From the appearance to the departure, the sub-brand plays a phased role, and the previous stage has come to an end, ready for the next one.
At the end of the year, Changan Auchan's two classic models, Changan X5 PLUS and X7 Plus, ushered in updates one after another, but the new V-shaped logos of the two cars are very eye-catching, and a new naming method has been adopted, which seems to point to the new car to return to the brand sequence of Changan Automobile, so where does the Auchan brand go?
In 2018, Changan Auchan was born, and with the blessing of the Chang'an brand and the accuracy of its positioning, it soon occupied a place in the domestic second-tier independent brands, and harvested in the low-end market.
Chang'an's joint venture brands are becoming more and more obvious, Changan has built the Auchan brand with the power of the brand, and at the same time, Auchan has helped Changan Automobile to move smoothly towards the passenger car market.
In the next three years, Changan Auchan entered the first period, if the pessimistic view seems to be the last carnival of fuel vehicles, because soon the development of Chinese automobiles came to a turning point.
Behind the double rise in volume and profit, the silent shrinkage of fuel vehicles
In 2022, Changan Auchan, which is still making a lot of money in the field of fuel vehicles, also realized that this is not a long-term solution, so it launched the Auchan Z6 and the hybrid model Auchan Z6 IDD, in order to jump out of the comfort zone and want to inject the power of new energy into the Changan Auchan brand.
However, the injected new energy power is in conflict with the low-end market in which it is located, and the premium brought by the new technology and the existing audience group began to contradict, and soon Changan Auchan, which had been uphill all the way, began to slow down.
As a fuel model, Auchan Z6 has not reproduced the excellent performance of the previous Auchan X7 and X5 products in terms of sales since its launch. The hybrid model Auchan Z6 IDD did not make a big splash, in the final analysis, it is the mismatch between technology and pricing, and the plug-in hybrid on the market has appeared as a standard answer like BYD, so Auchan is even more silent.
This year, the fuel vehicle market began to shrink, and it was very obvious. In 2022, China's passenger car sales will be 235630,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 95%。
Among them, the annual sales of new energy vehicles were 68870,000 units, a year-on-year increase of 934%, and the market share increased to 256%, up from 12 in the previous year1%。In other words, in 2022, China's passenger car sales will be able to achieve 9With a year-on-year increase of 5%, the role of new energy vehicles is the largest.
In terms of sales data, the sales of fuel vehicles in 2022 decreased by more than 2 million units year-on-year. However, Chang'an's 2022 answer sheet hit a five-year high. It is worth noting that Changan Automobile also disclosed the main subsidiaries and shareholding companies that will have an impact of more than 10% on the company's net profit in 2022, specifically AVATR will lose 201.5 billion yuan, Chang'an New Energy lost 319.6 billion yuan, Changan Ford lost 244.9 billion yuan.
But the reality of the market is that no matter what was past and present, especially when the market is shrinking, no matter how hard you try to absorb nutrients, it is limited.
So this year's Chang'an Auchan's weakness is becoming more and more obvious, the shrinking of the market has made many brands begin to reduce prices on a large scale, and the most serious impact of this year's ** war is the low-price market, because it is already very low, but the price is lowered, and the pressure is below, so the impact of this year's Changan Auchan's fuel vehicles can be imagined.
New energy is cutting prices, the old first-line fuel vehicles are reducing prices, and the second-line Auchan's living space is constantly compressed, so the pressure on the head is the beginning of the disappearance below.
In terms of sales, the sales volume of the Changan Auchan brand in November 2023 will be 22,526 units, a year-on-year increase of 327%, down 199%。
The month-on-month sales of single products are also declining, and the sales volume of Changan Auchan X5 PLUS in November was 5,771 units, down 797%。However, it accounted for 28 percent of Changan Automobile's sales83%, down four places from the previous month.
It can be seen that Changan Auchan is still a pillar for the Changan brand in the fuel vehicle sector, but it will inevitably be affected slightly when the entire market begins to compress.
This means that it is time to shuffle the cards again.
