On the streets of the capital of Kazakhstan, Chinese-made buses can often be seen. And a few years ago, the Kazakh Capital Bus Company made it clear: "We are the capital, we are the face, we only buy European cars."
What impresses these Central Asian customers? What are the advantages of Made in China, and how will it deepen the Central Asian market next? During the first China-Central Asia Summit held on May 18-19, Li Haifeng, deputy manager of Yutong Bus CIS Region, which has become the largest bus brand in Central Asia, was interviewed by Observer.com to introduce the characteristics of the Central Asian market and the efforts of Chinese enterprises in detail.
Science and engineering force: Can you briefly talk about the current pattern of the global bus market and what position is Yutong?
Li Haifeng: In 2022, Yutong will have a market share of 28.2% in the domestic large and medium-sized bus market, ranking first in domestic sales for 20 consecutive years. Last year, the global sales volume was 30,198 units, with a global share of more than 10%, and up to now, Yutong has exported a total of 87,000 buses, making it the "main force" of China's bus exports.
Science and Industry Force: Why is Central Asia the key area of Yutong's overseas layout, and what are the historical reasons?
Li Haifeng: Since 2010, Yutong Bus has begun to operate the Central Asian market in a direct sales mode, and has exported more than 5,400 large and medium-sized buses so far, and has become the largest bus brand in Central Asia.
When it comes to Central Asia, first of all, it is geographically close to China, and secondly, Central Asia has a vast territory and although the population is not large, the demand for buses is very strong, which provides many opportunities for Chinese enterprises; Third, Central Asia is the center of the Eurasian continent and is located in the traffic artery, and managing Central Asia well is of positive significance to Yutong's development of the Eurasian market.
Before 2010, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, many local buses were European second-hand cars, or old cars left before, and later updated some Korean brand cars, customers saw the beautiful appearance and bought, but the quality and service accessories often could not keep up, causing great trouble to local customers.
In 2010, Yutong began to sell directly in the local area, supporting the follow-up of a series of measures such as resident business and service team, accessories, training, operation, and post-service, so that local customers realize that different manufacturers, different concepts, and different services, which slowly changed the situation.
In the current market, because our cost is the highest, the pricing is indeed the highest, but the sales volume is also the largest, indicating that such a full set of services has been fully recognized by customers.
Science and Industry Force: At present, it is mainly an enterprise-side market (B-side) or a government-side market (G-side)?
Li Haifeng: Buses are not consumer goods, they are production tools. The customers who buy buses are basically bus companies in various cities, long-distance passenger transport companies, or travel companies, and some employee shuttles of large companies, all of which are aimed at enterprises, of course, there are also some self-employed people who run long-distance lines.
The government market you said is like this, the long-distance passenger demand in Central Asian countries is not very much, most of the demand is concentrated in urban buses, a large part of these bus companies are state-owned, there are also some private, the bus industry is basically a small profit or loss, to operate normally, the government needs to provide subsidies, the government has high requirements for the operating years and online rate of subsidized vehicles.
Therefore, after we establish cooperation with the government, state-owned enterprises and private enterprises, we must establish a long-term mechanism, selling cars is only the first step, and then we must do a series of work to support the long-term operation of vehicles, so that customers use it well, everyone trusts each other, and new orders will continue to be generated and long-term cooperative relations will be maintained.
Science and Industry Force: What is the current overall sales situation in Central Asia?
Li Haifeng: Up to now, Yutong has exported more than 5,400 large and medium-sized buses in the five Central Asian countries, accounting for more than 40% of China's bus exports, and is the largest bus brand in Central Asia. In addition to the main markets Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Yutong has batch sales in Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
Yutong's business in Central Asia has mainly gone through three stages:
In the first stage, tourist cars and passenger vehicles are the advantages of Yutong Vehicle, after customers use it, the economy and reliability of Yutong Vehicle deeply impressed customers and further opened up the market;
In the second stage, the market has a high market share of friends, all of which are fuel vehicles, and the local natural gas resources are abundant, and the business takes the initiative to develop gas models to meet customer needs, further improve economy, and high cost performance;
In the third stage, combined with the concept of energy conservation and environmental protection, guide customers to purchase pure electric buses, such as in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, after the trial operation of 20 pure electric buses, from the excellent quality of vehicle design, brand influence and professional services of Yutong people, customers purchased an additional 300 pure electric buses.
Yutong new energy bus driving on the streets of Tashkent
Science and Industry Force: Kazakhstan is the largest market, can you talk about sales?
Li Haifeng: We entered the Kazakhstan market in 2005 and have sold more than 4,300 large and medium-sized buses, accounting for more than 44% of China's overall exports, making us the largest Chinese bus brand in the local large and medium-sized bus market.
