AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)03/02 Report--

On March 1, DPCA issued another good report: cumulative sales of 20633 vehicles from January to February, an increase of 106 per cent over the same period last year. DPCA did not announce the specific sales in February, it is not difficult to see that DPCA still has mixed feelings about its performance in February, while the automobile industry pays attention to the fact that DPCA announced that it sold 13001 vehicles in January. It is not difficult to calculate that its sales in February was 7632. This sales volume is neither good nor bad. Compared with previous months, sales remained at more than 10,000, and February sales were less than 10,000 naturally. But compared with February 2021, DPCA sold only 3006 cars, an increase of 153.9% over the same period last year, which is not bad or even eye-catching, because February sales to some extent boosted DPCA's full-year performance.

Deep corner of the Dragon car, is about to usher in a major adjustment, but everything is the best arrangement. In the evening of the same day, Stellantis Group announced the "Dare Forward 2030" strategic plan. Carlos Tavares, chief executive of Stellantis, said plans were under way to achieve that by the end of 2030, all cars sold by the group in Europe would be all electric, and 50 per cent of cars sold in the US would be electric. According to the plan, the group will have more than 75 pure electric models by 2030, with annual sales of 5 million pure electric vehicles worldwide.

According to reports, Stellantis Group will adjust its business in China, and the long-rumored "two rooms and one hall" plan of DPCA has been confirmed, in which "two rooms" means that Dongfeng Peugeot will be dominated by France, Dongfeng Citroen will be dominated by China, and "one room" refers to the sharing of existing public areas such as commodity planning, technology, quality, industrial production and so on. In addition, according to China Finance and Economics, the two sides have set up a working group to negotiate the equity adjustment of DPCA, with a 75 per cent stake in Dongfeng Peugeot and a 75 per cent stake in Chinese controlling shareholder Citroen. The stake in DPCA will remain unchanged at 50:50.

However, Stellantis Group did not mention specific details about DMC in its press release, and Dongfeng Motor Group announced today that "the Group is in negotiations with Stellantis Group on a new business arrangement for DMC, but there is no legal binding agreement on the new business arrangement". That is to say, at present, the plan of "two rooms and one hall" of Dragon Motor has not been recognized, but at least it has been put on the table for negotiations, and the final result has yet to be announced, but it is not difficult to see from the words of both sides that there is an intention to promote it. and the industry generally believes that it should be a good thing.

In addition, DPCA has opened its manufacturing sector to third parties, a move aimed at effectively invigorating spare capacity and improving capacity utilization. As we all know, DPCA created a peak of 704800 vehicles in 2015, and the ambitious DPCA began to hit the million target. In order to meet the market demand, four major vehicle factories are planned and built, of which the first, second and third plants are located in Wuhan, Hubei Province. The fourth plant is located in Chengdu, Sichuan. The planned annual production capacity of these four factories is 300000, 150000, 300000 and 360000 respectively, with a total planned annual production capacity of more than 1 million vehicles. However, since then, DPCA sales began to decline, falling by 15.2 per cent, 36.85 per cent, 32.89 per cent, 55.17 per cent and 55.74 per cent respectively from 2016 to 2020, halving sales for two consecutive years to only 50267 vehicles by 2020.

At its peak, DPCA had a planned capacity of one million, but at present, the annual sales of only 100000 vehicles are very different, and the capacity utilization is seriously insufficient, so it is imperative to deal with excess capacity. It is understood that DPCA will sell a factory in 2019, and in February, according to domestic media reports, DPCA II plant has been officially taken over by Dongfeng Honda and will be transformed into a pure electric car factory, and both sides have confirmed the news. However, even though DPCA has only two production bases in Wuhan No. 3 and Chengdu No. 4, according to DPCA's cumulative sales of 100567 vehicles in 2021, even if DPCA's sales double in 2022, more than half of its production capacity is still idle.

