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According to China Business News, FAW Mazda, Mazda and Changan Motor are in negotiations to merge the business related to the Mazda brand being carried out by FAW Mazda Automobile sales Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "FAW Mazda") into Changan Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Changan Mazda).

According to media reports citing FAW insiders, "the restructuring is expected to be completed by June, and the outflow of personnel is accelerating." Changan Automobile sources also confirmed the above news to China Business and said that in addition to the merger at the dealer level, models such as Atez will also be transferred to Changan Mazda for production.

A senior executive of a subsidiary of FAW Group said, "the merger of FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda is mainly the will of Mazda. With the liberalization of the equity ratio and the reduction of restrictions on foreign investment, the foreign side must gradually increase its control. For FAW Group, FAW Mazda has always been a chicken rib, Chairman Xu Liuping's thinking is very clear, is to concentrate on strengthening the main business. "

It should be noted that FAW Mazda generally refers to FAW Mazda Automobile sales Co., Ltd., which is jointly funded by FAW Group, FAW cars and Mazda, of which FAW Group accounts for 4%, FAW cars 56%, and Japan Mazda 40%. FAW Mazda Automobile sales Co., Ltd. is a sales company without vehicle production business. FAW Mazda needs the license of Mazda car, but the production task will be taken care of by FAW sedan. This is also the reason why the Atez and CX-4 models are affixed with the tail mark of FAW Mazda.

In fact, news of the dissolution of Mazda was reported as early as the end of 2020. An unconfirmed "regional reliable news" Wechat picture circulated on the Internet on Dec. 24, showing that FAW Mazda will be disbanded and suspended production, and subsequent arrangements are also revealed in the news.

According to the news, the FAW Mazda Division was dissolved in June 2021, and the former FAW Mazda sales Company employees were transferred to the Pentium or Red Flag Division; Atez permanently stopped production and the existing inventory was cleared; CX-4 expected to schedule production to May, and the existing spare parts were digested and stopped production; the former FAW Mazda dealers continued to sell CX-4 and provide after-sales services for car owners. During the transition period of two years, the current long Amma Zda models (including the new generation Mazda 6 and the new CX-50) will be sold together from 2023; at the same time, FAW Group has completely independent intellectual property rights to CX-4, and after stopping production, it adopts Pentium model powertrain and logo, and is incorporated into FAW Pentium network sales.

However, FAW Mazda officials soon refuted the rumors. FAW Mazda sales Company issued a "solemn statement" in response that the news spread on the Internet was artificial and fabricated, and that Mazda Automobile Co., Ltd. and FAW Mazda had never published relevant content, and FAW Mazda was now prepared to pursue the legal liability of rumor mongers. FAW Mazda also said that the current business situation of FAW Mazda is stable, and its products, brands and service measures in 2021 are being promoted in an orderly manner.

However, although FAW Mazda denied the disbandment news, many netizens did not agree. First of all, the rumors are very specific, including the time of dissolution, employees, products, after-sales and other future trends of the system. In addition, many netizens also thought of Changan Suzuki. In June 2018, there was also news that a large number of Changan Suzuki was about to launch the Chinese market, and officials also refuted the rumor, but three months later, in September 2018, Changan Automobile issued an announcement to buy Changan Suzuki at a symbolic price of 1 yuan, thus ending its 25-year history in China. Combining the above two situations, although FAW Mazda refutes the relevant news, it is also a way to stabilize the morale of the army.

At present, Mazda has six domestic models on sale in China, namely, Onksera, Atez, CX-5, CX-4, CX-8 and CX-30. FAW Mazda has CX-4 and Atez models on sale, of which CX-4 was launched in 2016, which is a special model developed by FAW Group based on Mazda products, that is to say, only Atez model is really imported into FAW Mazda. Since the launch of CX-4, FAW Mazda has not introduced new products for four consecutive years.

In addition, after 2016, FAW Mazda successively stopped production of four models: CX-7, Mazda 6, Mazda 8 and Mazda 6 Rui Wing, further aggravating FAW Mazda's business difficulties. Data show that FAW Mazda sold 124000 vehicles in 2017, down 12.3% from a year earlier to 108000 in 2018 and 91400 in 2019.

Under the influence of the epidemic in 2020, the disadvantage of FAW Mazda was shown incisively and vividly. FAW Mazda sold 77907 vehicles in 2020, down 14.78 per cent from a year earlier, according to Mazda China. Compared with Changan Mazda, the cumulative sales of 136667 vehicles for the whole year, an increase of 0.24% over the same period last year. In other words, FAW Mazda's performance has seriously dragged down the sales of the Mazda brand in China.

Some people in the industry believe that the merger of FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda will help to unify the product matrix and sales network. after all, the Mazda brand belongs to minority brands, the product camp is not perfect, and the brand recognition is not high enough. unable to achieve joint venture advantages to mainstream Japanese brands such as Toyota, Honda and Nissan in China.

In response to the news that FAW Mazda will be disbanded and merged into Changan Mazda, the Daily Business News reported that the relevant person in charge of FAW Mazda responded that "no relevant news has been received", and the relevant person in charge of Changan Automobile also said that he "did not know about this matter."

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