[car home Brand History] The brand Geely was actually full of controversy at the beginning of its creation. It can be said that 99% of people think that Li Shufu is fooling around, and many people think that it will definitely not last long. The simple reason is its "private" status. However, it is such an enterprise that has created many firsts in the history of China’s automobile industry: the first private car-making enterprise, the first one that started the 20,000-yuan era of automobiles, the first sports car in China, the first case of foreign-related intellectual property rights with Toyota, the first automatic gearbox in China, the first private education system in China, and the first private car to acquire foreign brands. …
First, the story of Li Shufu’s fortune (1982-1994)
Starting from the refrigerator/involving many industries
BYD has Wang Chuanfu and Geely has Li Shufu. If you want to talk about Geely’s history, you have to mention Li Shufu. Unlike Wang Chuanfu with a master’s background, Li Shufu started his business as a high school graduate, but it is such an "ordinary person" who created today’s huge Geely empire. In fact, Li Shufu has been involved in 6-7 industries in the 12 years before he built a car, which is really amazing, and it is precisely in these industries that he has achieved his experience.
Many people know that Geely Automobile started as a refrigerator, but what was the original background? In 1982, after graduating from high school, Li Shufu spent tens of yuan to buy a "Seagull" camera (an independent camera brand that once made Chinese people proud) and made a living by taking pictures at various scenic spots. At that time, this business was quite profitable. Li Shufu earned almost 2,000 yuan a year, which was higher than that of a national official and even higher than the income of some cadres. With a certain amount of capital, he opened a photo studio without hesitation, and the business was still booming. In just a few years, this photo studio made Li Shufu gain millions of wealth.
In 1984, Li Shufu found in a small talk with workers in a shoe factory that the profit of making refrigerator parts was very high, so he decided to give up the photo studio and start making refrigerator parts. Li Shufu is a man with a strategic vision, and his words will be faithful and his actions will be fruitful, which also played an important role in the later car-making process. Li Shufu’s decision soon paid off. From 1983 to 1988, there was a rare "snap-up wind" for household appliances in the national market, and the refrigerator market expanded from 250,000 units per year to 7.335 million units. In this context, Li Shufu’s output value has reached 40-50 million yuan within two years after entering the refrigerator market.
At the same time, in 1987, the profit of making refrigerator spare parts could not meet Li Shufu’s demand, so Li Shufu decided to start producing "Arctic Flower" brand refrigerators. However, in 1989, the market suddenly shrank. At that time, there were more than 400 enterprises producing refrigerators. In order to "standardize" the market, the state decided to put 41 state-owned factories in the designated production catalogue, but Arctic Flower, as a private factory, obviously could not continue to produce, and then Li Shufu decided to give up this factory.
During his college days in Shenzhen, he and several classmates in his dormitory were going to decorate the dormitory. While visiting the building materials market, Li Shufu found a kind of building materials called aluminum-magnesium curved board. At that time, the market price was very expensive, and all of them were imported from abroad. Li Shufu felt that the profit inside was very high, so he negotiated with his second brother Li Xubing to start developing aluminum-magnesium curved board and officially started production in 1991.
Against the background of the high price of foreign materials, the products of Li Shufu brothers quickly opened up the market. By the end of 1991, they sold more than 8 million yuan, 70 million yuan in 1992, 150 million yuan in 1993 and 340 million yuan in 2001. Nowadays, building materials is still a business of Geely Group, and it still has considerable business income every year.
In 1993, Li Shufu, who had some savings, had the idea of building a car. This idea originated from his first Zhonghua brand car. In addition, there were two more important reasons for building a car: 1. At that time, Li Shufu’s routine of entering the building materials market had been imitated and put into production by many enterprises, and the market was shrinking. However, building a car was a huge project, and most people could not learn it. 2. The industry of aluminum-magnesium curved plate is still too small, and Li Shufu wants to be a bigger industry. But it is impossible to get a reply after asking the relevant personnel of the government. So Li Shufu moved to the motorcycle industry, initially making straddle motorcycles, but the benefits were not good, and the idea of building cars did not give up.