Our buses exported to Kazakhstan have covered all major market segments and are "tailored" to the local operating environment and passengers' travel habits, such as the 700 12-meter gas low-entrance buses dedicated to Almaty since 2010. Although Kazakhstan is rich in oil and gas resources, the Kazakh government is also actively building a green transportation system, and these vehicles are also the earliest natural gas buses purchased by the CIS at that time, with the highest environmental protection standards and the largest batch, and a service team of nearly 10 people escorts local traffic all year round.
In the capital Astana, we offer pure electric buses and "big nose" school buses; In 2020, when the new crown epidemic was at its tightest, we specially customized 100 mobile medical vehicles to deliver to the Kazakh government to provide village consultation and vaccination services, and solve the problem of people in remote areas having difficulty in seeing a doctor.
Science and engineering forces: Are there any special local needs, and are there any customized measures in products, technologies and services?
Li Haifeng: Exactly. Although the Central Asian market is very close to China, the natural environment, usage scenarios, laws and regulations are very different from China.
First of all, the most intuitive difference is the natural environment. Astana in northern Kazakhstan claims to be the second coldest capital in the world; The coldest is Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, which is also in our precinct, where they have a winter of 5-6 months, heavy snowfall starts in October, and by May of the following year, it is basically snowy at any time. Winter temperatures are generally minus 20-30 °C, and even reach minus 40 °C at night, and the lowest reaches minus 51 °C.
In this extremely cold situation, very harsh requirements are placed on the cars that run on the street every day.
In response to this extremely cold weather, we are very strict in design and material selection, and body parts and chassis parts must withstand this low temperature. The whole vehicle must adopt double-layer insulating glass; The body is made of reinforced thermal insulation material; The chassis is made of super-thick foamed armor; The thinner parts should be installed with other special thermal insulation materials to ensure that the floor does not freeze during operation, and after turning on the heating in the car, the temperature should be kept at 15 °C-20 °C, and the thermal insulation performance of the body must be strengthened.
This is the cold aspect, especially high temperature such as 40 ° C is also available, and special insulation treatment is also required.
For example, Uzbekistan is a special weather with high temperature, dry and dusty, in order to meet the operational needs, Yutong provides customized product solutions for Uzbekistan based on the core "three electricity" technology. Among them, the power battery adopts independent liquid cooling system, battery compartment anti-collision design, battery nitrogen protection system and other safety technologies, and is equipped with motor sediment protection structure, motor anti-condensation structure, etc. to reduce failure, while ensuring the cooling effect with strong high-power air conditioning.
We have a nationally certified bus test center in Zhengzhou, in which the high and low temperature laboratory simulates the low temperature environment to reach below minus 40 °C, and the high temperature reaches above 60 °C.
Tashkent Bus Company of Uzbekistan introduced 20 Yutong new energy buses for the first time in 2022, which has been in operation for more than one year, achieving safety, energy saving and environmental protection, and customers and citizens are very satisfied; In order to let more people see this batch of buses, the bus company specially put these 20 buses on 20 different routes. In 2023, Uzbekistan purchased 800 Yutong buses in large quantities, including 300 pure electric buses, which is China's largest export order to Uzbekistan.
Science and industry: We also provide Kazakhstan with a lot of pure electric buses, can these cars also withstand extreme cold?
Li Haifeng: At the beginning, they also had doubts, Kazakhstan chose a Yutong pure electric bus in January 2019 for trial in the capital Astana, the local winter temperature is usually minus 30-40 °C, the water into ice, this pure electric car runs well, strengthening the local confidence in the development of pure electric vehicles.
In December 2019, Kazakhstan purchased 100 Yutong E12 pure electric buses at one time and put them into operation on Capital Bus.
These 100 cars, which have been in operation for more than 3 years, can run about 300 kilometers on a full charge, and achieve a result of 320 kilometers in an energy-saving driving competition, which is enough to meet the needs of a day.
This is relying on Yutong's self-developed BMS battery management system, whether in extremely cold or extremely hot environment, the battery can generally maintain the most suitable operating temperature of 25 °C, intelligent heating + rapid heating + all-round insulation and other measures, can fully adapt to the local special climate environment, a single charge can easily meet the all-day operation.
Science and engineering forces: Long-term operation in the local area, is it necessary to build factories, charging stations and other supporting facilities?
Li Haifeng: The plant we have built with local partners has a capacity of about 1,000 units per year, and there are also 200 other types of commercial vehicles or special vehicles.
At present, the factory is basically local employees, the total number of people is about 500 people, the Chinese side will send professional and technical personnel to assist, provide relevant training, production technical support in key positions, quality control, and the entire production scheduling, etc., there are professional talents, but not particularly many, most of the factories are locals, directly creating nearly 500 jobs for the local area and indirectly creating 5,000 jobs for the public transportation industry.
