AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)01/19 Report--

A few days ago, according to a letter from SAIC GM Wuling Motor Co., Ltd. on adjusting the selection of general manager and members of the executive committee, after discussion by the party committee of Shanghai Automobile Group Co., Ltd., the president agreed:

Shenyang no longer holds the position of general manager of SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd., and recommends Lu Jun to be the candidate for general manager of SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. Lian Chaochun is no longer a member of the executive committee of SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd., and Mr. Xue Haitao is a member of the executive committee of SAIC GM Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd.

Shenyang was born in September 1961 in Hezhou, Guangxi. In 1995, he left Kunming and came to Liuzhou alone. In that year, Liuzhou Tractor Factory changed its name to Liuzhou Mini car Factory. After joining, Shenyang started as an assistant engineer at the inspection office. In 1999, Liuzhou Wuling Automobile Co., Ltd. was established, and Shenyang became the general manager of the company. In 2002, Wuling Automobile reached a joint venture agreement with SAIC and General Motors to form SAIC GM Wuling. Shenyang was appointed as the first general manager of the joint venture company by SAIC in the name of resident personnel. It is worth mentioning that Shenyang is the only general manager of SAIC GM Wuling so far, serving in SAIC GM Wuling for more than 20 years.

Under Shenyang's "low-cost, high-value" Wuling model, SAIC GM Wuling rose in the mini-car market and surpassed Changan in 2006 with sales of 450000 vehicles. Wuling Hongguang also created a sales myth and was named "magic car". However, with the gradual change in policy guidance, the minicar market has been less than expected since 2011 and has been shrinking for many years since then. It is understood that SAIC GM Wuling once took the way of price war to seize market share, and triggered the major mini-car brands, including Changan and Dongfeng Xiaokang, to cut prices across the board.

In order to break the market, SAIC GM Wuling began to upgrade its brand in 2010, and the Baojun brand came into being. Since 2012, SAIC GM Wuling has achieved the goal of selling one million vehicles a year for many years with the two major brands Wuling and Baojun, and has become the star car company in the domestic joint venture car enterprises for a time, but the fate between the two brands does not understand.

Baojun's peak was in 2017, with hot sales of Baojun 730, Baojun 510 and Baojun 310 models, with annual sales of more than 1 million vehicles, on a par with Geely and Great Wall of independent brands. However, with the car market winter, the global epidemic and the Black Swan incident and other multiple volatile background, Baojun sales plummeted.

In 2019, Shenyang admitted the layout mistake in the Spring Festival message-"Baojun brand has not been able to find the right user base and become the parasitic brand of Wuling brand, resulting in unclear overlap between the two brands." In April of the same year, the new Baojun brand was released, launched the new LOGO, and entered the market of more than 100000 yuan. However, the performance of the new car market launched by Xin Baojun in recent years is not satisfactory. In 2022, Baojun sold 59722 vehicles for the whole year. In 2023, Baojun's life was even more difficult, selling only 35087 vehicles for the whole year.

From the market point of view, SAIC GM Wuling has solidified its low-end image in the eyes of consumers, and the upward development of Baojun brand is not due to the addition of "new" or the change of logo to indicate the upward vision of the enterprise's intention. As a result, after the failure of the new Baojun brand to hit the market upward, SAIC GM Wuling has set its sights on the Wuling brand, Wuling Silver Standard came into being, Capgemini, Star, Jiachen and Xingchi and other models have been listed.

Contrary to one's wishes, SAIC GM Wuling returned to its old business after the release of the Wuling Silver Standard, targeting the minicar market. The Wuling Hongguang MINIEV was launched in July 2010. with its ultra-low price of RMB2.88-38800, a small and cute appearance and the halo of the Wuling brand, the minicar was rekindled and became the best-selling single car for two years in a row. Since then, including Chery, Dongfeng, Geely and other large automakers have also launched the standard Hongguang MINIEV mini electric vehicle products. There is no denying that the Hongguang MINIEV launched by SAIC GM Wuling is indeed a success.

It is precisely because more and more car companies are setting up the mini-car market, the position of Hongguang MINIEV is also under threat, coupled with the 2023 price war, Hongguang MINIEV sales are much lower than in 2022. Looking to the future, SAIC GM Wuling is not clear whether it will go out of the limitations of the low end, and its current models for sale are basically in the market of less than 100000 yuan.

After all, there have been ups and downs over the past few decades, and with the rapid development of China's automobile market, especially the increasingly fierce competition in the new energy vehicle industry, SAIC GM Wuling still has several opportunities to try in the brand upward road. No one knows.

As for his successor, Lu Juncheng, who was the general manager of SAIC GM Wuling Technology Center before becoming general manager, he will become the leader of SAIC GM Wuling. Shenyang has devoted all his life to SAIC GM Wuling and failed to see a happy ending for SAIC GM Wuling. I don't know if the future will be realized in this young leader?!

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