AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)06/11 Report--

On June 11, Dongfeng Motor Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Dongfeng Group") released sales figures for May and January-May 2024. According to the data, Dongfeng Group sold 147206 vehicles in May 2024, down 13 per cent from a year earlier to 811921 vehicles in the January-May period, an increase of about 5.9 per cent year-on-year. For comparison, Dongfeng Group sold 2.0882 million vehicles in 2023, down 15.27% from a year earlier.

In terms of specific brands, among the joint venture brands, Dongfeng Nissan (including Dongfeng Infiniti and Qichen) sold 59350 vehicles in May 2024, down 3.47% from January to May, up 6.26% from January to May. Dongfeng Honda, another Japanese joint venture, sold 33002 vehicles in May, down 30.09 per cent from a year earlier, with cumulative sales of 202474 vehicles from January to May, up 9.66 per cent from a year earlier.

From the perspective of May sales, both Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda showed varying degrees of year-on-year decline, especially Dongfeng Honda. But sales of Japanese joint ventures in China are declining, and their domestic market share is shrinking, mainly because of the accelerated rise of local brands and the relative backwardness of the electrified sector.

In addition to the above two major brands, the decline of DPCA is also obvious. Sales of DPCA were 6045 in May, down 24.48 per cent from a year earlier. DPCA, jointly funded by Dongfeng Automobile Group and Peugeot Citroen, is the first joint venture to enter the Chinese market.

In February last year, DPCA announced the full promotion of electrification. According to the plan, in the next five years, DPCA will launch 9 new models and a number of modified models, 8 of which are new energy models. The new model will be developed based on the electric mixing platform eHMIA, which can provide three kinds of power modes: HEV, PHEV and BEV, covering a variety of car body forms such as cars, SUV and MPV. In October of the same year, Dongfeng Group signed an "asset transfer agreement" with DPCA to buy specific land use rights, buildings and structures located in Wuhan and Xiangyang for 1.714 billion yuan. At the same time, the two sides reached a leasing arrangement under which Dongfeng Group will lease the target assets to DPCA for a term of 10 years. It is understood that the target asset is mainly the third plant of DPCA in Wuhan, which has been mainly used to produce existing Peugeot and Citroen passenger cars as well as Fukang models.

Data show that from January to May this year, the cumulative sales of DPCA reached 31540, down 13.73% from the same period last year, and the overall sales are still on the low side. The reason for the sharp decline in DPCA sales is that French cars do not have a strong sense of existence in the domestic market, and on the other hand, the iteration of product updates is slow. For DPCA, its electrification transformation speed has obviously lagged behind the industry, and it is becoming more and more difficult for DPCA to catch up. Under a series of reform measures, it remains to be seen whether DPCA's sales will be boosted in the future.

In addition to joint venture brands, Dongfeng Group has laid out Dongfeng Lantu, Dongfeng Fengshen, Dongfeng New Energy, Dongfeng Fashion and other brands in the field of independent brands, but the sales performance is also relatively general. According to the data, Dongfeng Liuqi sold 6661 vehicles in May, down 24.10 per cent from a year earlier. The cumulative sales from January to May were 52279, up 11.34 per cent from a year earlier. Dongfeng passenger cars were 13824 in May, an increase of 36.43% over the same period last year. The cumulative sales from January to May were 68693, an increase of 60.81%. Dongfeng Lantu sold 4521 vehicles in May, up 50.55% from a year earlier. The cumulative sales from January to May were 24869, an increase of 106.83% over the same period last year. From the point of view of the sales volume in May, Dongfeng Lantu's sales growth is very obvious, but it is still a far cry from the new car-building forces in the mainstream of the car market, and this growth is tantamount to a drop in the bucket for the entire Dongfeng Group.

Dongfeng Nissan and Dongfeng Honda accounted for 62.74% of the group's total sales (147206 vehicles) in May, while Dongfeng Liuqi and Dongfeng passenger cars accounted for only 13.92%, according to Automotive Industry concern. In other words, the joint venture brand is still the main source of sales of Dongfeng Motor, and its performance will also directly affect the performance of Dongfeng Motor, but the current position of the joint venture brand in the domestic market is quite awkward. From the perspective of long-term development, for Dongfeng Group, its main business is undoubtedly the independent passenger car sector, and it must rely on its own brands and new energy vehicles if it wants to achieve rapid growth.

Dongfeng Group has many independent passenger car brands, but it is still lack of market competitiveness and low sales performance. Compared with the new forces of car building, traditional car companies have been lagging behind in the electrified transformation, which is also the reason for low sales. In the face of the escalation of competition in the automobile market this year, car companies, including Dongfeng Group, must speed up the pace of transformation. At present, the independent brand of Dongfeng Group is still in the stage of continuous large investment. According to the plan, by 2025, Dongfeng Motor will sell more than 1 million independent new energy vehicles; in the next three years, Dongfeng Automobile will invest more than 60 billion yuan to launch 30 new passenger vehicles new energy products and 14 commercial vehicles new energy basic models, and strive to return annual sales to 3 million units, reaching 3.2 million units.

Welcome to subscribe to the WeChat public account "Automotive Industry Focus" to get the first-hand insider information on the automotive industry and talk about things in the automotive circle. Welcome to break the news! WeChat ID autoWechat