AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/17 Report--

General Motors, the head of the three auto giants in the United States, recently said that it would withdraw from a number of global car markets, which GM sees as unprofitable markets in the future, so they decided to withdraw without hesitation.

Under GM's plan, it will withdraw from Australia, New Zealand and Thailand by the end of the year, of which $1.1 billion will be spent in the first quarter of this year to cover the cost of exiting those markets. It means that the company will continue to withdraw from this underperforming market. Obviously, this statement also proves that this is not the first time GM has announced plans to withdraw from many car markets around the world.

In recent years, General Motors CEO Mary Barra found that 4/5 of the company's car sales are sold to the two largest markets, Asia and North America, and began to adopt a clear strategic plan, that is, to give up some regional markets and successively withdraw from Europe, India, Russia and other regions.

Last year, GM also said it was considering stopping its car manufacturing operations in South Korea, eventually closing only one plant under pressure from all sides.

On Feb. 17, Great Wall announced that it would acquire GM's Royong plant in Thailand, meaning GM's plan to withdraw the Chevrolet brand from the Thai market is already under way.

According to the binding terms signed by the two sides, General Motors Thailand, including the Luo Yong Fu car plant and the powertrain plant, will be handed over to Great Wall Motor, and the deal and final transfer are expected to be completed by the end of 2020.

Since 2009, GM has released brands such as Hummer, Pontiac, Saab and Mercury. In March 2017, Opel and the British brand Vauxhall were sold to France's PSA Group for about $2.3 billion. And withdrew from South Africa and other African markets. Since then, Mary Barra has also decided to withdraw from Vietnam, Indonesia and India.

In fact, the decision stems from another Mary Barra plan to focus resources on new technologies such as self-driving and electric cars.

The rise of electrification and self-driving technology has made carmakers nervous for more than a century, prompting more and more carmakers to invest more in these areas instead of "slimming" plans, including Volkswagen. The financial burden on development such as self-driving and pure electric vehicles is also getting heavier. As a result, GM began to focus on profitability and choose more competitive markets.

In fact, General Motors used to be the largest carmaker in the world, with a full range of models selling well in more than 120 countries and regions, and sales rose to more than 10 million at its peak in 2016. The United States and China accounted for 70% of the market. But with the decline in sales in recent years and a strike by nearly 50, 000 GM workers in September, its profits and sales have shrunk further, with sales of just 7.75 million vehicles in 2019, down 8% from a year earlier. ranked fourth among global carmakers.

With the current environment of continuous decline in the automobile industry, GM, which once remained in the "tens of millions Club", feels the increasingly fierce competition. To this end, the company hopes to speed up the electrification strategy and do a good job in the electrification layout in advance to catch up with Tesla. So far, GM has spent billions of dollars developing self-driving cars with Cruise LLC, which it acquired in 2016.

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