AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)02/11 Report--

A few days ago, a video of a suspected Mazda dealer pulling banners to protect his rights has sparked a heated debate on the Internet.

Judging from the video footage, at the dealers' annual meeting of Changan Mazda in 2023, a number of suspected former FAW Mazda dealers rushed to the display stand to safeguard their rights. The banner read: "Changan Mazda infringes upon the legitimate rights and interests of FAW Mazda dealers, resulting in heavy losses in 4S stores and mass unemployment of employees in the store." At the same time, activists shouted: "unscrupulous Mazda". Subsequently, a staff member came forward to stop it and removed the defenders from the scene.

At present, Changan Mazda and Mazda China have not yet issued relevant statements, but the market believes that the rights protection incident may be related to the "merger of North and South Mazda".

As we all know, Mazda once had two joint ventures of FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda in the Chinese market, but compared with Toyota, Honda, Nissan and other Japanese brands, Mazda's sales performance can not support the operation of the two joint ventures. On August 30th, FAW Mazda posted its last push on Weibo, officially announcing that it would withdraw from the joint venture and merge with Changan Mazda to form (new) Changan Mazda. On September 8, 2021, FAW Mazda Automobile sales Co., Ltd. changed its name to Changan Mazda Automobile sales (Changchun) Co., Ltd. the business period will remain unchanged after the change of name until January 17, 2025.

The merger of North and South Mazda is moving fast, but the merger of terminal sales channels is not so smooth. While FAW Mazda changed its name, two open letters to FAW Group, FAW Mazda and Japan Mazda were exposed online, and as many as 80 dealers signed and sealed the two open letters. It has been revealed that the requirements for the merger of FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda sales channels are relatively strict, specifically as follows: 1. If one horse dealer does not have a long horse dealer at a straight distance of 10 kilometers, he can merge and sell long horse models, on the contrary, he can only continue to sell Atez and CX-4, which can be maintained for two years. 2. During these two years, a horse store needs to choose a site ten kilometers away to rebuild the new store if it wants to sell long horse products.

In the view of Yima dealers, the merger rules are unreasonable and unfair, so Yima dealers wrote two open letters to FAW Group, FAW Mazda and Mazda of Japan respectively, raising a lot of questions about the relevant merger rules. it covers the setting standard of interval, the rules of procedure for setting standards, and whether such setting standards are in line with the original intention of the merger of three shareholders.

Industry insiders said that similar dealer protests have also occurred on many brands, not only Mazda, other car companies in the channel merger will inevitably encounter similar problems, after all, once integrated, it will involve the distribution of benefits. As far as Mazda is concerned, the merger of the sales channels of FAW Mazda and Changan Mazda will certainly give priority to the rights and interests of Changan Mazda, which is bound to affect FAW Mazda, and disputes may be inevitable. Of course, whether the suspected Yima dealers pulling banners to protect their rights at Mazda's 2023 dealers' annual meeting is related to the above situation, it remains to be further answered by the authorities.

According to the official website of Changan Mazda, models currently on sale include Unksera, Atez, CX-30/CX-30 EV, CX-4, CX-5, CX-8 and other models. According to the insurance figures, Changan Mazda sold 107602 vehicles in 2022, of which Onksera was 62478, CX-5 was 17511, CX-30 was 11708, Atez was 7314, CX-4 was 6580 and CX-8 was 1276. It is not difficult to see from the data that 70 per cent of Changan Mazda's sales come from Oncella, while Atez and CX-4 contribute only 10 per cent of market sales.

In 2017, Mazda China achieved an annual sales record of 309400 vehicles, an increase of 8.3% over the same period last year, and sold 300000 units annually for the first time since Mazda started its business in the Chinese market. However, as Mazda stops producing CX-7, Mazda 6, Mazda 8 and other models in China, Mazda's sales in China continue to decline. From 2018 to 2021, Mazda's sales in China were 272322, 24492, 214574 and 183953 respectively, a decline of more than 40 per cent in five years. After entering 2022, Mazda China will no longer disclose specific sales.

One of the reasons why Mazda's sales in China remain low is that it lags far behind the speed of product updates in the market. According to the plan, Mazda will launch four models of CX-60, CX-70, CX-80 and CX-90 between 2022 and 2023, of which CX-50 and CX-90 will be made in China by the end of this year. But even if it is introduced, is its pricing attractive enough? How competitive are they when they are released in China's fast-changing car market? These are all issues that Mazda needs to consider in the long run.

Mazda models are slow to update, and old models have been difficult to meet the needs of Chinese consumers. Insufficient investment in research and development is an important factor leading to slow product updates, and the merger of North and South Mazda has failed to improve the situation. According to the financial report, net sales of Mazda in fiscal year 2021 were 2.88 trillion yen, down 16% from fiscal year 2020; operating profit was 8.82 billion yen, down 79.8% from the same period last year; and net profit was a loss of 31.65 billion yen, down 43.78 billion yen from fiscal year 2020. Right now, Mazda is going through a trough in China.

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