By chance, Li Shufu began to get involved in the scooter market. One of his employees went out on business, riding a borrowed imported scooter and collided with an army military vehicle, and almost all the motorcycles fell apart. Later, after Li Shufu’s brother saw the motorcycle that fell apart, they suddenly had the idea of building a scooter, because in their opinion, there was really nothing complicated in the motorcycle accessories that fell apart, so Li Shufu’s family business began to enter the scooter industry again.
At that time, the domestic scooters were relatively new. Li Shufu found that the scooters produced by Sunshine Motorcycle Factory in Taiwan Province had elegant riding posture, which could block water and mud in rainy days, which was in line with the domestic car use situation. In 1994, Li Shufu produced the first scooters in mainland China, which were similar in appearance to those in Japan and Taiwan Province, China, but much cheaper. Motorcycles from Japan and Taiwan Province, China sold for 17,000-19,000 yuan, while Geely only sold for 8,800 yuan. This kind of compact motorcycle quickly became popular in Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces, and it was so hot that it soon replaced similar motorcycles in Japan and Taiwan Province, China.
Second, the creation story of Geely Automobile (1994-1998)
Break through many difficulties one by one
In fact, Li Shufu’s keen sense of smell and paranoid personality are closely related to his ability to resolutely choose the automobile industry when the motorcycle business is booming, and even willing to go bankrupt for it. In his view, the price of automobile products at that time was too high, and there were great opportunities. The only problem was how to get the government’s support. He firmly believed that the policy would be liberalized one day, and before that, he could just make good use of his time to study automobile technology and build a car base.
Although Li Shufu made up his mind, it can be said that the background at that time was not conducive to private enterprises to build cars. Not only was there no one, no money and no technology, but the government also opposed to building cars. Therefore, his idea of building cars was unanimously opposed by his family and the motorcycle board. No one wanted to play with Li Shufu, and no one believed that he would succeed in building cars, arguing and arguing, and he was helpless. He finally decided to invest the most.
At that time, Li Shufu only had about 100 million yuan in his pocket, although he claimed that it was 500 million yuan. You know, when Santana was put into production that year, the state invested more than 100 million yuan for it. According to the national industrial policy, in 1994, the entry threshold for local governments to enter the automobile industry was 1.5 billion yuan, and the premise was approved by the government. As a private enterprise, Geely Group could not get the support of the government at all, because the state was particularly strict in automobile management at that time. People are not allowed to build cars, which is the patent of state-owned enterprises. Apart from military enterprises, there will only be "three big and three small" car production layouts, namely, three car production bases (three big) of FAW, SAIC and three car production points (three small) of Beijing, Tianjin and Guangzhou.
Secondly, building a car requires technical talents. At that time, Li Shufu looked through the employee files of all motorcycle companies and found only three who had relevant experience in the automobile industry, and all of them were originally modified cars. Based on this experience, they began to explore cars. Li Shufu bought many cars all over the world, including Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Toyota, and devoted himself to studying a large number of real cars.
Li Shufu likes Mercedes-Benz best and wants to make "China’s Mercedes-Benz". In 1994, Li Shufu dismantled the first Mercedes-Benz and later went to FAW to buy the chassis, engine and gearbox of Hongqi for research. After studying hard, Li Shufu basically mastered the structure of the car. Li Shufu came to an amazing conclusion that the car is: one engine+four wheels+two sofas.
Because the key dimensions of Mercedes-Benz and Hongqi are very similar, there is not much problem in the cooperation of the whole vehicle. After a long time of tossing in the factory, Li Shufu designed the first Geely brand Mercedes-Benz car with the characteristics of Mercedes-Benz Hongqi sedan: the appearance is similar to that of Mercedes-Benz E200, the chassis is similar to that of Hongqi, and the engine is Hongqi. In this way, Li Shufu grafted more than 1 million Mercedes-Benz and the red flag car worth 360 thousand he gave to his subordinate Gu Weiming, and became Geely’s first car-Geely No.1.
