best partner it can find in the Chinese market, because Geely has enough overseas cooperation experience, including cooperation with Volvo, England, Daimler, Lotus, Proton, etc., which fully demonstrates Geely's strength in overseas cooperation.
For Geely, through the convenience provided by the Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, it can enter the U.S. market through the channel and export its products to the United States, the world's second largest automotive market, further expanding Geely's international influence. Moreover, as a globally renowned brand, Renault's traditional market is in Europe, with local dealers accounting for 50% of the overall sales channel, and its second largest market is Russia. After the cooperation, it can help Geely to exert efforts in Europe and more markets.
Last year, Geely made a lot of gains in overseas markets, with exports reaching 115008 vehicles, an increase of about 58% year-on-year, and adding 5 new export countries, namely Laos, Chile, Egypt, Ukraine, bahrain, so far, Geely's overseas export countries have reached 28, spanning five continents around the world.
Courtesy of respondents
It has to be said that Geely has once again proved its technical strength to the outside world, and at present, CMA architecture technology has been used in different brands such as Volvo, Proton, Geely and Lynk & Co, with open, shared and extended capabilities. The earliest Lynk & Co brand, which used the CMA architecture, has accumulated sales of nearly 600,000 vehicles.
It is reported that in 2021, Geely Automobile's R&D investment totaled 5.5 billion yuan, an increase of 16.1% year-on-year, and the total R&D investment in the past five years totaled 25.6 billion. Geely's financial report data shows that in 2021, Geely Automobile's technical licensing revenue was 1.275 billion yuan, an increase of 125% year-on-year, which has become a new profit growth point for Geely Automobile.
Geely Automobile has invested huge amounts of money in technology research and development and achieved relevant research results to form its own technical system, so as to have more confidence in the process of building a global territory. Cooperation with other brands to export technology, not only can share the investment in research and development, but also expand their own global sales, cooperation with Renault is a typical technology output.
[Reporter] Xu Fanghua
【Author】
Car scene