After Geely became the largest shareholder of Polestar, both parties responded publicly for the first time
2024-08-18
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Recently, at the opening ceremony of Polestar's first brand experience center in the country, the Polestar Shanghai Experience Center, Li Donghui, CEO of Geely Holding Group, publicly responded for the first time to the reasons and future plans for Geely's acquisition of Polestar Automobile. He said that Polestar is the bridgehead for Geely Holding Group's global layout and has important strategic significance for the group's global development.
As the "big boss" of Polestar, Geely Holding Group will support Polestar's independent development in the world and China, provide Polestar with comprehensive operational, technical and financial support, and participate in Polestar's financing plan in due course. In addition, Geely's technical strength, advantageous resources, and competitive supply chain system will also be fully open to Polestar, Li Donghui added.
Polestar was born out of Volvo Cars' high-performance division and announced in 2017 that it would become an independent high-performance luxury brand jointly created by Volvo and Geely Holding Group. In February this year, Volvo announced plans to distribute 62.7% of its approximately 48% stake in Polestar to Geely Holding Group. After the reduction, Volvo's shareholding in Polestar will drop to 18%, and Geely Holding Group will take over from Volvo as Polestar's largest shareholder.
Regarding this acquisition, Shen Ziyu, Chairman and CEO of Polestar Technologies, also stated in an interview with Caixin and other media that one of the missions of China's automobile industry is to successfully enter the markets of developed Western countries, but the reality is that it is difficult for Chinese brands to be truly accepted by the Western market. Polestar is a very important strategic starting point for Geely's globalization.
With its popularity in overseas markets, Polestar has now expanded to 27 countries around the world. Moreover, Polestar's sales structure is mainly based on overseas markets, especially the European market. Public data shows that Polestar's global sales in 2021 will be 29,000 vehicles, 51,500 vehicles in 2022, and 54,626 vehicles in 2023, more than half of which will come from the European market. In addition, Polestar is also one of the few car brands produced in China and sold to the United States. According to relevant reports and estimates, Polestar sold 3,555 pure electric sedans, Polestar 2, in the United States in the first half of this year.
Under the "tariff stick" of Europe and the United States, Polestar 3 has recently begun production in South Carolina, USA, and Polestar 4 will also be produced in South Korea in mid-2025.
After Geely Holding Group became the largest shareholder, Polestar Automobile, which originally focused on the overseas market, also began to accelerate its efforts in the Chinese market. It is reported that Polestar Automobile's main plan at present is to continue to invest in products, including the continued launch of Polestar 3, Polestar 4, Polestar 5 and Polestar 6. In terms of sales channels, Polestar Automobile has already established more than 50 Polestar brand spaces and experience centers. In the future, Polestar will develop and launch more intelligent, localized and more suitable models for the Chinese market. Among them, Polestar 7 and Polestar 8 are under planning and are expected to be launched in the next two years.
In addition to product planning, the new management team of Polestar China also made its first public appearance. Polestar Technology COO Qin Peiji, who has 12 years of work experience at Volvo, will be responsible for Polestar's sales, channel development and marketing business. Qin Peiji said in an interview with reporters that the current priority of his work is to build sales confidence, including cultivating the confidence of sales staff and promoting their understanding of the brand concept.
(This article comes from China Business Network)
