It is imperative for Chang ‘an, which reshuffles its cards, to accelerate new energy sources.
Sub-brands play a phased role from appearance to departure. The last stage has come to an end and they are ready for the next stage.
At the end of the year, Changan X5 PLUS and X7 PLUS, two classic models of Changan Auchan, have been updated one after another, but the brand-new V-shaped logos of the two cars are very eye-catching and adopt a brand-new naming method. It seems that everything points to the return of the new car to the brand sequence of Changan Automobile. Where will the Auchan brand go?
In 2018, Changan Auchan was born. With the blessing of Changan brand and the accuracy of positioning, it quickly occupied a seat in domestic second-line independent brands and harvested in the low-end market.
Changan’s joint venture brands are becoming more and more obvious. Changan has built the Auchan brand with the strength of the brand, and Auchan has helped Changan Automobile to move smoothly into the passenger car market.
In the next three years, Changan Auchan entered a golden age. If it is pessimistic, it seems to be the last carnival of fuel vehicles, because the development of China automobile soon reached a turning point.
Behind the Shuang Sheng, the fuel car is shrinking silently.
In 2022, Rao, Changan Auchan, who still made a lot of money in the field of fuel vehicles, realized that this was not a long-term solution, so he launched Auchan Z6 and the hybrid model Auchan Z6 iDD, in order to get out of the comfort zone and want to inject new energy into Changan Auchan brand.
However, the injected new energy force is in conflict with the low-end market where it is located, and the premium brought by new technologies and the existing audience groups begin to contradict, and soon Changan Auchan, who once climbed all the way, began to slow down.
As a fuel model, Auchan Z6 has not reproduced the excellent performance of Auchan X7 and X5 since its launch. However, the hybrid model Auchan Z6 iDD did not arouse much splash. In the final analysis, it is the mismatch between technology and pricing. The plug-in hybrid in the market has already appeared the standard answer like BYD, so Auchan is even more silent.
It never rains but it pours. This year, the fuel car market began to shrink, and it was very obvious. In 2022, the sales volume of passenger cars in China was 23.563 million, a year-on-year increase of 9.5%.
Among them, new energy vehicles sold 6.887 million vehicles in the whole year, up 93.4% year-on-year, and the market share increased to 25.6%, up from 12.1% in the previous year. In other words, in 2022, the sales volume of passenger cars in China will increase by 9.5% year-on-year, and the role of new energy vehicles is the biggest.
From the sales data, the sales volume of fuel vehicles decreased by more than 2 million units in 2022. However, Chang ‘an’s 2022 answer sheet hit a new high in five years. It is worth noting that Changan Automobile also disclosed the main subsidiaries and shareholding companies that affected the company’s net profit by more than 10% in 2022. Specifically, Aouita lost 2.015 billion yuan, Changan New Energy lost 3.196 billion yuan and Changan Ford lost 2.449 billion yuan.
But the reality of the market is that no matter how hard we try to absorb nutrients, it is limited, especially when the market is shrinking.
Therefore, the weakness of Changan Auchan this year is becoming more and more obvious, and the shrinking market has caused many brands to start to cut prices on a large scale. The most serious impact of this year’s price war is the low-priced market, because the price itself is already very low, but the price above will be under pressure, so the impact on Changan Auchan’s fuel vehicles this year can be imagined.
New energy sources are cutting prices, old first-line fuel vehicles are cutting prices, and second-line Auchan’s living space is constantly being compressed, so the beginning of head pressure is the beginning of the disappearance below.
Reflected in the sales volume, the sales volume of Changan Auchan brand in November 2023 was 22,526 vehicles, up 32.7% year-on-year and down 19.9% quarter-on-quarter.
The chain of single products is also declining. In November, the sales volume of Changan Auchan X5 PLUS was 5,771 units, down 7.97% from the previous month. However, it accounted for 28.83% of Changan automobile sales, and its ranking in SUV sales dropped by 4 places compared with last month.
It can be seen that Changan Auchan is still a pillar for Changan brand in the fuel vehicle sector, but it will inevitably be slightly affected when the whole market begins to compress.
