Why are domestic famous cars with annual sales of millions still left behind

2022 is a year of majestic and vigorous independent car companies.

One of the most proof of this is that BYD Auto has ended the history of China's car market sales champion being "dominated" by joint venture brands for a long time, and the previous pattern was "North and South Volkswagen One GM".

According to the 2022 2022 narrow passenger car manufacturers' retail sales TOP10 ranking, three of the top five manufacturers on the list are their own brands, namely BYD Automobile, which ranks first, Changan Automobile, which ranks third, and Geely Automobile, which ranks fifth.

BYD's sales volume is the champion whether wholesale or retail. /Passenger Association

The perennial top three "North and South Volkswagen-GM" have given way, of which FAW-Volkswagen fell to the second place, SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC-GM fell directly out of the top three, ranking fourth and sixth respectively.

Such a ranking reshuffle does allow us to see the strong rise of independent car companies, but a few happy and a few sad, not all independent car companies can end happily. For example, Great Wall Motor, it is the one who is worried, because it has fallen behind.

In its official Weibo post released on January 10, Great Wall Motor revealed that "in 2022, Great Wall Motor sold 1,067,523 units for the whole year, selling more than 1 million units for seven consecutive years".

This number seems glamorous, but in the top ten of the two major lists of manufacturers' retail and wholesale sales in 2022, there is no Great Wall Motor.

The reason why Great Wall Motor fell behind is related to the new energy strategy of many of its sub-brands.

At present, Great Wall Motor has six sub-brands, including Haval, Weipai, Ora, Tank, Great Wall Pickup and Salon Automobile, all of which are looking at "new".

According to the official statement, "in 2022, Great Wall Motor's six major brands will be 'new' in an all-round way, facing the rapidly expanding new energy market with a group new energy matrix", such as the Haval brand, with a new positioning of "new energy SUV expert", the third-generation H6 DHT-PHEV will be launched in 2022, and models such as Haval H-DOG will be unveiled; The tank brand new energy off-road has advanced again, and the tank 500 PHEV long-range version will be officially unveiled at the end of 2022.

But the ideal is plump, the reality is skinny. As far as the latest sales data are concerned, the current salon car has not delivered new cars, which cannot bring actual sales to Great Wall Motor for the time being, and the remaining five major brands except tank brands do not seem to be very powerful.

Tanks, still relatively strong. /Great Wall official Weibo

In particular, the Haval brand, which accounts for half of Great Wall Motor's sales, saw its annual sales in 2022 decline by 19.93% year-on-year, and its ace model Haval H6 changed from the best-selling SUV in 2021 to the third-best-selling SUV in 2022, and the annual sales of the model directly discounted by 7% year-on-year.

In terms of Great Wall pickup trucks, as the second support point for Great Wall Motor's sales, although it has been the first in sales for 25 consecutive years and its global cumulative sales have exceeded 2 million units, it has to be admitted that its annual sales in 2022 will decline by 19.87% year-on-year, and its market share is being diluted by other car brands.

Weipai and Ora are the two major brands that Great Wall Motor has worked hard to build in recent years, the former positioned as a high-end intelligent new energy brand, and the latter positioned as a car brand that loves women more.

In the year 2022, both are innovating, and successively unveiled or launched models such as Wei brand Mocha DHT-PHEV, Wei brand latte DHT-PHEV, Blue Mountain DHT-PHEV, Ballet Cat and Lightning Cat, but reflected in the market, both have double-digit year-on-year sales declines, which is still the effect of "thunder and rain".

Euler, which focuses on the female market. /Great Wall official Weibo

In particular, Wei Pai, in July 2022, its CEO Li Ruifeng often touted his own DHT series-parallel technology on social software, and then stepped on AITO, the extended-range hybrid used by the ideal car.

However, the feedback given by the market is very realistic, Weipai will sell 36,000 new cars in 2022, down 37.66% year-on-year, but Huawei-enabled AITO Qianjie will deliver more than 75,000 units in 2022, and Li Auto will also deliver 133,000 units in 2022, a year-on-year increase of 47.2%, ranking second in the annual delivery volume of new automakers.

The remaining four major brands that can bring actual sales have lost their gates, and how much can a tank brand that contributes only 11.6% to Great Wall Motor's total sales in 2022 save?

It is obviously a drop in the bucket, even if the annual sales of tank brands increase by 46.45% year-on-year, not to mention that tank brands still failed to defend in the last month of 2022, and there was a year-on-year decline.

In fact, Great Wall Motor has no problem in taking the road of comprehensive new energy, the problem is that it cannot effectively inform consumers why they choose Great Wall Motor when choosing new energy vehicles, and what are the advantages of its new energy compared with other traditional car companies and new forces in car manufacturing.

A question, why buy Great Wall's new energy vehicles? /Great Wall official Weibo

In addition, Great Wall Motor's six sub-brands will not be able to "blossom with multiple children" in 2022, and how to effectively integrate brands is also a big problem.

Of course, Great Wall Motor has given a solution to this problem: under the premise of maintaining the existing brand strategy in terms of architecture, the organization and channel integration of Ora and Salon, Weipai and Tank, and at the same time strengthen the Haval brand.

However, in the end, it is difficult to say whether Great Wall Motor can get its wishes, but I hope that this brand resource integration can be as effective as the category marketing strategy it promoted in 2020.