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According to data released by Dongfeng Motor Co., Ltd., DPCA sold 7657 vehicles in June 2023, down 10.24% from a year earlier, while cumulative sales from January to June in 2023 were 44200, down 21.56% from a year earlier.

DPCA previously said it would challenge 155000 vehicles in 2023, which means that the annual target completion rate of DPCA in the first half of this year is only 28.53%. It is obvious that DPCA wants to achieve a completion rate of 71.47% in the second half of the year.

Shenlong Automobile Co., Ltd. was established in May 1992, jointly funded by Dongfeng Automobile Group and PSA Group. As the first joint venture to enter the Chinese market, DPCA has two major brands, Dongfeng Peugeot and Dongfeng Citroen, and its annual sales reached a peak of 700000 in the early days. However, this highlight moment does not last, and DPCA's sales have declined for the fourth year in a row since 2016.

In the past year, the cumulative sales of DPCA reached 125167, an increase of 24.46% over the same period last year, showing a clear pick-up trend, but there is still a big gap from its annual sales target of 150000 vehicles.

Since the beginning of 2023, DPCA has accelerated the renewal of its brand products and carried out a series of marketing changes.

In March this year, Hubei Province launched the strongest car purchase subsidy policy in history, and many models of Dongfeng Group participated in this activity, among which Dongfeng Citroen cut prices particularly rapidly. the original guidance price of 211900 yuan and 226800 yuan for Citroen C6 co-creation model and C6 comfortable version model dropped by 90, 000 yuan, plus purchase tax, license fee and insurance, the price of Citroen C6 entry naked car is only about 120000 Huge subsidies have also attracted many consumers to snap up the car. Huge subsidies led to a brief surge in sales of Dongfeng Citroen C6 models, with Citroen C6 sales up 436 per cent year-on-year to 1259 in March, surpassing the model's sales in the past eight months, according to retail data. But Citroen C6 sales plunged 74.10% month-on-month to 326 in April, up from 356 in may.

In mid-June, DPCA announced that it would carry out a marketing change plan. The most significant change in the new plan is that the marketing work of DMC will be further refined in the future. Marketing business will be integrated into four departments, including brand development center, digital operation center, marketing center and customer service center. Among them, DPCA's Dongfeng Citroen and Dongfeng Peugeot dual brands will be unified management and network integration. DPCA said: "this marketing change is a positive move for DPCA to accelerate the overall electrification transformation, with the aim of optimizing and streamlining the process, improving internal efficiency, improving dealer profitability, and responding to the market and customers better and faster. It has been recognized and supported by Chinese and foreign stock companies."

Although DPCA has been actively adjusting its business strategy in China, judging from the current sales situation, its sales have not rebounded significantly. Taking the sales from January to May this year as an example, the data show that Dongfeng Citroen sold 12819 vehicles from January to May, of which Versailles C5X had the highest cumulative sales of 8350 vehicles, followed by Citroen C6 with 2099 vehicles, while another brand, Dongfeng Peugeot, sold 15364 vehicles, of which Peugeot sold 6535 vehicles, followed by Peugeot 508 with 2742 vehicles. In other words, Versailles C5X and Peugeot 408 are the only two models that have performed well in the DPCA market so far.

For today's DPCA, it is not realistic to rely solely on the Versailles C5X and Peugeot 408 models to boost annual sales. DPCA wants to return to its peak, "how to create a popular style product that stands out among many homogenized products" is an urgent problem to be solved.

According to the plan, starting from 2024, the goal of DPCA is to fully switch to electrification and strive to become the first joint venture to fully electrify new products. In terms of product planning, in the next five years, DPCA will launch eight new cars with pure electricity, plug-in and extended range power system. The first new energy model is expected to be launched in 2024, while in terms of fuel vehicles, DPCA may retain only six products.

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