"On January 6, Geely announced its sales data for 2019. In 2019, Geely's cumulative sales were 1.3616 million vehicles, ranking first among Chinese brands in annual sales for three consecutive years, handing over a record for the past year. Very nice 'report card'. Two days later, Geely and Mercedes-Benz announced the establishment of a new joint venture, another good start for 2020. ”
On January 8, 2010, just when everyone was looking forward to seeing the style of the Hongqi H9 and the truth about Ghosn’s escape, a message “Geely Holding and Mercedes-Benz officially established smart The push of "Brand Global Joint Venture" was the first to ignite the circle of friends.
The main information of the article is as follows:?
Smart formed by Geely Holding and Mercedes-Benz. The brand's global joint venture "smart Automobile Co., Ltd." was officially established, with its headquarters located in Ningbo Hangzhou Bay New Area;?
The new joint venture has a registered capital of 5.4 billion yuan , each party holds 50% of the shares. The board of directors is also composed of three members appointed by each party, and Tong Xiangbei, the former assistant to the president of Geely Group and the general manager of Lynk & Co's Zhangjiakou factory, is appointed as the global CEO to coordinate marketing, sales, research and development and other smart brand ownership. Business module;?
In the future, the smart brand will fully transform towards electrification and intelligence. The new generation of pure electric smart will be designed by Mercedes-Benz’s global design department, and Geely Holding’s global R&D center will be responsible for engineering research and development. The first batch of products It is expected to be launched on the market in 2022 and sold globally.
At this point, after several months of joint preparations, the joint venture project between Geely and Mercedes-Benz has been completed. After acquiring 9.69% of Daimler's voting shares for US$100 million and becoming Daimler's largest shareholder, Geely's "ambition" has been concretely revealed for the first time.
Everyone gets what they need in the existing market.
Since entering the automobile industry in 1997, the answer to why Geely has been able to flourish and bear fruit in the fiercely competitive Chinese market is obviously that long-term strategic vision plays a crucial role. Important role.
In 2010, Geely acquired the bankrupt Volvo from Ford for US$1.8 billion. This caused quite a shock in the industry at the time, and many people were not optimistic about the deal. , even mocking Geely as an ant that dares to eat an elephant.
But as time has proven, Volvo not only quickly won the recognition of Chinese consumers, but also led the way in the Chinese market, breaking the global market for six consecutive years. Sales record. Geely not only increased its profits more than ten times and increased its brand awareness because of the acquisition of Volvo, but most importantly, it realized the sharing of key technologies with Volvo and successfully hatched CMA, SPA, PMA and BMA. Four global basic module architectures.
It can be said that Geely has made a qualitative leap in core technology and has a core competitive advantage over its competitors. Looking back, Geely spent a lot of money. US$1.8 billion is a huge bargain
Now that it has had previous success, some people will start to speculate that Geely will spend US$9 billion this time to become the largest single shareholder of Daimler. How much money has it made? But you may not believe it. So far, Geely has not only made no money, but has also lost nearly 4 billion US dollars as Daimler's stock price has shrunk.
Is it possible that Geely is really too eager for quick success this time? From the perspective of "Qi La Ba Tan", it is just that we are at different development nodes and see different "landscapes".
It must be said that when it acquired Volvo ten years ago, Geely followed the path of "exchanging the market for technology." Nowadays, Geely is already the well-deserved sales leader of Chinese brands. Naturally, its vision can no longer be limited to the local market. Only by participating in global competition can it achieve deeper development. Therefore, Geely's acquisition of Daimler shares is not about short-term benefits, but long-term cooperation.
Just like the establishment of Smart Motor Co., Ltd., I believe that in the minds of many people, Mercedes-Benz may have long wanted to find a "successor" for the smart brand that has been losing money. However, even if this is the case, Geely certainly has its own concerns.
Concerned about technology? Yes and limited.
Because judging from the structure and headquarters location of the new joint venture, Geely will be mainly responsible for the research and development, production, supply chain and other fields of new products in the future, while Mercedes-Benz will focus on brand and design.
