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Lifan is now in deep trouble after sales plummeted and performance losses. According to Lifan shares released in May production and sales express announcement shows, Lifan traditional passenger car output in May fell 87% year-on-year to 1066 vehicles, January-May accumulated to 16335 vehicles, Year-on-year decline 62%. In terms of sales volume, 1024 vehicles were sold in May, down 86.6% year-on-year, and 19683 vehicles were accumulated in the first five months, down 57% year-on-year.

Sales of new energy vehicles were even smaller, with sales of 108 vehicles in May, down 64.24% year-on-year, and sales of only 1011 vehicles from January to May. In 2018, the sales volume of Lifan new energy vehicles can reach 10,000 units, with an increase of 31%. In 2019, it will retrogress completely and the market competition will intensify.

In fact, China's auto sales continue to decline in the downturn environment, independent brand share continues to fall. In May, the sales volume of self-owned brands was only 565,000 vehicles, down 28.1% year-on-year, and the market share was 36.2%, down 5.4% compared with the same period last year. This is also the month with the lowest market share of self-owned brands in recent three years. In the first five months, the cumulative sales volume of self-owned brand cars was 3.335 million, down 23.4% year-on-year, and the market share was 39.7%, down 4.2% compared with the same period last year.

Under this background, the survival status quo of marginalized independent brands is particularly difficult, and the market depression also accelerates the reshuffle of automobile industry.

According to the performance report, Lifan realized a net profit of 253 million yuan in 2018, with a loss of 2.149 billion yuan after deducting non-net profit. In the first quarter of this year, there was also a loss of nearly 100 million yuan. In 2018, Lifan sold two assets, namely, its subsidiary Chongqing Lifan Automobile Co., Ltd. transferred to Che Hejia at a price of 650 million yuan; in addition, Lifan also sold the production base of the original 150,000 passenger car project to Chongqing Liangjiang New Area Land Reserve Renovation Center at a price of about 3.315 billion yuan, thus obtaining corresponding funds. Through "selling property" is Lifan's main way to achieve profits.

According to the annual report, Lifan mainly focuses on product upgrading and motorization in 2018, and has successively started 6 R & D projects, including intelligent new energy vehicles on brand-new platforms, 650EV400 online booking vehicles, electric training vehicles, etc. Meanwhile, Lifan has completed the product development and marketing of X50 mid-term model change, 650EV300 and Xingshun EV. In addition, after more than three years of operation, by the end of 2018, the cumulative number of registered users nationwide exceeded 4 million.

However, the reality of the decline in Lifan sales has led to difficulties for dealers. At the beginning of May this year, media exposure from more than 30 Chongqing Lifan automobile authorized dealers representatives gathered at Chongqing Lifan Center headquarters to safeguard rights, playing "Lifan pay back money" slogan.

Lifan authorized dealers said that in recent years Lifan Automobile launched few new products, poor R & D ability, unable to keep up with the market rhythm, resulting in many dealers losses, the most serious annual loss of 2 million yuan, unauthorized dealers selling behavior, directly crushed them. There are dealer representatives said, rights protection is forced to helpless, to recover losses.

Lifan Group started from the motorcycle market in 1992 and was founded by founder Yin Mingshan at the age of 53. Finally, he used 200,000 yuan capital to build Lifan into an industrial group with revenue of tens of billions. Since 2003, Yin Mingshan has been involved in automobile manufacturing. Up to now, independent automobile brands such as Great Wall, Geely, SAIC, GAC and BYD have grown stronger, but Lifan is still focused on the low-end market and is marginalized as a whole.

In November 2017, Yin Mingshan officially retired and Mou Gang was elected as the new chairman of the board of directors of the company. Yin Mingshan once said such a sentence to encourage Lifan to continue to move forward: "The vanguard troops killed a bloody road, the middle army and logistics closely followed, consolidated the position and expanded the results." Now Lifan's situation, perhaps Yin Mingshan also did not expect.

Selling property, transformation is not smooth, sales continue to decline, Lifan this old independent automobile enterprise can survive the winter? However, in this highly competitive market environment, many brands have been impacted and face reshuffle.

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