The day before yesterday, the bell of ZEEKR Motors' listing on the New York Stock Exchange is still echoing in my ears at this moment. The three-year-old ZEEKR car finally "realized its dream", and Li Shufu, chairman of Geely Holding Group, also received the ninth IPO.
In the first quarter of this year, Geely Group's sales reached 738,400 units, surpassing BYD in global sales, becoming the only Chinese company in the top ten and becoming the world's best-selling Chinese car brand.
Even so, why is Geely called the "Chinese version of Volkswagen"? One in Wolfsburg, Germany, and one in Longwan, China, what is the relationship between the two? In fact, it's not that cars are very obedient to say this, at this year's China Electric Vehicle 100 Forum (2024), An Conghui, CEO of ZEEKR Intelligent Technology, did not shy away from saying: Geely's development goal is to become a public in the new energy era.
After all, Volkswagen, as the world's top two automobile groups in the era of fuel vehicles, was an automaker that once dominated the Chinese auto market. If you want to become a public in the era of new energy vehicles, it is enough to witness Geely Automobile's self-confidence in the field of new energy. Secondly, from the perspective of development history, Geely and Volkswagen have many similarities.
For example, both car companies pay attention to buying, buying, buying, Volkswagen likes to acquire is believed to be well known, and it has successively acquired brands such as Audi, Skoda, Spain's Seat, Bentley, Italy's Lamborghini, France's Bugatti, Germany's Porsche, etc., covering mid-to-high-end and luxury brands, and making it the world's most complete car company. Compared with Volkswagen, although Geely Automobile is its own brand model, it also likes to acquire, such as the well-known Swedish luxury brand Volvo, Malaysia Proton and British Luster have been acquired by Geely Automobile, plus Daimler has become the largest shareholder, Geely Group already has Geely, Lynk & Co, Volvo, Rust, Proton, Maple Leaf, Polestar, Geometry, Long-distance Automobile, London Taxi, Valin Xingma, Zeekr and Mercedes-Benz Smart and many other brands, the layout is also perfect enough.
Moreover, the assets bought are all high-quality assets, and the follow-up operation is also more brilliant, becoming the group's profit cow.
Of course, this is not the end, the two car companies also attach importance to platform construction, we all know that Volkswagen is the first car company to achieve large-scale platform production, from the earliest PQ platform to the familiar MQB platform and the MEB pure electric platform launched in the new energy era, many familiar models have been born. In this regard, Geely Automobile also attaches great importance to platform development, and has four major vehicle manufacturing platforms: AMA, BMA, CMA (DMA) and SPA. For example, Volkswagen's MQB platform, which can produce Audi TT RS and Tiguan L, and even Volkswagen Polo is a platform model. On the other hand, Geely's CMA platforms, such as Geely Xingyue, Lynk & Co series and Volvo XC40, were born on this platform.
You see, the two are not too similar. Take Geely Automobile as an example, in the first four months of this year, Geely Group's cumulative sales exceeded 620,000 units, a year-on-year increase of about 47%; The cumulative sales of new energy vehicles were nearly 200,000 units, an increase of 120% year-on-year. In addition to outstanding domestic sales, Geely Group reached a new high of 38,151 vehicles in April, a year-on-year increase of about 75%, truly realizing the blossoming of internal and external sales. Geely is no longer just about domestic sales.
Volkswagen is the most discerning car company, although it is difficult to turn around, but in terms of new energy, Volkswagen turns very fast. Report the first quarter of this year's financial report: In the field of passenger cars, the cumulative sales of the Volkswagen Group in the first quarter exceeded 2 million units, a year-on-year increase of 3.4%. Among them, the sales volume of traditional fuel vehicles was 1.97 million units, and the sales volume of pure electric vehicles was 136,400 units. In the domestic market, Volkswagen Group sold 693,000 units in the first quarter, up 7.7% year-on-year, of which 41,000 pure electric models were sold, up 91.2% year-on-year.
See, when other car companies are still hesitating to do new energy, Volkswagen has already handed in the answer sheet with actual sales.
