Often, at the end of the year, there are personnel changes in the automotive industry that involve important senior positions that are very important. Because behind these personnel changes, it often reveals the anxiety of car companies about performance growth, or the adjustment and planning of future strategies.
On December 6, Dongfeng Nissan issued an important personnel adjustment notice. Comrade Gao Guolin no longer concurrently serves as the deputy general manager of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company, and continues to serve as the vice president of Dongfeng Motor. Comrade Zhou Feng served as the vice president of Dongfeng Motor and the deputy general manager of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company.
Prior to this, in July 2021, Gao Guolin succeeded Chen Hao as Vice President of Dongfeng Motor and Deputy General Manager of Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle.
About Gao Guolin, he graduated from the Department of Mechanical Engineering of Xi'an Jiaotong University, majoring in forging, and has successively worked in Shenzhen Dongfeng Real Estate, Fengshen Automobile, Dongfeng Motor, Dongfeng Nissan Passenger Vehicle Company, Dongfeng Motor, Dongfeng Venucia Automobile Company, and Dongfeng Motor Group.
The announcement pointed out that Comrade Gao Guolin has worked in the Dongfeng Nissan system for a long time and has made important contributions to the development of new energy, digital transformation and new marketing model innovation of Dongfeng Nissan. He also said that Gao Guolin has further stabilized the market base of the enterprise and consolidated the strength of the whole value chain system at the moment of continuous change in the automobile industry.
Now, from the perspective of time, Zhou Feng's succession has gone through the peak period of Dongfeng Nissan, and at the same time, it has also encountered the trough period that Dongfeng Nissan is in now.
It is obvious to all that Dongfeng Nissan's sales have continued to decline in recent years, especially the poor performance of the electric vehicle market, which may also be one of the main reasons for its internal reforms and personnel changes.
According to public data, Dongfeng Nissan sold 70,648 vehicles in China in November, up 22%。
Despite a slight increase compared to the previous year, cumulative sales in the first 11 months of this year continued to decline due to the severe decline in the previous months. According to the data, Dongfeng Nissan's cumulative sales in the Chinese market from January to November were 69490,000 units, down 2866%。
So the question is, what exactly caused Feng Nissan to be in trouble?
The reason for this is that it is difficult to sell new cars, and the new energy transition is not progressing as expected, which may be one of the factors affecting sales.
At present, Dongfeng Nissan mainly relies on old models such as Sylphy and Qashqai to maintain sales performance. According to the data, Sylphy's sales in November reached 39,105 units, accounting for 55% of the overall sales35%；Qashqai sales reached 10,557 units, exceeding the sales volume of 10,000 units;The Teana sold 7,877 units.
In comparison, sales of other models were relatively low, with only 3,319 units sold by the X-Trail, 1,401 units sold by the Jinke and only 25 units sold by the Blue Bird. Therefore, in Dongfeng Nissan's sales, Sylphy is the main driving force, but the reason for the continuous growth of Sylphy sales is essentially inseparable from the price reduction of end consumers**.
According to the market ** information, the current Sylphy 1The 6L classic model has a preferential range of nearly 40,000 yuan, and also provides a series of other preferential policies, which is already a non-explosive level in the joint venture brand.
From May to July this year, Sylphy once ranked first in the family sedan car market, but from August, its ranking slipped to third place and continued until October. It didn't rise to second place until November.
It is worth mentioning that since August, the BYD Seagull has occupied the first place in the family sedan market, which proves that the strategy of relying on price reduction alone cannot maintain the leading position in sales for a long time, and is replaced by some more competitive products.
In the traditional era, behind Sylphy is the Volkswagen Lavida, Bora, Sutar and other three top3-level A-class sedans have been catching up, but it is always difficult to surpass.
Nowadays, with the rise of self-owned brand products and new energy vehicle markets, Sylphy's classic models have been relatively few upgrades for a long time, which has further led to the impact on its position.
In order to meet the needs of the Chinese market, Nissan is also actively seeking electrification transformation, but Dongfeng Nissan's new energy transformation has lost its past glory.
ARIYA, which had high hopes, was launched on September 27, 2022. From October last year to November this year, the cumulative sales of this model were only 4,457 units. In other words, Arrow has sold just over 400 units a month since its launch, in stark contrast to the Sylphy and Qashqai that sell more than 10,000 units a month.
In October this year, Dongfeng Motor announced plans to recall Arrow electric vehicles.
The reason is that the vehicle inverter software is not properly set up, which may cause the vehicle to lose power while driving. The recall program covers a total of 2,958 units of select Arrow electric vehicles manufactured between August 25, 2022 and May 29, 2023.
You know, this number of recalls exceeds the sales volume of Arrow in the past year since it was launched, which means that Arrow not only has poor sales, but also has problems with the product, and it also highlights the lag of Dongfeng Nissan in electric technology.
At present, Dongfeng Nissan is at an important moment of fate, and Zhou Feng has become the new leader of the company.
According to the data, Zhou Feng joined the Dongfeng Nissan Technology Center in July 2004 and has served as the deputy general manager of Dongfeng Venucia Automobile Company and the secretary of the Party Committee of the R&D and procurement department of Dongfeng Nissan.
Since March 2021, Zhou Feng has successively served as the deputy general manager (presiding over the work) of the strategic planning department of Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd., the general manager of the strategic planning and technology development department, and the general manager of the strategic development research center.
At present, Dongfeng Nissan is facing the challenge of declining sales and electrification transformation, which is undoubtedly a difficult battle for Zhou Feng.
He has a long way to go in seizing market opportunities, improving product competitiveness, and working with stakeholders to develop and implement effective strategic plans to get Dongfeng Nissan out of the woods and restore confidence in the company.
National public opinion: It is foreseeable that with the challenges faced by Dongfeng Nissan, the first strength of the terminal market will increase in the future, and the competition between car companies will become more intense. Especially for Dongfeng Nissan, which used to be the sales pioneer of the joint venture brand, it will take some time and effort to re-establish consumers' purchasing confidence in the transformation process.
In a few years, the market landscape will change again.
Finally, if you have any opinions, please leave a message in the comment area to discuss.