Sales seem to have picked up, but they still face a crisis of survival.
In this year's sales volume of 65438+ 10 to 165438+ 10, the terminal sales performance of Shenlong automobile market is not ideal. In the first half of the year, affected by the overall automobile market, the domestic automobile market as a whole was relatively depressed. Since June and July, the sales of the two brands have improved, especially in the past two or three months, the sales momentum of the two brands of Shenlong Automobile is very good.
Specifically, for example, Dongfeng Peugeot's sales increased by 44% in September this year, and increased by 33% in June at 5438+ 10/4%, which has achieved double-digit growth for three consecutive months; Similarly, Dongfeng Citroen's sales of 5438+00 increased by 33% in June this year, and the sales of 10 in September and June increased by more than 20%. It can be said that the two brands of Shenlong Automobile have achieved substantial double growth in the past three months, which is definitely good news for Shenlong Automobile.
In addition, Dongfeng Citroen? Tianyi SUV and Dongfeng Peugeot's car 408 are the sales champions of their respective brands. However, in the sales rankings of their respective levels, they are not top models, which proves that the road ahead of Shenlong Automobile is still quite bumpy. At least making an "explosive car" is the most important goal at present.
Those models with high hopes, such as PHEV Dongfeng Citroen Tianyi and PHEV Peugeot 508L, also appeared at the Guangzhou Auto Show not long ago. Although the PHEV version of Shenlong Automobile didn't come the earliest, it finally updated the model without two shots, which may be the beginning of change.
Some people may ask, why do you have high hopes for Dongfeng Citroen Tianyi PHEV? You know, compared with the PHEV version of Tiguan L at the same level, its overall performance level is obviously superior, especially in the elk test of China Production Vehicle Performance Competition (CCPC) before the opening of Guangzhou Auto Show, it won the championship with a score of 3.369 seconds, setting a new record for the three-year CCPC elk test. For a home SUV without any performance attributes, it is absolutely unexpected for Dongfeng Citroen Tianyi PHEV to refresh the test results of Elk!
The price range of Citroen Tianyi PHEV is 234,700-264,700 yuan. Among the PHEV SUV models in the price range of 200,000-250,000 yuan, the price of Tianyi PHEV is just between the PHEV SUV models of domestic independent brands and joint venture brands. Its excellent product strength and people-friendly price are its greatest advantages.
Dongfeng Peugeot's 4008 and 5008 models have relatively low pricing and large market concessions, and have obvious price advantages among SUV models of the same class. With the launch of Dongfeng Citroen Tianyi PHEV, it is expected that Dongfeng Peugeot's 4008 and 5008 models will also be equipped with this hybrid device.
Different from Citroen, Dongfeng Peugeot's first PHEV model chose the 508L of the sedan series, which just avoided its own brother brand model and reduced the competition within the group. Dongfeng Peugeot 508L? PHEV's powerful power unit, excellent performance of comprehensive fuel consumption as low as 2.2L per 100 kilometers, and the price of 265,438+0.57-227,700 yuan have obvious competitive advantages in the same class.
In the next five years, Shenlong will launch 14 new models, among which the modified models of 4008 and 5008 will be officially launched next year, and four models of Dongfeng Citroen worldwide are under planning.
Hidden dragon serves first in deep water.
According to the internal statistics of Dongfeng Citroen, since Shenlong Automobile launched the "Five-hearted Guarding" action at the service level, which makes users feel at ease in buying a car, using a car, caring for service, happy in changing cars and being United all the way, the number of dealer outlets that generate actual sales has increased from 1 10 to 160. Especially in this year's Shenlong Culture Festival, Shenlong Automobile officially launched 1 day refundable car, which can be returned without loss within 7 days due to product quality problems; 1 year guaranteed reserve price, double-brand newly listed models, the brand will lower the official guide price or officially release the promotion policy, and the brand will compensate the price difference for users who buy cars within one year; Five-year worry-free, the new car provides five-year/10.5 thousand km vehicle warranty and six free basic maintenance or value-added exchange services and other after-sales service policies to benefit the people.
In addition, Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot 10 have launched an activity that owners can enjoy a free basic maintenance for the first time in more than 6 years in order to consolidate their original customer base. At present, DPCA has 6 million customers all over the country. According to the survey report, the redemption rate of the same brand of Shenlong automobile owners is 2 1%, which is 8-9% higher than the industry average. From all aspects, the attitude of Shenlong Automobile to revitalize the market, consolidate existing customers, develop new users and increase sales from services is very obvious.
