AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)11/20 Report--

According to the number of new car compulsory insurance purchases, Yueda Kia sold 5699 vehicles in October 2022, down 15.73% from 6763 in September and 57.95% from 13557 in October 2021. In addition, Yueda Kia sold a total of 78462 vehicles from January to October 2022, down 41.13% from the same period last year.

2022 is just a microcosm of the gradual decline of Kia's business in China. As one of the earliest overseas car companies to enter China, its market performance has been growing steadily since 2006. It has won the popularity of many consumers for its pragmatic appearance and high performance-to-price ratio, and reached an annual sales peak of 650000 vehicles in 2016. Since then, with the impact of the THAAD incident and the upward breakthrough of its own brands, Yueda Kia's sales have plummeted, from 360000 in 2017 to 250000 in 2020, to only 160000 in 2021 and nearly halved in 2022.

In March 2021, Hyundai Motor Group (China) issued an personnel announcement showing that Liu Changyi took over the position of general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, and Li Feng, former general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, was transferred back to Hyundai Motor Group (China) as vice president. In April 2021, Dongfeng Yueda Kia released a new brand logo, launched "brand reshaping" and announced the new brand concept of "customer-centered", firing the first shot of "brand reshaping".

After the brand rejuvenation, Dongfeng Yueda Kia launched two models, one is the Zhirun Ace launched in July 2021, and the other is Jiahua launched in September 2021. The ACe is a mid-term version of the Kia Smart run, which is specially designed for China and offers 1.5T turbocharging and 2.0T naturally aspirated power systems at a price of RMB13.98-157800. Kia Jiahua was introduced into China in 2004, but soon announced that it would stop production. Dongfeng Yueda Kia reintroduced Jiahua, becoming the first global model introduced after the brand rejuvenation, with a price of 28.89-339900 yuan.

Contrary to expectations, sales of the two models fell far short of expectations. According to the insurance figures, Zhirun's cumulative sales from January to October in 2022 were 16507, down 53.22% from the same period last year. To make matters worse, Jiahua, the relevant people in Kia, gave the expectation of "selling 800 units a month". At that time, the expectation seemed "too low". After all, it is comparable to Toyota Sina in size and unambiguous in intelligent configuration. but in practice, 2325 vehicles were sold in the first 10 months of 2022, with an average monthly sales of only more than 200.

Due to year-round losses and the fact that the performance of the new model was far below expectations, Dongfeng Yueda Kia finally announced its dissolution. According to listing information, Dongfeng Yueda Kia achieved a revenue of 21.94 billion yuan in 2020, but an annual loss of 4.75 billion yuan. From January to October 2021, Dongfeng Yueda Kia achieved a cumulative revenue of 12.48 billion yuan, but an annual loss of 2.612 billion yuan. According to the evaluation report of Zhongjing Minxin (Beijing) Asset Evaluation Co., Ltd., as of March 31 this year, the net asset of Dongfeng Yueda Kia is 350 million yuan, the evaluation value is 1.188 billion yuan, and the corresponding evaluation value of Dongfeng Motor transfer target is 297.01 million yuan.

In October 2021, Dongfeng Automobile Group Co., Ltd. listed to transfer 25% of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, formally withdrew from Dongfeng Yueda Kia in January 2022, and then Jiangsu Yueda Investment Co., Ltd. participated in the investment. Kia established a new joint venture "Jiangsu Yueda Kia Automobile Co., Ltd." with Jiangsu Yueda Automobile Group and Jiangsu Yueda Investment Co., Ltd., opening a new era of joint venture.

On November 3, Kia Lion Platinum extension was officially launched, which can be regarded as a replacement model of Kia KX5. Lion Platinum, the fifth generation Sportage, has experienced five generations of renewal since its launch in 1993, with cumulative global sales of more than 6.6 million vehicles. Its status is equivalent to Toyota of RAV4 and Honda of CR-V, and is the symbol most suitable for its global brand value. Sportage is no stranger to the Chinese market. Its second, third and fourth generation models have been sold in the Chinese market under the names of Lion run, Zhi run and KX5, respectively. This time, in order to "be closer to globalization and de-Sinicization", Kia no longer has a catchy name for "Sportage" from the perspective of Chinese aesthetics, but is directly transliterated from Sportage. This is the only domestic model in Kia that uses four-character naming, with a long and mouthful product name.

Qishi Platinum Toujie offers three power options of 1.5T+8AT, 2.0T+8AT and 2.0L HEV+6AT, with a price range of 17.98-240800 yuan, which is the highest price of Sportage since it has been made in China. For comparison, the RAV4 Rongfang guidance price is 175800-260800 yuan, and the Honda CR-V guidance price is 16.98-276800 yuan.

Although it belongs to the same class, the brand value of Kia in China is far less than that of "Liangtian" and far less than that of Hyundai. Therefore, in the perception of Chinese consumers, there is no matching brand awareness while raising the price of products, which further verifies Kia's anxious mentality of trying to enhance brand power by pulling seedlings to encourage it, which is undoubtedly drinking poison to quench thirst.

The car with the highest sales in the first 10 months of 2022 was Zhirun, with cumulative sales falling 53.22% year-on-year to 16507 vehicles, according to insurance figures. This was followed by Freddy, up 0.99 per cent year-on-year to 16407. In third place was the proud run, which fell 44.01% year-on-year to 12555. It is not difficult to see that Kia is basically responsible for the overall sales of low-cost models, and now Kia is moving towards a blind alley of brand value.

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