In this way, a car was built and turned around in Linhai City, Taizhou, causing a great sensation. People don’t know what this guy like Mercedes-Benz is. Li Shufu also advertised in Taizhou Daily, and even someone came to make an inquiry and asked how much it would cost. However, the quality of the car made in this way is definitely not guaranteed, and soon the car will be all faulty.
Li Shufu wanted to build a luxury car very much, but because of the technical difficulty, it was impossible to build a luxury car directly. Later, Li Shufu completely gave up the original "Mercedes-Benz+Red Flag" route and changed to a small car route, shouting the slogan of "Building a car that ordinary people can afford". At that time, cars were relatively expensive. The cheapest Xiali and Alto cost more than 100,000 yuan, Santana cost 178,000 yuan, and there were almost no cars below 70,000 yuan. This was a vacancy. This vacancy is exactly what Shanghai Volkswagen, FAW-Volkswagen, Second Automobile and other big names disdain to do. Li Shufu is determined to show his talents in this market.
Later, Li Shufu began to study more economical cars, including An Chi (now a small car produced by Jianghuai Automobile) and Zhonghua Bullet (produced in 1994-1998). The research on these two cars was mainly used to sort out the spare parts list and learn the chassis system. In fact, Xiali was the most studied. At that time, Xiali just launched a new model. Li Shufu bought several prototype cars, dismembered Xiali, and began to study and understand Xiali’s parts supporting system, whose engine is it, where did you buy the gearbox, where did you get the instrument, and what happened to the chassis, one by one.
After studying the technology, we still have to consider the production line, because building a car is not supported by the government. In 1996, Li Shufu applied for land in Linhai City, saying that he wanted to build a motorcycle. At that time, the scale of motorcycles built by Li Shufu’s family was already hundreds of thousands a year, and expanding the scale was an acceptable reason for everyone. But after all, it is too big. During the planning review, someone really questioned Li Shufu, "Why is the factory so big?" Li Shufu waved his hand and replied, "What we want to build is the most luxurious motorcycle in the world." In this way, the Linhai Municipal Government finally approved 800 mu of marshland in the East Development Zone of Linhai City, and one mu of marshland in 500 yuan. In this marshland, except for the development zone, there are two buildings there, with no electricity, no water, no communication, no restaurants, no shops and nothing.
There is a base there, and Li Shufu here has to try to get a license to produce cars. Only when he is approved can he start production. If there is no production right, the factory will be built and the government will confiscate it, and the investment will be wasted. One day in 1997, Li Shufu learned that the director of Deyang prison in Sichuan was also the director of Deyang prison automobile factory. At that time, the factory had stopped production, but it still kept the automobile production catalogue and could only produce light buses and hatchbacks with the prefix "6". According to the catalogue announcement, the prefix "6" is a passenger car and the prefix "7" is a car. Therefore, Li Shufu found this factory, invested 24 million yuan, accounting for 70% of the shares, and established a joint venture with Deyang Prison to establish "Sichuan Geely Boeing Automobile Co., Ltd.", which was later renamed Geely Automobile Manufacturing Co., Ltd. The factory here is located in a prison. It is inconvenient to get in and out, the organization is bloated, everything is asked for instructions, and the efficiency is too low. Li Shufu wants to buy all this factory and move to Zhejiang, but the warden in Deyang doesn’t agree. After the death of the warden, Li Shufu got the remaining 30% shares at a reasonable price. In this way, in March 1997, Geely Holding Group began to build an automobile factory in Linhai, and completed the first phase in 1997.
Seeing this, some people may wonder, Li Shufu had only 100 million yuan in his pocket at that time, and he had to build a factory and buy equipment. How did he solve the financial problem? This is Li Shufu’s outstanding point, and it is also a famous "boss project" in Geely’s history. What is "boss project"? Li Shufu explained it this way: Ask the fund holders to join Geely, and set up a subsidiary or branch factory in partnership with Geely, so that the rich can become "bosses", and invite those who lack funds but are talented to join Geely, become managers of Geely, and become "bosses" by their own talents.