This means it’s time to shuffle again.
The old does not go, the new does not come.
This wave of Auchan’s return to Chang ‘an may mean that Chang ‘an is carrying out brand reconstruction and sequence rejuvenation. In fact, from 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 would change its name to "Deep Blue Automobile", or it would change from Changan to an independent operation mode, similar to the relationship between Geely and Krypton Automobile. The official said, "Changan Deep Blue was changed to Deep Blue Car to make the brand clearer, and nothing else has changed."
In the second half of the year, Changan Qiyuan was officially released. Changan Automobile’s new energy will become a parallel pattern of Qiyuan, Deep Blue and Aouita. Qiyuan is different from Aouita and Deep Blue. Both of them have Changan as the largest shareholder, but Qiyuan is a series of brands hatched by Changan Automobile, which is 100% owned by Changan Automobile. This means that Qiyuan, a "son" in the field of new energy, has higher autonomy.
The new energy field pushes three in one breath, and the brand in the fuel vehicle field returns, and the focus of Changan is clear at a glance. It seems that the three brands cover almost all the current new energy power scenarios, and Aouita and Deep Blue also have the advantage of intelligence with the help of Huawei. But in fact, there is no strong profit cow in Chang ‘an’s new energy.
Let’s start with Aouita, who has made his debut for the longest time. Last week, there was a major personnel change in Aouita, and Zhu Huarong, Party Secretary and Chairman of Changan Automobile, served as Chairman of Aouita Science and Technology. Zhu Huarong’s appointment is an important manifestation of his great attention to Aouita.
As the "eldest son", Aouita shoulders the responsibility of Changan to attack the high-end field of new energy, so Changan will spare no effort to pull Huawei, Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited and other allies to pour a lot of resources, technology and funds into Aouita. However, the sales volume and cognition did not seem to break out. In the first 11 months of this year, the highest monthly sales volume in Aouita was only 2,825 vehicles, and the sales volume in other months remained at around 1,000 vehicles. It seems that the target of 100,000 vehicles can only be achieved less than one fifth.
Therefore, Aouita 12 tried to break through the bottleneck, and the result is still unknown. Changan’s new energy rhythm broke out this year, and the mid-range dark blue car and the low-end Changan Qiyuan were sorted out successively, but some of them fell behind.
Compared with several other independent brands, both the main brand and the new series are somewhat slow. The leading BYD is even catching up with Tesla this year. It is predicted that BYD accounts for 17% of the global pure tram market, and it is expected to surpass it in the fourth quarter of this year and become the first in the world.
In the first 11 months, the cumulative sales volume of Guangzhou Automobile Ai ‘an was 434,000 units, and the growth rate in the first half of the year was amazing. Geely’s five products in three years have sold about 94,000 vehicles as of November this year. Combined with the new models launched at present, it is hopeful to complete the total sales of 120,000 vehicles in 2023.
In contrast, Aouita delivered 21,483 units in the first 11 months, while Deep Blue delivered 122,000 units in the first 11 months. It’s not a remarkable achievement. I don’t know if I can turn the situation around with Aouita’s 12 big break of 20,000 vehicles.
Changan’s iron triangle of new energy has already begun to take shape, but it will take time for the "three carriages" to be quickly accepted by the market. According to the plan, Changan Automobile will have 27 new energy products in 2025, among which Changan Qiyuan will launch 10 new digital intelligent evolution new automobile products. At the same time, Deep Blue Auto will launch 6 models and 4 models from Aouita, totaling more than 20 heavyweight products. The sales volume of new energy reached 1.2 million vehicles, accounting for 40%, and by 2030, the sales volume will reach 2.4 million vehicles, accounting for 60%.
Although the plan is beautiful, Chang ‘an’s fuel is under pressure, and new energy has not yet broken through the shackles and ushered in an outbreak. Therefore, Changan carefully adjusted the chessboard, further reclaimed the brand of fuel vehicles, and accelerated the development of new energy, which may be Changan’s main plan for 2024.
Auchan’s rebranding into Chang ‘an seems to indicate the future in which independent fuel brands will gradually shrink.
