AutoBeta(AutoBeta.net)09/09 Report--

Hyundai Kia has announced a major personnel appointment at a time when it is losing its market position in China. Today, Hyundai Kia announced the appointment of Li Feng as vice president of Hyundai Motor Group (China) and general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia. This is also the first time that Kia has hired a Chinese CEO for the joint venture Dongfeng Yueda Kia.

Li Feng is mainly responsible for managing Kia's local production, sales and planning business in China, leading Dongfeng Yueda Kia to boost the performance of the Chinese market.

The relevant official of Kia said that this will enable the enterprise to respond to the local market situation more quickly and will make efforts to improve the original competitiveness, marketing ability and customer service quality of the Chinese market in the future.

Li Feng has worked in BAIC Foton, Chery, Beijing Hyundai, BAIC Group, Baoneng Automobile and Guanzhi Automobile in his 20 years in the automotive industry. He served as executive deputy general manager of Beijing Hyundai from 2009 to 2013, then promoted to the position of president of BAIC and joined BAIC as a member of the standing Committee of the Party Committee and a director of BAIC. In December 2017, Li Feng officially left BAIC, which has served for eight years, and joined Baoneng Automobile in January 2018 as executive vice president. He is an important figure in Baoneng's foray into new energy vehicle manufacturing. During his tenure at Baoneng, he also served as CEO of Qoros. It was not until July this year that Li Feng was revealed to have left Baoneng.

Chen Bingzhen, the former general manager of Dongfeng Yueda Kia, who has just been transferred, attended the Chengdu Auto Show. He said in an interview with the media, "within two or three years, we do not deliberately pursue the scale of volume, we must first make a good system and strategic planning, and make Dongfeng Yueda Kia develop better by making progress in a steady way."

When it comes to brand design, Chen Bingzhen said, "in the past, we have tried to change the design concept of beautiful appearance before, but the market has not improved obviously, and we will still choose differentiated designs in the future to highlight the brand."

For the whole of 2018, Dongfeng Yueda Kia sold only 370000 vehicles, while Dongfeng Yueda Kia sold 162700 vehicles in the first half of 2019, still down from the same period in 2018.

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