The old does not go, and the new does not come
This wave of Auchan's return to Chang'an may mean that Chang'an is undergoing brand restructuring and sequence renewal. In fact, since the beginning of this year, Changan has been making adjustments, starting with new energy vehicles and launching a multi-brand strategy.
Deep Blue announced that it will be renamed "Deep Blue Auto", or it will be transformed from Changan to an independent operation model, similar to the relationship between Geely and Zeekr Automobile. The official said, "Changan Deep Blue changed to Deep Blue Automobile to make the brand clearer, and there are no other changes." ”
In the second half of the year, Chang'an Qiyuan was officially released. Changan Automobile's new energy will become a parallel pattern of three brands: Qiyuan, Deep Blue and AVATAR. Kaizen is different from AVATR and Deep Blue, the latter two are Changan as the largest shareholder, but Kaizen is Changan Qiyuan, which belongs to the series of brands incubated by Changan Automobile, and 100% belongs to Changan Automobile, which means that Kaizen, the "pro-son" in the field of new energy, has higher autonomy.
The new energy field has pushed three in one go, and the brand in the field of fuel vehicles has returned, and Changan's focus is clear at a glance. It seems that the three brands cover almost all the current new energy power scenarios, and AVATR and Deep Blue also have intelligent advantages with the help of Huawei. But in fact, inside, Chang'an's new energy has not yet appeared strong profit cows.
Let's start with AVATAR, which has debuted for the longest time, last week, AVATR had major personnel changes, and Zhu Huarong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of Changan Automobile, served as the chairman of AVATR Technology. And Zhu Huarong's appointment is an important manifestation of the great importance he attaches to AVATAR.
As the "eldest son", AVATR shoulders the responsibility of Chang'an's impact on the high-end field of new energy, so Chang'an will spare no effort to pull Huawei, CATL and other allies to pour a lot of resources, technology and funds into AVATAR. But sales and perception do not seem to usher in an explosion, AVATR 11 in the first 11 months of this year's monthly sales performance, the highest sales volume has only completed 2825 units, the rest of the monthly sales remain at the level of about 1000 units, 100,000 units of the goal seems to be less than one-fifth.
Therefore, AVATR 12 tried to break through the bottleneck, and the results are not yet known. Chang'an's new energy rhythm exploded this year, and it has sorted out the mid-range dark blue cars and the low-end Changan Qiyuan, but it has fallen behind.
Compared with several other independent brands, both the main brand and the new sequence are a little slow, the leading BYD is even catching up with Tesla this year, and there is a ** said that BYD accounts for 17% of the global pure electric vehicle market, and is expected to exceed in the fourth quarter of this year, becoming the world's first.
In the first 11 months, GAC Aion's cumulative sales were 4340,000 units, an astonishing growth rate in the first half of the year. Geely's ZEEKR has 5 products in 3 years, and the sales volume as of November this year is about 940,000 units. Combined with the new models launched now, Zeekr is expected to achieve total sales of 120,000 units in 2023.
In comparison, the total number of deliveries in the first 11 months of AVATR 11 was 21,483 units, and that of Deep Blue was 12 units in the first 11 months20,000 units. The results are not outstanding, and I don't know if it can turn the situation around with AVATR 12 breaking 20,000 units.
Chang'an's new energy iron triangle has begun to take shape, but whether the "three carriages" can be quickly accepted by the market still needs time, according to the plan, Changan Automobile will have 27 new energy products in 2025, of which Changan Qiyuan will launch 10 new digital and intelligent evolution of new automotive products. At the same time, Deep Blue Automobile will launch 6 models and 4 AVATR models, with a total of more than 20 blockbuster products. New energy sales will reach 1.2 million units, accounting for 40%, and will reach 2.4 million units by 2030, accounting for 60%.
The plan is good, but Chang'an's fuel is under pressure, and new energy has not yet broken through the shackles and ushered in an outbreak. Therefore, Changan is cautiously adjusting the chessboard, further recovering the brand of fuel vehicles, and speeding up in new energy, which may be Changan's main plan for 2024.
Auchan's rebranding is subsumed into Chang'an, which seems to indicate the future of the gradual contraction of independent fuel brands.