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A few days ago, Great Wall released its third-quarter results. According to the data, the revenue of Great Wall Motor in the third quarter was 37.346 billion yuan, up 29.36% from the same period last year. The net profit was 2.56 billion yuan, an increase of 80.74% over the same period last year. Deducting 2.281 billion yuan in non-net profit, an increase of 181.32% over the same period last year; Great Wall Motor's cumulative operating income in the first three quarters was 99.48 billion yuan, an increase of 9.56% over the same period last year. The net profit was 8.16 billion yuan, up 65.03% over the same period last year, while the non-net profit was 4.34 billion yuan, up 18.81% from the same period last year.

Data show that cumulative sales of Great Wall cars fell 9.25% year-on-year to 802300 vehicles in the first three quarters of 2022. Sales decline, but profits soar? In fact, it is not difficult to understand. First, the average selling price of Great Wall bikes has increased, with the average selling price of Great Wall bikes rising to 93000 yuan and 106000 yuan in 2020 and 2021, and to 124000 yuan in the third quarter. Second, Great Wall stopped producing low-cost models, such as Euler Black Cat and Euler White Cat, as well as some models with low market demand.

In July 2020, when Great Wall Motor celebrated its 30th birthday, Chairman Wei Jianjun kept asking himself in a "micro movie"will Great Wall Motor survive next year?" Facts have proved that Wei Jianjun's worries about Great Wall cars are not made out of nothing. Although Great Wall Motor's revenue and profits have increased substantially, the decline in sales has laid hidden worries for the development of Great Wall Motors. Under the background of accelerating the layout of new energy vehicles, this hidden worry has also been infinitely magnified.

In the September ranking of Chinese passenger car manufacturers released by the Federation of passengers, Great Wall Motor once again fell out of TOP10 to become a frontline independent marginal brand. Retail sales of Great Wall cars fell 12.5 per cent to 62700 vehicles in September from a year earlier, making it the biggest decline in the list, behind BYD, Geely, Changan and Chery, according to the list. In fact, after entering 2022, Great Wall Motor has been hard to find in the top 10 retail sales list many times. According to the annual sales target of 1.9 million vehicles announced by Great Wall Motor, only 42.26% of the target was achieved by the end of September. To meet its full-year target, Great Wall needs to sell 1.1 million vehicles in the last three months, an almost impossible task.

In terms of specific brands, except for the tank brand, all other brands declined, including the Harvard brand down 16.42%, the Wei brand down 15.75%, and the Euler brand down 0.01%. Although each brand has its own decisions and considerations, the main reason for the decline of Great Wall is still the "confusion" of product layout and transformation direction.

As the sales pillar of Great Wall, the Harvard brand fell 16.42 per cent in the first three quarters from a year earlier to 454500 vehicles, making it the biggest decline in the Great Wall brand. According to the official website, Harvard brand models on sale include Harvard H6, Harvard H9, Harvard M6, Harvard Dog, Harvard Red Rabbit, Harvard Divine Beast and so on. Harvard H6 is still the highest-selling model, but its sense of market presence is getting lower and lower. Before that, Great Wall had a taste of the Harvard Dog after it launched the Harvard Dog, and then successively launched models such as Harvard's first love and Harvard Red Rabbit, so as to get rid of the shackles of the Harvard H6 to the image of the Harvard brand. Although Harvard's new products have gained a lot of internal friction of similar products in a short period of time, it has been proved that few consumers are willing to pay for it. Harvard's first love, Harvard Red Rabbit and other models form internal friction, which not only lowers the sales of Harvard H6, but also causes Harvard to lose the opportunity of transformation in the new energy era.

As a high-end brand owned by Great Wall, the performance of Wei Brand is really unflattering, with cumulative sales falling 16.75% year-on-year in the first three quarters, second only to Harvard. Of course, Wei Brand can't compare with Harvard, whose cumulative sales in the first three quarters are 30500, less than Harvard's one-month level, but Wei's market performance also proves that consumers do not recognize the high-end brands of Great Wall. A year ago, Wei Brand launched a product transformation, launching a series of "coffee" models such as Mocha, Macchiato and latte, and Great Wall's long-developed lemon DHT hybrid technology was also the first to be applied to Wei brand models, but consumers are obviously reluctant to pay for Wei Brand's exorbitant pricing.

As the only pure electric brand owned by Great Wall, it sold 84700 vehicles in the first three quarters, only at the same level as last year. Prior to this, Euler won the favor of many female car owners in the market by relying on two low-cost models, black cat and white cat. However, due to cost pressure, Euler stopped production of two models, coupled with the previous good cat model "change core door" incident, so that the performance of the Euler brand in the market continues to shrink. On July 12, Euler Ballet Cat officially went on sale, with a subsidised price range of 19.30 yuan to 223000 yuan. The model was not recognized by female consumers because the price was obviously too high.

For the Great Wall, the only brand that can bring good news is the tank, which sold 89200 vehicles in the first three quarters, an increase of 69.65% over the same period last year. Whether monthly sales or annual sales, the tank brand has significantly outperformed other brands, but it is the tank brand that can best show why the Great Wall is lagging behind.

At first, when the Harvard brand launched the Harvard Dog, because of its novel naming and retro appearance, it received a lot of attention before it went public, and the sales performance after the listing was also objective. Later, Great Wall launched the Tank 300, which can be seen as an "upgraded version" of the Harvard Dog, which, coupled with the hanging of the WEY logo, became a huge hit. Later, Great Wall separated Tank 300 from Wei Brand and created a tank brand to better show the tonality of its products, but unexpectedly, after Tank 300 withdrew from Wei Brand, the market performance of Wei Brand was declining. Later, Wei Brand stopped production of VV series products and launched Mocha, Macchiato, latte and other models one after another, but it still could not change the reality of Wei Brand downturn.

In retrospect, "will the Great Wall survive next year?" is more like a prophecy. Perhaps no one can predict whether the Great Wall will survive how many "next year", but judging from the current market performance, today's Great Wall is gradually falling behind.

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