To put it bluntly, Li Shufu divided the automobile factory into several branches. You made the frame and he made the body. These were all done by the contractor himself, and even the assembly workshop was contracted out. This is actually the current joint-stock system. Li Shufu is the earliest practitioner and beneficiary of the China joint-stock system. Some people may say that it is so "unreliable" for private enterprises to build cars, why would anyone invest? In fact, Li Shufu has earned a lot of money for those bosses in refrigerators, building materials and motorcycles, so when he is ready to build cars, many bosses are still willing to trust his eyes.
With money and technology, the next biggest problem is the procurement of parts. These parts are not so easy to buy, and many enterprises are controlled by the state. Li Shufu went to Shanghai Volkswagen’s Huizhong Parts Automobile Company and found the chief engineer. He told people that he wanted to produce cars and was going to buy some parts from them. The engineer asked how much money he was going to invest, and Li Shufu said that he would invest 500 million yuan. After listening to this, the engineer felt that Li Shufu was simply whimsical, and 500 million yuan could not even reach the edge of the car. Those joint ventures always invested tens of billions, and 500 million yuan was almost the same as building a car toy. So after hearing this, the engineer left without saying hello. Li Shufu thought he had something to do temporarily and waited for more than an hour before someone came to tell Li Shufu that he was not coming. As a result, I didn’t buy the parts and had to come back. There is no way, Li Shufu went to all parts of the country to find parts suppliers. These suppliers were surprised to hear that Geely was going to build cars. Can private enterprises still build cars? Nobody believes it at all. Some sell their products out of sympathy, some simply refuse, and some fish in troubled waters to sell defective products, and the price is more expensive than others. In this way, after painstaking efforts, I finally purchased all the parts.
Third, the first production car was born/started a price war (1998-1999)
Pull the "high price" of cars off the altar
After 3-4 years of preparation, finally the first truly mass-produced Geely automobile was born, which is Geely pride. At 8: 00 am on August 8th, 1998, in Zhejiang Linhai Geely Haoqing Automobile Industrial Park, Geely’s first hatchback went off the assembly line. The front face of this car was somewhat like a Mercedes-Benz, and the model imitated Xiali’s body and chassis. The engine was Toyota 8A engine configured by Tianjin Toyota Engine Company for Xiali, and the gearbox was produced by Fiat.
In the process of preparing for the off-line ceremony, in fact, Li Shufu also encountered a huge problem, that is, he sent more than 700 invitations, and no official or celebrity was willing to join him. The reason was that the national automobile industry policy prevented private enterprises from making cars, which probably involved breaking the law, and no one dared to support him. In desperation, Li Shufu sent an invitation to Ye Rongbao, then vice governor of Zhejiang Province, because the vice governor had always wanted to set up a vehicle factory in Zhejiang, and with this.
At the end of 1998, Haoqing produced more than 100 vehicles. Geely invited some dealers. These people saw Haoqing and shook their heads. The quality was really not good. The experiment of getting wet in the rain failed, and the brake system and light group all leaked. After a while, the water inside was full. When running on the road, the dust outside is choking when it enters the carriage through the door. There is still a lot of putty on the door, and the thickness is different. Li Shufu felt that the quality was too poor and the market would not accept it. In a rage, Li Shufu destroyed the cars with a road press and lost millions.
Li Shufu also dismissed a group of old workers with poor craftsmanship and found a group of workers with higher quality again, and the quality control was stricter. In November, 1999, a batch of pride was rebuilt, put on the market and sold nearly 2000 vehicles. It is worth mentioning that although the new car was built, it was difficult to find a dealer because of quality problems, so Li Shufu had no choice but to use the original motorcycle sales system to sell it.
