People often say "centennial Ford", and everyone knows that there is such a centennial automobile ancestor brand in the United States. But for GM, an equally famous American automobile brand with a history of 100 years, it just stays in knowing its name. I believe that few people in China know about its corporate background and history. Just like the meaning of GM brand name, its development history is a history of merger and reorganization. Different from the parent company of other automobile empire enterprises, it has enough fame to undertake the sales responsibility. Since its birth, GM has been like an expanding alliance with many automobile brands. Buick, Chevrolet, Pontiac, vauxhall ... everyone has a resounding life story.
Recently, GM has just announced plans to change its global layout, and news has become the focus of attention of the industry and the public. As stated in the report of GM, to improve the profitability of GM car companies, we should pay more attention to the existing regional markets, namely China and the United States, rather than emphasizing the global layout. ?
Regarding the importance of China market to GM, many people must know the market distribution of global automobile brands. For example, in the ranking of China's market dependence rate, GM ranks among the best as a mass department, accounting for half of GM's sales in China, while GM is still firmly in the first place in the US market. It is worth noting that GM's China strategy is realized by SAIC-GM, and Baojun and Wuling are considered as GM's global product lines.
Instead of spending energy and financial resources to explore unpleasant new and old markets, it is better to give up the loss-making field as soon as possible, deepen the mature market and make the report look better. And not only the global layout, but also the improvement of profit rate involves all aspects of car companies. In this respect, Toyota can be said to be the most qualified teacher, regardless of east, west, north and south.
In fact, GM released this explosion news this time. By reviewing the previous operations, it can be basically predicted that a few years ago, GM continued to have restructuring steps. Opel turned around many times, from being acquired by GM to being sold by GM to PSA Group. The Russian market and the European market will definitely be abandoned by GM. GM's factory in Indonesia has also been closed, the factory in Thailand has been sold to Great Wall Motor Group in China, and the factory in South Korea will be closed soon. After several twists and turns, Horton brand in Australia, from casing to dealer tool brand, finally closed down.
Speaking of GM's sales in China account for such a large proportion, its brand layout is also worth talking about. What are the main brands of GM in China? Readers should be able to blurt out-Buick, correspondingly, GM also has a main brand in the United States, that is Chevrolet. Buick has a prosperous life in China, but its sales in the United States are scarce, and almost all its product lines are imported from China. It can be said that Buick has basically become a "China brand", which helps China's export trade. On the other hand, Chevrolet's position in China, aside from the brand sales performance for the time being, Chinese people's unique impression of this brand and understanding of corporate culture are also very few. Brand recognition is very important for buyers. In this regard, Buick has successfully created a high-end sense of the American system, which is related to GM's early strategy of entering China.
Back to the future plan announced by GM this time, the key words are "contraction" and "profit increase". The simplest and most violent way for enterprises is to close factories and lay off employees. Even the North American base camp has laid off14,000 GM employees, closed five North American GM factories and discontinued six GM models. All kinds of measures are not prosperous, but they give people a feeling of depression. The recent share price of GM also intuitively reflects the attitude of capital, but it has squeezed out nearly $6 billion in cash for GM's future plans.
At the same time, GM's plan report also revealed the future focus, that is, electrification and automation. Not only GM, but all traditional fuel vehicles will face the transition point of electrification. From one-vote civil car companies to high-end sports car brands to launch electric or hybrid sports cars, it can be seen that electrification is the general trend.
In terms of electrification, GM has two main forces at present, buick VELITE and Chevrolet Bolt. The former focuses on the China market, while the latter focuses on North America. Needless to say, Bolt's influence in the field of new energy vehicles in the United States. Generally speaking, the electrification of GM in the American market has begun to take shape.
In terms of automation, that is, autonomous driving, GM spent hundreds of millions of dollars to acquire Cruise, an autonomous driving team, in 20 16. Automation provides GM with a tutorial on autonomous driving, which enhances GM's strength in the field of autonomous driving. Later, GM's autopilot department got investment from many venture capital companies such as Microsoft and Softbank, and became a powerful autopilot enterprise, which took another step towards the development goal of high-tech enterprises.
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As mentioned above, "electrification" and "automation" are the grand goals of GM in the new stage, and the realization of these needs huge funds to pave the way. This and previous actions of GM are practical measures to raise funds. Although GM may face pain, it will undoubtedly be more conducive to GM's high-quality development in the long run, so that GM is no longer just a traditional car company.
This article comes from car home, the author of the car manufacturer, and does not represent car home's position.