Recently, Great Wall Motors issued a bidding announcement on the "Great Wall Holdings Electronic Bidding Platform" to bid for the "Salon Zhixing Z Brand User In-depth Research Project".
According to the content of the project tender, the participating teams need to have rich experience in luxury brand research, and the recruitment of respondents also needs to ensure that it meets the luxury car brand user group, which means that Z brand will focus on the luxury car market.
Mu Feng, vice president of Great Wall Motors, previously said that the Sharon Zhixing Z brand is a new brand developed based on the Great Wall DHT hybrid platform, which will focus on THEPHEV model and will be officially announced at this year's Guangzhou Auto Show.
Sharon Zhixing is another attempt by Great Wall Motors to impact high-end after the WEY brand. As early as the establishment of the WEY brand in 2016, Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, made a promise of "only allowing success, not failing" at the press conference. However, since the launch of WEY, the market performance has not been satisfactory. In 2020, WEY sold 78,500 units, even less than the 86,000 units in the first year of the 2017 product launch, not to mention 100,000 units in 2019 and nearly 140,000 units in the heyday of 2018.
In 2021, Great Wall Motors will replace the WEY brand, clarify its brand positioning of "new generation of intelligent vehicles", and focus on the intelligent hybrid vehicle market of 150,000-300,000 yuan. However, as Sharon Zhixing also began to focus on high-end FEV models, the strategically adjusted WEY brand faced potential internal friction risks.
Industry insiders said that the wey brand model positioning is too concentrated and "faulty". "The high concentration of models previously launched by Great Wall Motors is a common problem in the early stage of high-end of independent brands."
Sales are falling and rushing higher
According to the latest sales data, the Great Wall Motor WEY brand sold a total of 4662 new cars in September, down 48.4% year-on-year, and the newly released mocha models contributed to all sales this month. From January to September this year, the cumulative sales of the WEY brand were only 33,919 vehicles, down 34% year-on-year.
According to media reports, with the listing of new models such as Mocha, Macchiato and Latte, the three models of the WEY brand's VV series have entered a state of suspension in most stores, of which the VV7 has been discontinued.
Since its inception, WEY's VV series, which focuses on the luxury SUV market, has three main models: VV5, VV6 and VV7.
In 2017, the annual sales of the WEY brand were 86,000 units, of which the monthly sales of VV7 and VV5 models continued to exceed 10,000 units; in 2018, the brand's total annual sales reached 139,000 units, an increase of 61.4% year-on-year. However, in 2019, the sales performance of the WEY brand began to decline, with annual sales of about 100,000 vehicles, down 28.3% year-on-year. By comparison, Lynk & Co sold 128,000 units in the same year. For the full year of 2020, Lynk & Co sold 175,000 units, up about 37% year-on-year. In stark contrast, the WEY brand sold only 78,500 units in 2020.
Since the beginning of this year, Great Wall Motors has adjusted the strategy of WEY, clarified its brand positioning of "a new generation of intelligent vehicles", introduced the coffee intelligent platform and intelligent hybrid DHT solution, and released a number of models such as mocha, macchiato and latte, in order to enhance competitiveness. Not only that, at the 2021 Shanghai Auto Show, Li Ruifeng, general manager of the WEY brand, also said that this year, Great Wall Motors will restart the car project, first test the water with the WEY brand, and plan to debut in June. In the future, the new platform and technology will extend WEY from the price band of 150,000 to 200,000 yuan to the price range of 150,000 to 300,000 yuan.
Great Wall Motor also said that from 2021 to 2023, the WEY brand will launch 16 new models, including cars and MPVs, to further segment the market, strengthen market share, and break through the 650,000 sales mark. However, only in terms of the decline in sales of the WEY brand year after year, its high-end market image is in jeopardy, and the momentum in intelligent technology still needs to cope with the challenge of Xiaopeng Automobile, and the prospect is not optimistic.
It is worth mentioning that the tank brand, which operated independently from the WEY brand in April 2021, has achieved a single monthly sales volume of more than 8,000 vehicles in September this year, and the cumulative sales volume reached 53,282 units as of September this year, and it is still in short supply. Compared to this new independent hit brand, WEY's situation is slightly awkward.