At the beginning of Li Shufu’s car building, his slogan was "Make the cheapest car in China", which was vividly reflected in his lofty sentiments. When he was born, his lofty sentiments made the price of cars fall from the altar to reality. At that time, most of his lofty sentiments were imitations of Xiali, so the impact on Xiali was particularly strong, and Xiali was forced to cut prices in order to meet the challenge. However, every time Xiali lowered the price, Geely would cut the price accordingly. In the end, Xiali set the price at 31,800 yuan, but Li Shufu did not show weakness, and randomly reduced the price of lofty sentiments to 29,900 yuan. When this price came out, the industry was full of abuse against Li Shufu, but it won applause from consumers. Li Shufu also admitted that he only earned a few hundred dollars when he sold a lofty sentiment.
Although the products are available, the quality is really not flattering. Many people have made fun of Geely, and a dialect jingle is often popular on the streets of Linhai, which roughly means: "Geely cars should be pushed uphill and umbrellas should be used when it rains". It is precisely because of this that improving the quality of products has become a top priority. Geely Automobile not only poached more than 100 technicians from Tianjin FAW, but also recruited more college students. At first, it cooperated with universities such as Hangzhou to give scholarships to students. It spent more than 10 million yuan back and forth and hired more than 60 college graduates, but most of these college students were unwilling to start at the grassroots level, and only one person stayed soon.
There is no way, Li Shufu can only do his own food and clothing, and he wants to run his own university. In 1998, he founded a private university-Zhejiang College of Economic Management. In November 1999, geely university’s agreement was formally signed, and the address was in Machikou Town, Changping District, Beijing.
During the ten years from 1998 to 2007, Li Shufu built a set of the largest and perfect private education system for Geely Group: Geely has eight colleges and universities, covering all levels from secondary schools, junior colleges and undergraduate courses to master’s and doctoral degrees, with more than 3,500 faculty members and more than 57,000 students. Therefore, Li Shufu also has a title that makes him very proud-vice president of China Private Education Association.
In 1999, a personnel change provided Li Shufu with an opportunity to leave Taizhou and enter Ningbo. At that time, there happened to be a Japanese-funded enterprise in Beilun, Ningbo. Li Shufu bought 300 acres of vacant land from the Japanese and established the Ningbo production base of Geely Group. Here, the second Geely model-the United States and Japan came out. In fact, due to the price war, Geely’s pride only allowed Geely to squeeze into the automobile market, and the United States and Japan were the models that really made Geely profitable.
Fourth, the first stage of rapid development of Geely Automobile (2000-2005)
Obtain the "birth permit"/launch the "old three samples" of Geely Automobile.
In 2000, Li Shufu felt that it was time for the world to know the brand of Geely. On January 6th, 2000, Li Shufu began his first large-scale media show. On that day, 1,300 people from all over the country rushed to Guangzhou to attend the national distributor conference and new motorcycle and automobile product exhibition organized by Geely. After this event, many people remembered Geely.
In order to promote Geely brand to the world, Li Shufu can be said to make speeches everywhere, but at first Li Shufu will be ridiculed wherever he goes. Once, on a local TV program about the automobile industry, many big names in the automobile industry were invited to join in. These bosses with deep pockets talked about their abundant funds, technology and brand, while Li Shufu, a rustic "countryman", said, "Building a car, I think. The car critic immediately inserted a sentence: "This is how Geely’s car was made." The audience burst into laughter. Despite good or bad reputation, through these methods, Li Shufu really let the world know the brand.
2001 was a year of fame and fortune for Geely. First of all, Li Shufu was rated as the most persistent figure by China Entrepreneur magazine, and the reason for his election was-no matter how the outside world commented, no matter what setbacks he suffered, he stubbornly made his dream of building a car. The title of "car madman" came from this. In addition, Geely’s sales situation began to open this year, achieving breakeven.