Does Kang Long have any regrets? The revival began with the decentralization of power in France.
Old users also said that the Peugeot Citroen they used to drive was from Wuhan No.2 Factory, and it was really good to drive. In 20 15, the sales volume of DPCA reached a peak of 7 1000, accounting for almost one-third of the global sales volume of PSA company in that year. Huge sales volume means huge profits, and at this time, the French side began to have the idea of redefining cakes.
As we all know, Peugeot Citroen, a subsidiary of Shenlong Automobile, has successively exploded spare parts problems such as tire bulging and electronic component failure. Don't ask the reason, ask the Shenlong car under legal control to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
At the beginning of May this year, Zhang Zutong, the deputy general manager of Dongfeng Motor (in charge of commercial vehicles), was appointed as the chairman of Dongfeng Motor, and Olivier, the head of PSA China, was appointed as the vice chairman. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that the French side is a little scared and returns power to Dongfeng.
At the beginning of September, Zhang Zutong transferred Bin Chen, the right-hand man of the former Dongfeng light commercial vehicle sector, to the general manager of Shenlong Automobile. According to the tradition of joint venture brand, PSA should set up a deputy general manager to supervise the development and management of the company, but after Bin Chen took office, PSA directly gave up the position of executive vice president; 1 1 At the Guangzhou Auto Show, Mao Innovation became the general manager of Dongfeng Citroen. So far, the top leaders of the five-story planning of Shenlong Automobile are all Chinese personnel. The senior management of Shenlong Automobile has been making adjustments to actively cope with its current operating conditions.
The first thing Bin Chen did after taking office was to investigate the domestic market extensively. Of course, this kind of investigation is not to look through the replies of the online water army, but in two months, he visited 54 dealers in eight major cities non-stop, heard the voices of dealers, and learned the most real thoughts of consumers.
In 20 15, the number of sales outlets of Dongfeng Citroen was 1423, and that of Dongfeng Peugeot was 15 15. This year, the number of sales outlets in Dongxue and Dong Biao decreased to about 150. Dealers lose confidence and users find it difficult to buy and use, which has become the biggest problem of Shenlong tooling.
In fact, the problem of dealers is very simple, with weak profitability, insufficient new orders and serious brain drain. Excellent sales and marketing personnel have jumped to other brands. These are the long-term consequences of "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" in those years. Because after Renault withdrew from China, consumers were still afraid of various problems with the car, and after buying it, they were worried about where my car would be repaired. Who wants to buy a car and is still scared?
It's not that the French don't value the China market. After all, this is one of the biggest profit cakes in the world. But the French have never really lowered their posture and walked beside the users. There is a beggar's edition below the top match, which is the biggest embodiment.
However, all this, Chen Bin, the general manager of Shenlong Automobile, once said, will become history. "All configurations with high customer attention and high frequency of use, such as reversing images, reversing radars, large screens, intelligent human-computer interaction, etc., will be placed on the main sales models, and additional configurations will not increase the price." Aside from the number of dealers, comparing German and Japanese, in fact, standard snow is only a loss distribution.
Shenlong Automobile officially released the "Yuan+"plan at this year's Shenlong Culture Festival, and will launch 14 new models in the next five years. The redesigned Dongfeng Peugeot 4008 and 5008 will be launched on 202 1, including four new cars of Dongfeng Citroen's global strategic model.
Bin Chen said at the Guangzhou Auto Show that upgrading from the "Yuan" plan to the "Yuan+"plan is, in the final analysis, to solve the problems at the market end and the pain points of customers. "
Next year, PSA will release E43, the first global model built by Shenlong Automobile. In the future, Shenlong Automobile will transform from a factory to a comprehensive enterprise integrating design, production and research and development. This model, code-named E43, will be sold to more than 20 regions around the world. (The picture below shows Citroen C6)
Or jump deep? Starting from 0
The publicity of Shenlong Department is poor, which is a common cognition inside and outside the circle, so there is a common cognition in the eyes of consumers that French cars are really good, that is, Shenlong will not sell.
Nowadays, under the fierce competition in the industry, Shenlong Automobile seems to have realized the truth that "the fragrance of wine is also afraid of the depth of the alley", and it also keeps up with the trend of the times in its external promotion.