Poor quality is questioned
In addition to some objective reasons in the market, the most important and direct factor leading to the decline in WEY sales is the problem of quality control.
In some car complaint websites, the VV7 engine burns oil seriously, and the steering wheel is frequently questioned by car owners. In addition, there are quality problems such as sunroof noises in the driving process of new cars.
Although the comprehensive fuel consumption given by the Great Wall VV7 is 8 liters per 100 kilometers, according to media reports, a considerable number of car owners reflect that the daily driving fuel consumption is about 11-12 liters per 100 kilometers.
In addition, the low retention rate of vehicles is also another reason for criticism.
In the first half of 2021 retention rate report jointly released by the China Automobile Dealers Association and Jingzhen Estimation Information Technology Company, In the top 10 list of independent brands, Wuling ranked first with a retention rate of 71.2%, WEY's retention rate was only 61.39%, and his "old rival" Lynk & Co was 64.16%.
According to the Central Broadcasting Network, Cui Xuan, vice president of Beijing Jingzhen Estimation Information Technology Co., Ltd., said in an interview that the retention rate of the WEY brand in the whole year of 2020 is 60.66%, although the overall upward trend from January to August 2021 is on the rise, but it has been reduced compared with the strong upward trend of the retention rate in previous years, showing a trend of insufficient staying power.
In addition, according to Nandu reports, the new car price of the new car in the Guangzhou Avenue South Baolijie used car trading market is 132,800 yuan for 2018 and 2019 WEY VV5, and the current second-hand car prices are 95,800 yuan and 102,800 yuan, with depreciation rates of 27.86% and 22.59% respectively. The new car price is 193,000 yuan for the 2018 model, 2019 WEY VV7, the current second-hand car price is only 115,800 yuan and 115,700 yuan, the depreciation rate reached 40% and 38.5% respectively. As for the 2020 VV7, which is priced at 183,200 yuan for new cars, the price of used cars is 145,600 yuan, and the depreciation rate is 20.52%.
In contrast, the new car price of 176,800 yuan 2018 and 2019 Lynk & Co 01, the current second-hand car price is 129,800 yuan, 144,800 yuan, the depreciation rate is 26.58%, 18.1%, respectively. It can be seen that the depreciation rate of the 2020 WEY VV7 is not as good as that of the 2019 Lynk & Co 01.
The person in charge of a car dealership in Guangjun Used Car City pointed out that comparing the high-end brands of these two independent head companies, WEY's retention rate is not as good as that of each other. He believes that the WEY brand retention rate is not performing well in the south and may be slightly better in other parts of the country.
Perhaps the Great Wall itself also realized that it needs to make some efforts to revitalize WEY's market performance, a few days ago, some media learned from sources that Yu Fei, the general manager of the Great Wall Motor Euler brand marketing, has changed his position and will be transferred to Great Wall Motor's high-end brand WEY as the general manager of the car brand.
Through multi-party verification, Caijing Auto learned from informed sources of Great Wall Motors that Yu Fei's position has been transferred to Weipai Branch as the general manager of the car brand.
An automotive industry analyst told Caijing Auto that Yu Fei achieved market development and high growth in the car category during his tenure at the Euler brand. If the market rumors that its position adjustment is true, it shows that Great Wall Motors hopes that Yu Fei will copy this successful experience to the WEY brand, help WEY and even Great Wall Motors break through the problem of relying on SUVs in the past to "walk on one leg", and then achieve the goal of selling more than 4 million vehicles by 2025.
However, industry insiders said that due to the lack of market experience in the car category, the progress of the weY brand high-end is not smooth and needs to be revitalized, which is the main disadvantage of the current development of the high-end car category of Great Wall Motors. Although Yu Fei successfully led the Euler brand to stand firm in the women's market and achieve stable monthly sales of more than 10,000, it is still difficult for the WEY brand to break the two "stubborn diseases" mentioned above.