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On February 28, according to interface news and other media reports, SAIC Volkswagen completed the reform of its marketing system at the beginning of this year, including the adjustment of the national sales and service center network of the Volkswagen brand, that is, the original 12 marketing regions were reduced to 8, and the authority of the marketing regional team was strengthened.

According to the report, SAIC-Volkswagen marketing system canceled the four independent marketing regions of Shandong, Jiangsu, Beijing and Tianjin and Yungui, and replaced them into the four newly established marketing regions, of which Shandong and Henan and Anhui formed the New Central China region, Jiangsu and Zhejiang and Shanghai formed the New East China region, Beijing, Tianjin and Shanxi and Hebei formed the Xinhua Peking region, and Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Chongqing and Xizang formed the New Southwest region. On the other hand, the original South China, South Central, Northwest and Northern regions maintain the original layout. In addition, the authority of SAIC-Volkswagen marketing region has also changed, for example, the region has more power to formulate marketing strategies and call resources to the headquarters. at the same time, the regional personnel structure has also been adjusted to strengthen the front-line personnel of the market. form an "iron triangle" of marketing, sales and after-sales.

SAIC-Volkswagen has made a round of adjustment to the marketing system in March 2022, and the above is the second marketing system adjustment. At that time, SAIC-Volkswagen established SVI (ID. Series of electric vehicles), SVH (high-end fuel vehicles) and SVV (mainstream fuel vehicles). Each organization is divided into four sections: research customers, research market, research products and research transactions, which are responsible for product research at the national level, product strategy research, national marketing strategy, and pricing strategy implementation. The eight regional adjustments of the secondary marketing system mentioned above are responsible for the localization of product marketing strategy and the adjustment of marketing strategy.

In addition, SAIC announced a major personnel change last month. Chen Xianzhang, general manager of SAIC Group, was transferred to deputy chief economist and deputy director of the Technical Committee of SAIC Group, and no longer served as general manager of SAIC Volkswagen. Jia Jianxu, former general manager of Yanfeng Automobile Accessories system Co., Ltd., took over the post of general manager of SAIC Volkswagen.

The industry believes that SAIC-Volkswagen's successive changes are related to the pressure on its sales and changes in the car market. According to the data, SAIC-Volkswagen sold more than 2 million vehicles for four consecutive years from 2016 to 2019, including 2.0651 million in 2018 and 2.0018 million in 2019, which was surpassed by FAW-Volkswagen to replace the top spot in China's passenger car market. SAIC-Volkswagen's sales began to decline one after another, with sales falling to 1.5055 million in 2020 and 1.4571 million in 2021. By 2022, it fell to 1.2435 million, a gap compared with the peak sales of more than 2 million.

Of course, the decline in SAIC-Volkswagen sales is not only for its own reasons, but also related to the current changes in car companies. According to the analysis of the TOP15 retail sales list combed by Automotive Industry concern, in 2022, seven domestic manufacturers achieved year-on-year growth and eight declined year-on-year. Although the number of car companies with the same increase and decline was similar to that in 2021, the ranking of car companies in the list has been reshuffled. For example, in the top five car companies, a number of joint venture brands abdicated, while independent brands occupied the third place. In addition, the sales of a number of joint venture brands in the list showed a serious year-on-year decline, including SAIC Volkswagen, SAIC General Motors, Dongfeng Nissan, FAW Toyota, SAIC GM Wuling, Guangzhou Automobile Honda and Dongfeng Honda. Instead of the usual strong performance, independent brands are rising rapidly, such as BYD surpassing FAW-Volkswagen for the first time. SAIC Volkswagen and SAIC General Motors, which rank in the top three all the year round, were also overtaken by Changan Automobile and Geely Motor respectively.

Data show that in 2022, the market share of independent brands reached 50% for the first time, while the market share of joint venture brands with strong performance in the past was gradually carved up. This change is mainly due to the rapid transformation of the auto market to new energy vehicles and the rapid transformation of domestic independent brands, while joint venture brands are in slow transformation.

As one of the earliest joint ventures in China, SAIC-Volkswagen also actively laid out the electrified transformation in 2022, but it is still under pressure on the sales side. According to the official website, SAIC-Volkswagen is currently selling pure electric models, including ID.4X, ID.6X and ID.3. Data show that SAIC-Volkswagen's ID in 2022. The cumulative sales of pure electric family series is 75000 vehicles in the whole year, which is far from that of new energy leading car companies such as BYD and Tesla. As for whether SAIC-Volkswagen can emerge as a result of a series of innovations, it still needs to be tested by time.

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