AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)05/06 Report--

With the decline of brand and product competitiveness, Dongfeng Yueda Kia has been marginalized. The recent release of the new K5 Kaiku and the appointment of new marketing executives have brought Dongfeng Yueda Kia back to the attention of consumers.

On May 6, Dongfeng Yueda Kia Automobile Co., Ltd. officially announced that Mr. Tang Yuejin will be the deputy minister of sales headquarters from now on, in charge of brand marketing, customer experience, commodity operation and digital marketing business. Tang Yuejin's joining will help Dongfeng Yueda Kia achieve brand upward, enhance customer experience, build an Internet-based customer car lifecycle platform, and help Kaiku launch and optimize the product structure.

It is understood that Tang Yuejin has been in charge of sales management, brand marketing and public relations in Nanjing IVECO sales Company, NAC Mingjue (MG) sales Company and SAIC passenger car Company.

In fact, after experiencing a low ebb, Dongfeng Yueda Kia began to strengthen localized product and marketing management and start new local executives. Since September 16 last year, Dongfeng Yueda Kia has appointed Mr. Li Feng as the general manager of the company, fully responsible for Dongfeng Yueda Kia production, management, marketing and other business. Li Feng became the first CEO of Chinese nationality in the joint venture, and he has successively held leading positions in Beijing Automobile Futian, Chery Automobile, Beijing Hyundai, Guanzhi Automobile and other peer companies.

During the six months when Li Feng became general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, the company focused on restoring dealers' market coverage. At a dealer investor forum in December last year, 22 dealers who withdrew from the network and went out of business finally signed a restart agreement. Dongfeng Yueda Kia believes that the role of dealer channels is becoming increasingly prominent, and hopes to promote the growth of car sales by optimizing channel operations. Li Feng said that the vast majority of dealers will achieve the goal of profit.

As a second-tier joint venture brand in the Chinese market, Dongfeng Yueda Kia has been in a difficult situation in the past two years. In addition to the influence of some external factors, the unclear brand positioning, the lack of competitiveness of vehicle models and the decline of brand premium all make Dongfeng Yueda Kia market performance flinch. According to the data, Dongfeng Yueda Kia sold 289000 vehicles in 2019, down 22% from a year earlier.

In 2020, affected by the continuous cold winter and epidemic situation in the car market, Dongfeng Yueda Kia also suffered a severe blow. According to data from the Federation of passengers, Dongfeng Yueda Kia's cumulative sales from January to March were 43152 vehicles, down 48.3% from a year earlier.

In terms of new car introduction, Dongfeng Yueda Kia will focus on launching a new generation of K5 models in 2020. On April 20, Dongfeng Yueda Kia officially launched a new generation of domestic K5 model and named it "Kaiku". The new car will be launched in September and will be powered by 2.0T+8AT and 1.5T+7DCT.

Dongfeng Yueda Kia's vision for 2020 is that the company aims to increase the proportion of models worth more than 100000 yuan to more than 75 per cent, and to raise the profit margin of dealers to more than 80 per cent, and so on.

The dissolution and delisting of Changan Suzuki, Changan PSA and Dongfeng Renault have made China's auto market nervous, which means that the industry will speed up the reshuffle and some backward weak brands will be eliminated. Therefore, many car brands are looking for ways to survive, and the most important thing at this stage is to change.

The appointment of a number of local executives means that Dongfeng Yueda Kia will be closer to the local market in the areas of brand, management and marketing, and continue to step up efforts in products and marketing before it is possible to restore performance.

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