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With the continuous upgrading of consumption in the domestic automobile market, more and more independent brands accelerate the high-end layout. After the establishment of high-end brands in 2020, including Dongfeng, SAIC, Changan and Great Wall, another independent car company is also plotting high-end independent brands.

A few days ago, an internal document of BYD has been exposed, which is about BYD's plan for 2021 by teleconference. In addition to BYD's new car plan for 2021, it also mentions the production capacity plan and the future direction, such as the release of new cars in the first and second quarters, a new platform in the third quarter, and new models from Han in the fourth quarter.

It is worth noting that after BYD brought the new platform, BYD plans to launch its own high-end brand in the next two years. At the same time, the document also mentioned that the first model will be built by the newly launched EV2.0 platform, the first model will be a new model series, dolphins, mainly younger.

BYD also confirmed the news, and according to people familiar with the matter, during internal discussions, BYD executives believed that existing dealer capabilities could not support the "high-level sense of hardware and services" needed by high-end brands. so they decided to start anew, recruit new dealer investors and build new dealer channels. The first model, internally named Dolphin, is scheduled to go on sale in 2023.

As one of the representatives of domestic independent brands, BYD also has a good attraction in its own brands, such as gaining a certain degree of popularity after the launch of the high-end model Han, reflecting BYD's ability to support high-end brands. However, as domestic head independent brands, Geely and Great Wall have already brought Lectra and WEY. In 2020, SAIC, Changan and Dongfeng Group have also established high-end brands, which undoubtedly shows that BYD's plan to launch its own high-end is somewhat backward.

From the current BYD product sequence, there are a total of five models named after the ancient dynasty, namely Qin, Shang, Song, Tang and Han, in which Shang is BYD's commercial vehicle brand. The naming methods of Qin, Song, Tang and Han dynasties represent passenger models in different subdivisions. Prior to this, there was speculation in the industry that the naming of the "dynasty" might be the high-end brand name of BYD.

Because BYD registered the "dynasty" trademark in 2015, but it was rejected. It was submitted again in August and October 2017 and was rejected because the dynasty trademark registered by BYD had already been registered by other companies. After nearly five years of sawing between BYD and the trademark holder, BYD regained the dynasty trademark, and it was not until the trademark registration in 2020 that BYD successfully got the dynasty trademark. so it is only natural to push the independent high-end brand on the journey at this time.

For Chinese car companies, there have been a number of car companies through the establishment of new brands to hit the high-end market, both failed selling cases and successful cases. For example, Qoros and Bowo are all attempts by independent car companies to explore the middle and high end of the market, but they are eventually forced to resell them because of poor development and persistent losses. In the case of successful survival, LinkedIn and WEY are the representative brands, and Geely Motor and Great Wall Automobile behind them are independent front-line car companies with relatively strong capital and strength.

At present, BYD, as one of the representatives of domestic independent brands, with the continuous development of the company, as of January 26, 2021, the market value of BYD has been close to 700 billion yuan, reaching 693.5 billion yuan, which is the highest market capitalization of domestic car companies at present. far higher than SAIC and Great Wall Motor, so BYD also has strong capital and strength. After all, the establishment of new high-end brands, independent car companies are expected to get rid of the current product positioning in the low-end dilemma.

Some people in the industry once thought that it was too difficult for Chinese local car companies to try to break through by building new independent high-end brands, and products, technology, design and corporate image were all insurmountable dilemmas. On the other hand, the voice believes that Chinese automobile enterprises will die if they do not take the road of internationalization, but brand awareness will not go up, so globalization must first solve the problem of brands, and the introduction of independent high-end brands is an important way. However, with the current development of the domestic automobile market, it has become a trend for independent brands to launch high-end brands.

According to the full-year sales released by BYD, BYD sold 28841 energy vehicles in December, up 120.177 per cent from a year earlier. Although there was a marked increase, due to the overall poor performance in the first half of the year, the annual sales totaled 426972 vehicles, down 7.46 per cent from the same period last year.

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