AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/28 Report--

On September 27th, Ford Motor (China) Co., Ltd. announced that Ms. Mao Jingbo, President of Lincoln China, had formally submitted her resignation to the company for personal reasons, and appointed Ms. Zhu Meijun as President of Lincoln China, reporting to Chen Anning, President and CEO of Ford China and 喜悦 Falotico, Global President of Lincoln.

According to public information, Mao Jingbo was appointed president of Lincoln Asia Pacific and China in June 2018. Before joining Lincoln, Mao Jingbo served as Senior Vice President and General Manager of Beijing Company in Rhode PR, providing professional brand consulting services for Audi, Michelin, BP and other industry leading companies for a long time. In 2007, he joined Mercedes-Benz (China) Automobile sales Co., Ltd. as Vice President of Marketing. In 2013, he became the general manager of Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales and Service Co., Ltd. In 2016, Mao Jingbo served as Executive Vice President of Beijing Mercedes-Benz sales and Service Co., Ltd., responsible for the sales, marketing, brand and operation of AMG, smart, V-Class and Vito. Regarding the departure of Mao Jingbo, Chen Anning, President and CEO of Ford China, said: thank Mao Jingbo for his outstanding contribution to the rapid development of the Lincoln brand in China and the global market in the past few years. Evaluate it to accelerate the transformation of the Lincoln brand and launch a new brand idea of "luxury has its own way".

About the current Zhu Meijun, according to the relevant information: Zhu Meijun has worked in the Ford Motor Company for 27 years. Previously, he served as executive vice president of Lincoln China, mainly responsible for Lincoln brand sales, after-sales service and network development in China. Before joining Lincoln's team, Zhu Meijun served as vice president of marketing and director of sales of NDSD, CEO and general manager of Mazda Motor Taiwan. Chen Anning, president and CEO of Ford China, said of Zhu Meijun's appointment: "Zhu Meijun's achievements in leading Lincoln's sales, after-sales service and network development team in the past three years are obvious to all." We hope that Zhu Meijun can give full play to her deep understanding of the Chinese automobile market, especially the luxury car market, closely around the 'consumer-centered', continue to subvert herself and innovate constantly. Take the development of Lincoln brand to a new height. "

It is understood that Lincoln began to enter China as early as the 1980s. However, due to the low sales of old models and low performance-to-price ratio, they were finally forced to withdraw from the Chinese market in 2008. It wasn't until April 2014, when Ford CEO Mark Fields announced his return to China, that Lincoln began a new chapter, with the opening of the first Lincoln dealership in China in 2014. In the same year, Lincoln China held a press conference in Shanghai to announce the official entry of its luxury SUV MKC and luxury car MKZ into the Chinese market. After entering the Chinese market, Lincoln sold well in China. In 2015, Lincoln sold 11630 vehicles in China; in 2016, Lincoln sold 32558 vehicles in China, up 180 per cent from the same period last year; and in 2017, Lincoln sold 54124 vehicles in China, up 66 per cent from the same period last year.

However, after entering 2018, its growth has been slow, and even sales have declined in some months. With regard to the decline in sales, a Ford spokesman has said publicly that the decline in Lincoln's sales in China is partly due to the fact that Lincoln's best-selling model, the MKC, is in a transitional cycle of new product updates. At the end of 2019, the Lincoln brand decided that the Lincoln Corsair (Chinese name "adventurer") was put into production by the Changan Lincoln Lincoln Joint Venture Company. The Lincoln adventurer, as the entry model of the Lincoln brand SUV product rectangle, is also the cheapest model, positioning the luxury brand compact SUV, which is also one of the important sales sources of the Lincoln brand. After the new car came on the market, Lincoln car sales in China continued to grow, the data show. The cumulative sales of Lincoln cars in China in 2020 was 61761, the highest since the Lincoln brand entered China. At the 2020 Beijing Auto Show, the Lincoln brand released a new brand proposition-"luxury has its own way".

Sales of Lincoln cars, which were localized after working with Changan Automobile, broke through again in 2021, with a total sales of 91000 vehicles in China, an increase of 48 per cent compared with 2020. In the first half of 2022, Lincoln China sold 37686 vehicles in China, down 11.1 per cent from a year earlier. As for the decline in sales, officials say the outbreak shut down its headquarters in Shanghai and had a huge impact on Lincoln's business. At present, Lincoln mainly sells domestic cars in China, including the SUV camp composed of adventurers, aviators and navigators, and the car camp composed of Lincoln Z. According to sales figures released by Lincoln, Lincoln sold a total of 19471 new cars in China in the first quarter of this year, 18215 in the second quarter, and 37686 in the first half of this year. The Lincoln brand risked 7659 vehicles in July this year, mainly from adventurers. It remains to be seen whether this change of coach will help Lincoln's sales to a higher level.

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