Most notably, on November 9, 2001, on the eve of China’s accession to the WTO, the State Economic and Trade Commission issued the sixth batch of products of China automobile manufacturers, and Geely JL6360 was on the list. The announcement of the State Economic and Trade Commission made it clear that Geely is a designated national automobile production base, and Geely finally got a "formal account" from a "black child". A veteran figure of Geely recalled that Li Shufu and many employees and executives had a night of partying and drinking a lot of wine on the night when Geely cars boarded the "Car Catalogue". On December 26, 2001, the State Economic and Trade Commission issued the Announcement of the seventh batch of vehicle manufacturers and products, and the light buses HQ6360, MR6370 and sedan MR7130 produced by Geely Group were also among them, realizing the leap from producing hatchback light buses to sedan cars.
With the support of national policies, the development of Geely automobile is like a duck to water. In July 2002, Li Shufu and others made a medium-and long-term plan for Geely and put forward three projects, namely, the Horse Project, the Cheetah Project and the Lion Project. This plan is ambitious. The Horse Project is to produce and sell 300,000 cars by 2005, including 100,000 cars in Ningbo, 50,000 cars in Linhai, 100,000 cars in Luqiao and 50,000 cars in Shanghai. The sales revenue is 18 billion yuan and the profit is 1 billion yuan. Cheetah Project is to realize the production and sales of 1 million vehicles in 2010, including 500,000 vehicles in Zhejiang Province, with a sales income of 40 billion yuan and a profit of 2.5 billion yuan. The Lion Project is to realize the production and sales of 2 million vehicles in 2015, including 1.5 million vehicles in China, with a sales income of 80 billion yuan and a profit of 4 billion yuan, and strive to make Geely’s market share in China exceed 10%. Although the project was not strictly implemented because of the transformation of the group, the promulgation of this plan made people see the ambition of Geely Automobile.
After the product was launched, I successfully saw Geely Youliu, which can be regarded as a sedan of the United States and Japan. The appearance of this model broke the embarrassment of Geely’s usual "imitation" and the design of the whole vehicle was remarkable. The overall modeling of the sedan breaks the single situation that Geely only has a hatchback. Subsequently, the "China’s first run" Geely Beauty Leopard, which shocked both at home and abroad, was born. This model was operated by an Italian design company, and the whole model was very dynamic.
In terms of price, Geely Beauty Leopard was also a surprise. At that time, the price of 12.99-148,800 yuan also subverted the traditional concept of "sports car" with a price of millions, but in terms of power, Geely Beauty Leopard was still a little far from the real sports car. At that time, it was equipped with 1.3L and 1.5L inline four-cylinder engines, with maximum power of 86 HP and 94 HP, and maximum torque of 110 Nm and 128 Nm respectively. They are all matched with 5-speed manual gearboxes, and the officially announced acceleration scores of 0-100km/h are 12.8 seconds and 12 seconds respectively.
During the period of 2001-2005, Geely Automobile gradually moved towards its own plan through Geely’s pride, the United States, Japan and Uniou. In terms of base construction, there were two major bases, namely, Linhai and Ningbo factories at that time, and Taizhou Luqiao Factory officially started construction in August 2002, with an investment of 4.91 billion yuan, which was basically completed on November 28, 2004.
The most noteworthy thing is the factory in Shanghai. In fact, while Li Shufu was building a car, his younger brother Li Shutong was also building a car in Shanghai. At that time, Huapu Jester was produced. Because Jester was not listed in the Announcement of Vehicle Manufacturing Enterprises and Products, Huapu Jester was later merged into Geely and renamed Shanghai Huapu. Its base was located in Fengjing Industrial Park, Jinshan District, Shanghai. It was founded in 2000, and the first phase of the factory covered an area of 420,000 square meters. It was completed and put into operation in 2002.
In 2003, Toyota, known as "the first case of automobile intellectual property rights in China", filed a complaint against Geely for trademark infringement and unfair competition in advertising language, and it was officially pronounced that Geely won. The cause of the case is that Toyota believes that Geely’s American-Japanese car logo resembles its "small earth" shape and infringes Toyota’s trademark right; At the same time, it also thinks that Geely’s propaganda language of "Toyota power, price tempted" is unfair competition, so it claims 14 million yuan from Geely Automobile.