Speaking of Geely, Geely Automobile's ability to achieve such excellent results is inseparable from the joint efforts of many of its brands. As we said before, Geely Group has many brands, but it is not simply "having more children is good to fight", but has a clear differentiated positioning. Taking Geely Automobile as an example, the Geely brand is positioned as a popular high-value brand, Lynk & Co is positioned as a mid-to-high-end brand focusing on super hybrids, and Zeekr is positioned as a luxury intelligent pure electric brand focusing on pure electric products. Let's take a look at what they've achieved. Starting with the China Star series, which represents the upward movement of the Geely brand, the total sales volume exceeded 1 million units in only 5 years, leading the sales to continue to rise with an average annual incremental rate of more than 20%, becoming the first and fastest high-end series in China's A-class fuel vehicle market to break one million, becoming the best proof of the Geely brand's upward trend.
In the mid-to-high-end layout, Lynk & Co sold 18,727 vehicles in April, a year-on-year increase of about 34%. Among them, new energy vehicles accounted for about 50%. For the Lynk & Co brand, behind the achievements is continuous innovation, take the past April as an example, it has successively launched the 2024 Lynk & Co 01, Lynk & Co 08 EM-P 120 Long Range Plus Edition on the market, Lynk & Co 06 Remix Real Blue, Lynk & Co 09 MHEV 4WD Global Edition and other models, bringing you more outstanding products at a more sincere price, plus the first new energy mid-size sedan of the Lynk & Co EM-P family, the Lynk & Co 07 EM-P, opened pre-sale. Let's look forward to its future sales!
As for the new mid-to-high-end new energy series "Geely Galaxy", it also performed well, taking April as its sales of 12,725 units, an increase of about 25% month-on-month. What's more worth mentioning is that at the Beijing Auto Show, the prototype of Galaxy Technology's flagship SUV "Galaxy Starship" made its world premiere, integrating GEA's global intelligent new energy architecture, a new generation of Thor electric hybrid, 11-in-1 intelligent electric drive and other top technologies in the industry, allowing us to see its technical advantages. The ZEEKR brand, which has just been listed on the New York Stock Exchange and is designed for pure electric high-end pure electric vehicles, has also performed well, with a total of more than 240,000 units delivered since its establishment three years ago, setting a new record for the delivery of new power brands, and maintaining a safety record of "zero spontaneous combustion", listing 4 models to subvert each market segment and become the sales champion of more than 200,000 Chinese pure electric brands in 2023, showing excellent strength. At the Beijing Auto Show, the Haohan-M architecture ushered in its debut, and its first model, ZEEKR MIX, also ushered in its world debut, making the future more worth looking forward to.
For Geely Group, Volvo and Proton also performed well, with cumulative global sales of 214914 vehicles in the past January to April, an increase of 16% year-on-year. Volvo has performed well in terms of new energy sources, with sales of its pure electric and plug-in hybrid models increasing by 53% year-on-year in April, accounting for 48% of global sales in April. It is believed that with the arrival of EX30, EX90 and other models, more outstanding results will be achieved. As for Proton cars, its cumulative sales from January to April were 50,175 units, taking April sales, Proton cars' market share in the Malaysian market is about 18.7%, according to forecasts, its annual market share is about 19.2%, and there is still some room for growth.
For Geely Automobile, cars are only a part, strictly speaking, Geely is a forward-thinking company with a starry universe in mind. Playing a good "first move" in emerging industries such as low-altitude travel, commercial aerospace, chips, and methanol vehicles shows its strategic vision and responsibility in the context of the new era. Geely's self-developed 7nm automotive-grade chip "Smart Cockpit Chip SE1000" is China's first 7nm automotive-grade SoC chip. In addition, models such as Galaxy and Zeekr have satellite communication functions that can achieve "never lost contact". This technology comes from Geely's layout in the field of commercial aerospace, Li Shufu has said that it plans to launch 72 satellites in three years to form a low-orbit small satellite constellation called "Geely Future Travel Constellation". The Chinese version of Volkswagen, Geely deserves its name.