From the perspective of the future, the revival of DPCA still depends on products, and according to the "Yuan +" plan, DPCA will build and launch 14 new models within 5 years to achieve a comprehensive upgrade of the product matrix.

Dongfeng Peugeot has Peugeot 408, Peugeot 508L, Peugeot 2008, Peugeot 4008, Peugeot 5008 and other models, although there are many products but no popular style. Take the retail sales data of 2021 as an example, the highest sales volume was Peugeot 408 with 13086 vehicles, followed by Peugeot 4008 with 9495 vehicles, and Peugeot 508L with 8150 vehicles with less than 5000 vehicles. According to previous reports, Dongfeng Peugeot unveiled a new brand logo at the 2021 Shanghai Motor Show, and a new generation of Peugeot 308 may be introduced this year, which is the first Peugeot model with a new logo. The new Peugeot 308 will also change its positioning from a hatchback to a hatchback, while innovating in appearance and interior to enhance product competitiveness. However, so far, there has been no news about the introduction of a new generation of Peugeot 308.

Dongfeng Citroen owns Tianyi C5 AIRCROSS, Citroen C6, C3L C3L, Citroen C3-XR, Versailles C5X and other models, of which Versailles is the latest model launched by Dongfeng Citroen, with a total sales of 12140 vehicles in the four months on the market, but Versailles's performance is not stable, with sales falling to 3188 in January. It is unknown whether rising stars can promote the development of the Citroen brand. In addition to the Versailles C5X, in 2021 retail sales, for example, Tianyi C5 AIRCROSS sold 10607 vehicles, followed by Citroen C3-XR with 9345 and Citroen C6 with 7549.

The year 2022 is the 30th anniversary of the founding of DPCA, and will DPCA be able to achieve "30-year-old"? For the new year's planning, DPCA said that it will reach 170000 and challenge 200000 in 2022. After reaching 200000 vehicles, we must be stable after making a profit. In the future, we will not pursue 500000 or 700000 vehicles, but will stabilize at 300, 000 or 400, 000 vehicles, develop with high quality, and keep up with the commodities behind.

In addition to DPCA, Guangzhou Auto Fick is also one of the joint ventures of Stellantis Group in China. However, the development of Guangzhou Auto Fick is not optimistic, and it is not even as good as DPCA. Data show that GAC Fick's sales have been falling since it reached a peak of 205200 in 2018, with sales of 125200, 73900, 40500 and 20100 respectively from 2017 to 2021, the fifth consecutive year of decline.

Perhaps unwilling to fall, Stellantis Group decided to take control of Guangzhou Auto Fick. On January 27th, Stellantis Group announced on its website that it plans to increase its stake in the joint venture Guangzhou Auto Fick to 75% from the current 50%. GAC GROUP and Stellantis Group have agreed to the relevant procedures of the deal, but are still subject to regulatory approval. However, GAC GROUP issued a statement denying that night: "GAC GROUP learned of its announcement on the equity adjustment of Guangzhou Auto Fick from the official website of Stellantis. GAC GROUP deeply regrets that this release has not been approved by us."

At present, Stellantis Group has two joint ventures of DPCA and GAC Fick in the Chinese market. According to the latest strategic plan, in the negative market in China, Stellantis Group will implement a light asset business model to reduce fixed costs, bringing net revenue to 20 billion euros.

Whether it is DPCA "two rooms and one hall" or holding Guangzhou Auto Fick, it can reflect the intention of Stellantis Group to have more dominance. However, in the press release issued by the Stellantis Group yesterday, there was no mention of future development plans for the Chinese market. Perhaps, although Stellantis Group ranks sixth in the global market and develops well in overseas markets, at least for now, the development of both DPCA and Guangzhou Auto Fick is not optimistic. In the short term, the development center of Stellantis Group is not the Chinese market, but relies more on the European and American markets. From this, it can also be predicted that although the reform of Shenlong Automobile and Guangzhou Auto Fick is imminent, the future development will also be very difficult.

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