Text/Blake
On January 8th, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group and Mercedes-Benz Co., Ltd. announced that, with the approval of relevant regulatory authorities, the smart brand global joint venture company "smart Motor Automobile Co., Ltd." (Smart? Automobile? Co.,? Ltd.) was formally established. Jointly operate and promote the transformation and upgrading of smart brand on a global scale.
It seems that all this is under Geely's control. From the acquisition of Volvo to the launch of high-end brand Lexus, including the shareholding in Daimler Group, and now the establishment of a smart brand joint venture with Mercedes-Benz, Geely's insatiable ambition is hidden in every step.
The new company will promote the transformation and electrification of the smart brand
Let's look at the details of this cooperation first.
the registered capital of zhimada automobile co., ltd. is RMB 5.4 billion, and both parties will contribute RMB 2.7 billion. Mercedes-Benz will acquire the corresponding shares mainly in the form of smart brand investment. The two sides will play a synergistic role in the fields of R&D, manufacturing and supply chain, and strive to make smart a leading high-end electric smart car brand in the world. The global headquarters of the joint venture company is located in Hangzhou Bay New District, Ningbo, China, and marketing centers are set up in China and Germany respectively.
the model of p>Smart joint venture company is called by Geely and Daimler as a new model of "whole industry chain cooperation+serving global users". The two sides will play a synergistic role in the fields of R&D, manufacturing and supply chain, and are committed to building smart into the world's leading high-end electric smart car brand.
at the product level, the new generation of pure electric smart will be designed by the global design department of Mercedes-Benz, and Geely will be responsible for engineering research and development. The new model will be produced in a brand-new factory in China, and it is expected to be put on the market and sold worldwide in 222. According to the new vehicle development plan, smart's future product lineup will expand to the fast-growing compact market segment.
it is understood that the joint venture company has decided to appoint tong Xiangbei as the global CEO of smart joint venture company, who will co-ordinate all business operations such as smart brand sales, marketing, research and development, production and after-sales. Prior to this, Tong Xiangbei was the assistant to the president of Geely Group, the general manager of Lingke Zhangjiakou Factory and the dean of Lingke College, and had more than 2 years of experience in the automobile industry.
Li Shufu, Chairman of Geely Holding Group, said: "smart has unique brand charm, core value and global influence, and is a global leader in urban travel and fashionable transportation. Geely Holding will inject the advantages of R&D, manufacturing, supply chain and deep understanding of the China market into the joint venture company, promote the synergy between the two sides on the basis of equality and mutual benefit, and promote the transformation of smart brands into electrification and intelligence, so as to realize the commercial success of smart cars in the global market. "
getting involved in smart is premeditated
indeed, smart has a unique brand charm and a lot of influence around the world. But smart has no profit in business. It is not difficult to understand what Li Shufu said that the joint venture company will help realize the commercial success of smart cars in the global market. After all, smart has been a burden in Daimler Group for 19 years.
although Daimler has never announced the performance of smart, according to statisticians' analysis, smart has been in a state of loss since it was 1% controlled by Daimler group in 2, with an annual loss of about 2 million euros. Up to now, it has accumulated a loss of about 4 billion euros (about 3.3 billion RMB), and its sales performance is getting worse.
in fact, smart was targeted by Geely as early as when Geely invested in Daimler, and now it is in its plan to establish a joint venture with Daimler.
On February 24th, 218, Geely became the largest shareholder of Daimler Group. But this does not seem to satisfy Geely. At that time, there were rumors that Geely would cooperate with Daimler to produce electric smart models.
As a result, on March 28th, 219, Geely officially signed a contract with Daimler in Hangzhou, and both parties will hold 5% of the shares.
up to now, the small goal of Geely has been achieved, but what about the big goal?
eclectic, it's hard to hide ambitious
Although Geely has never claimed what it wants to achieve and what height it will reach, we can also spy out its ambition from its development process and its territory.
As we all know, Geely's performance, which entered the automobile industry in 1997, has been tepid. It was not until 21 that Geely acquired the Volvo brand for $1.5 billion that Geely became famous.
on October 2th, 216, after a six-year running-in period, Geely and Volvo jointly launched the mid-to-high-end brand Link, aiming at domestic first-line joint venture brands.
in p>217, Geely acquired a 49% stake in Proton Automobile and the sports car brand Lotus (Lotus? Group)51% of the shares. Because Proton owns the controlling stake in Lotus, a British sports car manufacturer, Geely's acquisition can be described as killing two birds with one stone, and Geely's super-running may become a reality.
On December 27, 217, Geely announced that it would cooperate with European fund company Cevian? Capital reached an agreement to acquire shares of Volvo Group. After the acquisition, Geely Holding's shareholding in Volvo Group reached 8.2%, becoming the largest shareholder with 15.6% voting rights.
In February p>218, Geely announced that it had reached a final agreement with Terrafugia Flying Automobile Company of the United States to acquire all the business and assets of Terrafugia. Today, this flying car has completed the first batch of production, and the first orders have long been robbed.
On February 24th, 218, Geely announced that it had acquired 9.69% of Daimler's voting shares through its overseas capital entities, becoming the largest shareholder of Daimler.
in terms of technology, as the saying goes, "whoever gets the architecture gets the world".
Now Geely Automobile has formed a modular architecture system of BMA and CMA, and has become one of the few automobile enterprises in the world to master the whole architecture. The product development cycle is shortened to 18 months, and it can develop a variety of cars, SUVs, MPVs and other models that are more in line with the trend of the times and can meet the diversified user needs of different market segments.
if Geely has always played the role of a chaser in the development of traditional fuel vehicles, then in the field of new energy, everyone is at the same starting line, and Geely hopes to be the leader.
In early p>219, in order to better develop new energy vehicles, Geely officially operated Geely New Energy independently, and it was upgraded to one of the three major brands in parallel with Geely brand and Lectra brand. At the press conference held in Singapore in April, Geely officially released the high-end new energy brand Geometric Automobile, and officially announced that it would completely define the development direction of new energy vehicles.
on January 6th, this year, Geely announced its sales volume in 219, and the achievement of 1,361,56 vehicles made Geely once again sit in the first place in China, which is the third consecutive year.
Yes, Geely is not willing to occupy the low-end market. It tasted the sweetness from the time it acquired Volvo. Through the acquisition of foreign automobile brands, it has taken a completely different development path from other independent brands. Through eclecticism, we have achieved twice the result with half the effort in brand development.
It never occurred to anyone that Geely, who was only a three-year-old child 2 years ago, is now at the top of her own brand and is eyeing overseas. Its ambition never seems to be satisfied.
This article comes from the author of Chejia, car home, and does not represent car home's standpoint.