Li Shufu explained that the Geely-US-Japan trademark graphic is a combination of the Chinese pinyin M and R of the word "US-Japan", which has nothing to do with the Toyota trademark. As for "Toyota Power, the price is tempted", Li Shufu thinks that their engine is indeed Toyota’s 8A series. At that time, when they bought the 8A engine produced by Tianjin Toyota, Toyota did not object. However, after Geely improved the engine, Toyota felt that it was not "Toyota Power" and using "Toyota Power" would mislead consumers, but the final penalty result was that Toyota lost the case.
In 2005, it can be said that it was the first harvest year for Geely Automobile. Although the final sales volume was nearly 150,000 units, which was far from the original 300,000 units, its 36% year-on-year growth had to make people applaud him. In this year, Geely Automobile was ranked among the top ten national automobile sales for the first time, ranking eighth. At the same time, Geely Automobile shares were officially sold in Hong Kong this year.
In addition, in 2005, another model of Geely Automobile, Geely Free Ship sedan, was officially launched. This model is a small car with independent intellectual property rights jointly developed by Geely Group and Daewoo Co., Ltd. of Korea and many other world companies. Compared with the previous models, the biggest impression of this car is that it is refreshing and thoroughly remoulded.
In addition to the upgrade in appearance and interior, the Free Ship is powered by engines with displacement of 1.3L, 1.5L and 1.6L. The 1.5L and 1.6L engines are two new models independently developed. Freedom Ship can match three transmissions: two 5-speed manual transmissions and one automatic transmission independently developed by Geely. At that time, it was the only automatic transmission for vehicles with independent property rights in China.
V. The second rapid development stage of Geely Automobile (2006-present)
Strategic transformation/upgrading of technology and quality across the board
Since the launch of Freedom Ship in 2005, Geely Automobile accelerated the launch of new cars in 2006. This year, Geely King Kong and Vision were released one after another. The release of these two models marked a new step for Geely Automobile, which not only greatly improved the product texture, but also the 1.8L CVVT engine carried on Vision Model had absolute independent intellectual property rights, which also represented the highest level of CVVT engine of autonomous automobile at that time.
In addition to the release of new products, Geely Automobile also entered the British Manganese Copper Holdings this year, holding 19.97% of its shares. After the cooperation between the two parties, a joint venture factory was established in China to mainly produce TX4 taxis produced by British Manganese Copper Holdings. This model was subsequently applied to the taxi market in Beijing, Hangzhou and other cities in China, which was full of British flavor.
In 2007, a 58-episode TV series "drive of life" based on the automobile development of Geely Group was broadcast in CCTV 8. After the TV series was broadcast, it aroused strong repercussions. It is reported that the TV series was to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China and the 40th anniversary of the founding of tvbi (TVB). TVB cooperated with CCTV for the first time, telling the grievances of a family, four families and the second generation. Through the development of national automobile industry, China automobile industry finally came together and stood in the world.
In 2007-2008, a global financial crisis swept the world, and many auto companies were hit, so they chose "Cat Winter". However, Geely Automobile did the opposite and began to expand aggressively, because the cost of talent introduction and equipment procurement was much lower than that during the non-financial crisis.
In 2007, Geely jointly issued the Ningbo Declaration with 80 dealers in Ningbo, and made the decision of strategic transformation. Geely began to develop in an all-round way from simple cost leadership to advanced technology, reliable quality and satisfactory service. In order to realize the transformation, Li Shufu eliminated all the original "old three" production lines-lofty sentiments, the United States, Japan and Uniou, so Li Shufu also paid a price of 800 million yuan. At the same time, the production lines of "new three kinds"-Vision, King Kong and Freedom Ship have been built.