For many years, the car-making style of Shenlong Automobile has always been "good meat buried rice", which has achieved overall excellent body strength in various "actual combat" accidents, and the use of environmental protection materials and overall materials in the car is also very kind. From the beginning, the integrated door was used, and the reinforcement structure inside the door was also excellent. Many models of Shenlong automobile have reinforcing beams on the roof, which is also the earliest popularization and use among domestic joint venture brands. Ordinary A-class cars are equipped with high-strength and high-cost front and rear aluminum alloy anti-collision beams, and all kinds of basic electronic auxiliary equipment adopt the latest version of Bosch.
Many models of Shenlong automobile are different from most brand models in the way of triggering airbag detonation. They don't use sensors to detonate airbags. The model of Shenlong automobile does not have any airbag sensor, but uses ABS deceleration calculation mode. When the deceleration or body deflection acceleration of the vehicle exceeds a predetermined value, the airbag will be detonated within a few milliseconds to ensure the safety of passengers in the passenger compartment. All this is based on the vehicle's powerful information transmission network and powerful computer computing power. This airbag initiation method is different from most European, American and Japanese systems, but Volvo, which emphasizes safety, also adopts this airbag initiation method.
Excellent chassis training and unique chassis technology have been "sprayed" to pieces without promotion. However, as far as chassis technology is concerned, Shenlong Automobile adopts the worst rear torsion beam suspension, which can give consideration to both sportiness and comfort and save a lot of money for later maintenance. Now, the changes from top to bottom, personnel changes and internal management structure adjustment, as well as the company's overall emphasis on its own product promotion, have achieved initial results.
At one time, the price of Shenlong automobile was high, and its configuration was unreasonable, so it could not find its own brand positioning. At one time, many interested consumers criticized the problems of low distribution, price reduction after buying, and excessive pricing. This year, the "Five Hearts" policy launched by Shenlong Automobile at the Cultural Festival completely solved the above problems and achieved a very high brand repurchase rate. Shenlong automobile also needs to pay attention to quality control, take off many small hats as soon as possible, use similar materials and configurations, and match more competitive models. I believe Shenlong automobile will be favored and recognized by consumers again.
At present, from the overall sales situation of Shenlong Automobile, in addition to the good overall momentum, the chain has increased substantially. However, from some aspects alone, many aspects of the book data, such as the overall sales, the proportion of a single model in the same level, are not enough.
As the saying goes, "Rome wasn't built in a day", it will take some time for Shenlong Automobile to return to its original sales level from a joint venture brand with mainstream sales volume to a continuous decline in sales volume. Fortunately, Shenlong automobile has started to get on the right track!
See the dragon in the field? Is it too late?
In the field of new energy, compared with domestic brands such as BYD, Geely and Chang 'an, and joint venture brands such as BBA and Toyota, Shenlong auto start is very late, not to mention new forces such as Tucki and Weilai.
However, according to Debach, director of technical quality department of Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd., will there be more investment in Shenlong in the future? PHEV？ Is it still too late for hybrid and electric vehicles?
The transfusion of PSA and Dongfeng can't make Shenlong Automobile return to the top three glory of the industry immediately, and the change of senior personnel is not a good medicine to solve all problems for Shenlong Automobile, which is ill in the bone marrow. In recent years, after PSA, some economical models have been cut off, which are widely used in China market, which makes DPCA's already weak product line worse. Elysee, 308 and other models have not been replaced for many years.
Perhaps for Shenlong Automobile, it seems that it will survive this period together with PSA, and the off-line of electric vehicles may complete nirvana, but the electrification process of PSA may not be suitable for Shenlong and China markets.
In addition to launching PHEV models, PSA's recently promoted electric vehicle model is Peugeot 2008 New Energy, a small pure electric SUV. Small fuel SUV does have a market in China, but it is based on the large space of models. Peugeot 2008 new energy does not have this feature, so our car 3 14 is not very optimistic about this prospect. I hope that Shenlong can launch a fuel car that meets China's consumption needs as soon as possible.
Shenlong Automobile is a special case among all joint venture brands in China. PSA does have technology, but this enterprise is not a truly global enterprise. Its main market is still in Europe, and its situation is very similar to that of Fiat and Suzuki in China. Therefore, for Shenlong Automobile, the independent design based on the localized market may be the biggest way out, and there is still a chance now.
Write it at the end
I'm glad to see the rebound of DPCA in recent months, not because I feel like a Peugeot owner, but because I want to see all China consumers have more product choices. After Renault withdrew from China, Shenlong has become the only child of the legal system.
So I'm a little worried that this is just a blip before PSA bid farewell to China. If DPCA wants to go further, it must be independent and truly realize the slogan of "More China". In short, I hope everything goes well and Shenlong Automobile can return to the race sequence as soon as possible.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.