In other words, this time Geely has changed the past joint venture rules in which Chinese car companies relied on foreign technology and bypassed car companies in focusing on the Chinese market. Instead, Geely has become a party that provides core technical guarantees for products, and hopes to pass The brand influence of Mercedes-Benz and smart has further enhanced their popularity in the global market.
You must know that although it has never made a profit, from the perspective of brand culture, smart is still a very influential brand. As of now, smart has more than 2.2 million car owners worldwide.
At the same time, with its playful and personalized design, smart has millions of fans. Maybe they can't buy a smart for various reasons in the end, but it doesn't affect their love for this brand and always pay close attention to it. And these are far more important than money for Geely, which is eager to compete globally.
From the perspective of Daimler and Mercedes-Benz, reintegrating and optimizing the disadvantaged parts of the existing market is a crucial part. Mercedes-Benz's last struggle with smart was to launch a four-door model, but it didn't have much effect. Therefore, there is no better solution to boost sales than finding a "good family" for smart brands that are not well adapted to China. Mercedes-Benz integrates this part with Geely, which is equivalent to a triple solution in terms of new energy, sales volume and cost, killing three birds with one stone.
When Mercedes-Benz exceeds the 700,000 mark in China, there will be more growth in the future, which will be stronger than the Qianlizuoqiu, which is far superior to the Mercedes-Benz brand.
The transformation to electrification, the challenge of smart motors is not small
"The ideal is full, but the reality is very skinny" Geely and Mercedes-Benz naturally do not want to happen to them, but frankly To be honest, the challenges facing both sides are indeed not small.
First of all, we must mention the Beam Automobile joint venture between Great Wall and BMW. It is also making efforts to lay out the field of pure electric vehicles; it is also a 50:50 joint venture share ratio based on the principle of equality and complementarity; it is also a 3:3 Chinese and foreign board of directors structure; a factory is located in Zhangjiagang, the only complete vehicle import port in Jiangsu. One is located in Ningbo, the fourth largest port city in the world.
Whether it is the "love and hate" between the two joint venture parties, or the development layout that has too many similarities, it is destined that Smart Motor and Beam will become the objects of comparison in the eyes of others in the future.
First of all, although from a time point of view, Beam Auto is ahead of Smart Motor from project signing to official launch. However, according to a previous announcement by Great Wall, the production of light beams and smart motors will not be until around 2020.
Secondly, as "Auto Talk" just said, smart has a large fan base around the world, but when it comes to actually buying a car, they often don't choose smart. So how to effectively improve the conversion rate of "waiting and watching customers" in the future is also a question that Geely and Mercedes-Benz need to think about.
According to the new model development plan, smart's future product lineup will expand to the rapidly growing compact market segment. It is believed that space and practicality will be improved to a certain extent. Of course, entering the compact market segment also means intensified competition, and what will be tested then is the technical strength of the product.
Currently, Geely has established five engineering R&D centers and five design and modeling center systems in Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo, China, Gothenburg, Sweden, Coventry, UK, Barcelona, ??Spain, California, USA, and Frankfurt, Germany.
As for the new energy field, Geely already has more than 300 core patented technologies in the new energy field, and these will also become the core factors and important foundation for the future development of smart motors.
Written at the end:
In fact, whether it is Great Wall and BMW before, or Geely and Mercedes-Benz this time, every single car company is a "big brother" in the industry. . However, in the whirlpool of change, collaborative cooperation and strong alliances will surely become a major trend in the future development of the automotive industry.
There is no doubt that collaborative development carries a heavy burden for both parties. Just as Mercedes-Benz hopes to turn Smart from losses to profits through smart motors and further penetrate the domestic new energy market, Geely also hopes to use this opportunity to accelerate the globalization process and expand its influence in the German and European markets.
However, it is precisely because of this burden that traditional car companies such as Geely, which ranks first in annual sales among Chinese brands, and Mercedes-Benz, which ranks first among global luxury car brands in annual sales, have always maintained their leadership in the industry. With a spirit of vitality and innovation. For us consumers, why not do it.
This article comes from the author of Autohome Chejiahao and does not represent the views and positions of Autohome.