Geely began its strategic transformation in May 2007 and made a strategic layout for 2015. The specific plan is to produce and sell 300,000 vehicles in 2008, 500,000 vehicles in 2009, 1 million vehicles in 2012 and 2 million vehicles in 2015. At the same time, with the continuous growth of production capacity, Geely also began to implement a multi-brand strategy, while Geely and Huapu gradually withdrew from Geely’s brand line, and Huapu was replaced by the "Shanghai Yinglun" brand. In addition, in 2009, the Emgrand brand launched by Geely can be said to make people look at Geely with new eyes.
In the financial crisis, in addition to rising to mid-to high-end products, Geely also acquired the Australian automatic transmission company DSI for A $47.4 million in March 2009, which gave Geely a greater say in the competitiveness of core components. Not only that, Li Shufu also introduced technology from abroad and invested hundreds of millions of yuan to establish an automobile research institute, so that Geely can launch 4-5 brand-new models every year.
In 2010, another M&A case that shocked the world, Geely’s acquisition of Volvo, shocked the world and staged a shocking move of "rural youth marrying European princesses". In fact, the whole process is not so easy, and it has gone through a long process of "disliking, being interested, giving priority and finally being tempted". Geely is well prepared. In fact, an article can be published on this part of the acquisition of domestic products. However, due to space reasons, interested friends can click to view the continuous report of our news: Geely’s acquisition of Volvo.
In fact, for Geely’s acquisition of Volvo, besides the success of the acquisition, Li Shufu’s post-acquisition management is also gratifying. Li Shufu has always adhered to the principle of "Geely is Geely and Volvo is Volvo", and does not impose China’s management method on Volvo, and really cares for Volvo like a goddess. Let Geely and Volvo complement each other, not only in culture, but also in technology sales and other aspects.
By the end of 2010, Geely Group announced that it had basically completed the first stage of its strategic transformation since 2007. In these four years, Geely successfully built three brands, namely Global Hawk (launched in 2008), Emgrand (launched in 2009) and British (launched in 2010), and successively launched Panda, EC7, EC7-RV and other boutique models. In 2010,
In the past three years of development, Geely Automobile has continued to advance in the pace of winning steadily, and has achieved fruitful results in terms of product quantity, quality, dealer network construction, overall sales volume and technology. At present, there are as many as 17 models sold by Geely Automobile. In terms of quality, Global Hawk Panda became the first A00-class car with five-star C-NCAP certification in 2009. In a few years, many Geely models received five-star evaluation, and the most exaggerated thing is that the Geely Global Hawk GX7 also won the C-NCAP super five-star evaluation with a good score of 50.3 in 2012.
In the construction of dealer network, there are now more than 900 dealers in Geely Automobile, which are divided into three brands with about 300 each. The next step will not be further expansion, but mainly to improve the operating ability and service level of existing dealers. With the help of so many dealers, the sales volume of Geely Automobile reached 483,000 units in 2012, and the target plan for 2013 is 560,000 units.
In addition, in the development of overseas markets, in 2012, for example, the performance of Geely Automobile was equally eye-catching, with exports exceeding 100,000 units for the first time, with a year-on-year increase of 164%. The four key markets of Russia, Ukraine, Iraq and Saudi Arabia performed steadily, and they entered Africa for the first time and set up factories in Egypt in the form of joint ventures. In addition, in terms of overseas market share of self-owned brand cars, Geely Automobile also increased from 10% in 2011 to about 19% in 2012.
In the next few years, the development of Geely Automobile will focus on steady and steady progress, improving product quality, brand image and dealer quality, and combing the marketing network. It is expected that new brands will be launched in the future, when Geely Automobile may enter a new round of product explosion.
Summary:
In fact, for the development of Geely Automobile, I want to describe it in four words, that is: it is really not easy. Starting from a "black household", I was ridiculed everywhere and persisted for so many years before I got the right to fair competition; After entering the automobile market, we can only rely on the price war to pull the automobile price down from the altar, so that we can have our own place; Then, from poor product quality, to strategic transformation, to the emergence of today’s high-quality huge cars, we are very happy to see that a private enterprise can make cars prosperous and have to be admired. (Photo/Text car home Zhang Wenjun)
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