Parts factories have begun to plan, because Kazakhstan's own automotive industry base is relatively weak, seats, glass, body parts and other accessories are temporarily unavailable locally, Yutong is planning to do some supporting local production.
The charging infrastructure of buses is generally built by Yutong in combination with customers and delivered to local use, so as to relieve customers' worries.
In addition, Yutong has a total of 8 service stations and 1 spare parts center warehouse in Kazakhstan, in Uzbekistan, Yutong has 4 service stations and 1 spare parts warehouse, and in Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Yutong has a total of 4 service stations.
For the Central Asian market, Yutong has a total of 25 service personnel and engineers stationed in various regions of Central Asia, and for countries with new energy bus operations, Yutong will also regularly organize driver training, new energy vehicle maintenance and other courses.
The bus is not exactly the same as the car, the car has a 4S shop to facilitate customers to repair nearby, and the bus is operated, repaired and maintained in the station in order to maintain operational efficiency. We set up a special after-sales service station, provide 7*24 hours nanny service and lifelong technical guidance, and actively help customers troubleshoot and solve problems in operation. The customer's car broke down and called us, and we sent someone with tools and even accessories to repair it.
For example, recently, a bus with 53 people broke down on the road 70 kilometers from Tashkent, after receiving feedback from customers, we immediately went to the scene to solve the problem overnight, and then arrived at the hotel at 2:00 a.m.
Whether the vehicle can operate normally depends largely on the spare parts, so we have established a spare parts center library in Central Asia, and the spare parts reserve exceeds 15 million yuan by amount. In addition to the central bank, there are other distribution warehouses that can ensure that daily operation and maintenance needs are met in most cases. Unless some too special accessories, if not available on site, we can also fly them from the country.
Although the cost of air transportation is relatively high, but this is just needed, the bus as an operating vehicle, a radish a pit, if you dare to stop the operation for a week or even a month, the operation will be delayed, what about the customer's income? How to repay the loan? Therefore, the pressure of selling buses is much greater than the pressure of selling cars, and it requires us to be very reliable in the guarantee of service operations.
Science and industry: Will supporting infrastructure be built, and who will provide operational services?
Li Haifeng: The local public charging station facilities are definitely less than ours (domestic), so after we get a batch of cars in, we must match the charging facilities in its parking lot, we provide him with charging piles, help him do the construction, they only need to apply for transformers, and related expansion. Our 12-meter pure electric bus is equipped with a two-gun charging pile for every two cars.
In terms of operation, from the point of view of use, the vehicle is connected to the power, and then the gun is pulled, the gun is inserted, and the charging process is very simple, and this system is intelligent and does not require special additional management.
If there is a failure, our system will detect it and will give them an early warning when the time comes, or we also have people on site to do service and repair, and the actual operation is their own operation.
Science and Industry Strength: What is Yutong's brand power and channels in countries along the "Belt and Road"?
Li Haifeng: For example, the customer of the 100 pure electric buses just mentioned is the Kazakh Capital Bus Company, which belongs to the customer of a state-owned enterprise.
When we visited a few years ago, the leader of the other party said, "We are the capital, we are the face, we only buy European cars", although the effect and quality are recognized by customers in the actual operation of Yutong in other cities, but the other party just does not recognize the Chinese brand, and there is no way at first.
After several years of accumulated efforts, especially the high quality and use effect of high-end products such as pure electric vehicles, it has helped us open the market, and even after using pure electric vehicles for more than 3 years, they have completely recognized our brand and business philosophy, and now they also buy our diesel vehicles.
Overseas, the other party will first recognize the "Chinese brand", followed by the "Yutong" brand, which people who often go abroad may feel more deeply and directly. If a car is good, they will say "Chinese car is very good, Chinese is very serious, do things very well", if something does not work, it is "Chinese things do not work, Chinese do not work", the perception of products and brands can easily rise to a higher level of evaluation.
Therefore, the company requires us to change from "hunter" to "cultivator", persistently fight positional warfare, do not engage in short-termism, do not fight price wars, and operate the market through quality and service operation overall solutions, which is one of the reasons why we sell more directly, because if you only rely on channels, it may be difficult to achieve deep cultivation and long-termism.
In general, Yutong has exported more than 87,000 buses in total, with a global annual sales share of more than 10%, of which new energy buses have achieved good operation in more than 30 countries and regions, and more than 80% of Yutong's overseas target sales countries are distributed along the "Belt and Road", with a cumulative sales of more than 68,000 buses. Among them, in Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Poland and other countries, Yutong is the only new energy bus supplier or the largest new energy bus supplier in the country.
Li Haifeng, deputy manager of Yutong Bus CIS (photo provided by interviewee)
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