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regarding the brands under chery automobile, yin tongyue, chairman of chery automobile, planned it like this: "jetour is skoda, chery is volkswagen, and xingtu is audi."

since its birth, the xingtu brand has carried chery's decades of experience in car manufacturing and world-leading technical resources. "all chery's new technologies are first applied", "money is given, people are given", "in short, chery will give whatever xingtu needs".

both yin tongyue himself and chery executives have publicly stated their determination to build xingtu into the top luxury brand of domestic brands. yin tongyue set a target of 500,000 units for xingtu in 2024. in fact, xingtu's cumulative sales from january to august were only 80,229 units, which can be judged in advance as a failure to achieve the target.

as the bottom brand of chery except icar, xingtu, a high-end brand, is still a bit embarrassing. there is no harm without comparison. from january to august, the total sales volume of lynk & co was 169,800. logically, geely and chery, both of which are leading independent brands with similar sizes, should not have such a big gap in their high-end brands.

the high-end dilemma has a long history

since the brand was born in 2018, xingtu's cumulative sales in 2019-2023 were 14,293, 18,251, 37,155, 51,142 and 125,521 respectively. during the same period, lynk & co's annual cumulative sales were 128,066, 175,456, 220,516, 180,127 and 220,250 respectively.

although lynk & co was founded two years earlier, the sales and growth rates of the same period show a clear gap with xingtu. although xingtu's sales were good from january to august this year, in the first quarter of 2024, xingtu's sales and growth rate decreased month by month, with 8,930, 7,910 and 6,653 units in january-march respectively.

sales gradually picked up after april, largely due to the launch of the new car xingjiyuan et, which brought good incremental performance to the brand. in less than three months since its launch in may, the xingjiyuan et, a medium-to-large suv, achieved its 10,000th delivery on august 6, becoming the brand's sales leader.

however, the sales performance of xingjiyuan et is as good as the sales of xingtu's previous models. according to the data of the automobile vertical website in august, only lingyun and xingjiyuan et had sales of more than 1,000, while the sales of other models were in the hundreds. it is not difficult to see that xingtu's brand tone and product matrix have some problems.

insufficient differentiation and unclear positioning

chery focuses on the mainstream market, jetour focuses on the travel market segment, and xingtu targets the high-end market. however, in the actual product layout, this positioning distinction is not obvious enough. there is even a price overlap and insufficient product differentiation between them, which makes consumers feel difficult to choose.

for example, the suggested retail price of tiggo 8 pro is rmb 126,900 to rmb 166,900, and that of tiggo 9 is rmb 152,900 to rmb 209,900. the suggested retail price of xingtu lingyun is rmb 129,900 to rmb 189,900, and that of xingtu yaoguang is rmb 149,800 to rmb 206,800. the suggested retail price of jetour x90 is rmb 139,900 to rmb 172,900, and that of jetour x70 plus is rmb 89,900 to rmb 165,800.

all of them are priced between 120,000 and 200,000 yuan, and the price overlap of these models is very high. more importantly, xingtu has not been able to achieve a clear distinction from them in terms of platform and technology. for example, xingtu, chery and jietu may all use engines of the same displacement, and it is difficult to feel a significant difference in power performance.

for example, in terms of exterior design, the front faces of the three models of xingtu zhuifeng, xingtu lingyun and xingtu lanyue are too family-like. even the price ranges of the three models of xingtu zhuifeng, xingtu lingyun and xingtu yaoguang are highly overlapped, making it difficult to form distinct product features and differentiation.

the vague positioning and unreasonable price setting have caused a certain degree of internal friction in the product matrix, so it is difficult for the brand's overall sales to increase significantly.

hybrids lag behind, channels need to be upgraded

of course, in addition to the unclear positioning of the product itself and the overlapping prices, the speed of updating and iterating the technical route is also a sword of damocles hanging over xingtu's head. today, when new energy vehicles are popular, xingtu's pure electric and plug-in hybrid models are few and far between.

so far, in addition to the xingjiyuan es and xingjiyuan et, two new energy vehicles that were launched this year, xingtu's new energy vehicles on sale only include the xingtu zhuifeng phev and yaoguang c-dm, which is inconsistent with the overall market development trend and consumer demand. data from august showed that the sales of xingtu zhuifeng phev were only in the single digits.

looking at the current sales and popularity of the two models, star era es and star era et, it can be said that they have created the best in the history of starway.

another important reason why xingtu is not selling well is the lack of channels. according to online news, there are only about 216 xingtu 4s stores nationwide. for reference, weipai and lynk & co have more than 400 stores across the country. in terms of the number of channels, xingtu still has a lot of room for improvement.

taking guangzhou as an example, xingtu currently has only 4 sales outlets, and the specific locations are generally far away from the city. for reference, lynk & co has 11 sales outlets in guangzhou, and has set up new energy retail centers in cbd areas such as zhujiang new town, further enhancing the brand tone, influence and communication.

if xingtu is targeting the high-end market, it should at least give consumers easy access to it. first, the number of stores should be increased, and second, the location should be closer to the city center. it may even learn from new forces and try to enter supermarkets to increase brand exposure with a more mainstream retail model.

frequent high-level discussions and inconsistent strategies

xingtu's sales volume was significantly lower than expected, and there were also problems with insufficient preparation and investment in the early stage, which led to low brand building and popularity. according to dealer sources, chery also had many strategic swings in the construction of dealer channels in the early days. from the initial construction of high-standard stores, to gradually relaxing to authorized chery dealer stores after sales volume fell short of expectations.

obviously, the starting point is to reduce the large-scale capital expenditure in the early stage and make up for the disadvantage of insufficient brand channels of xingtu through the existing dealer channel advantages of chery. however, this has also suffered a series of backlashes, such as some 4s stores displaying chery and xingtu models at the same time, which constitutes a direct competitive relationship.

in addition, this sales model of one store with two brands does not provide a user-friendly experience, which leads to confusion in perception over time and makes it difficult to establish a high-end brand image. this leads to low consumer recognition, low product prices, and difficulty in achieving breakthrough sales.

there are also frequent high-level adjustments within the xingtu brand. in just one year in 2022, the xingtu automobile marketing center has experienced the adjustment of four marketing executives, cao zhigang, li dongchun, jia shouping and chen xi. huang zhaogen, assistant to the general manager of chery automobile co., ltd., was entrusted with important tasks and began to "hold multiple positions."

this has resulted in the brand's marketing direction and personnel changes being in a state of constant turmoil, which is not conducive to the stability of the brand's value. investors' patience with xingtu will also become lower and lower, and consumer loyalty will also decrease accordingly.

from a "small thatched house" on a wasteland to an automobile group with annual sales of over 1.88 million vehicles, chery is far ahead in terms of brand accumulation, technology accumulation, market reputation, innovation ability, user base and even export market. the problem facing yin tongyue is how to make great changes to xingtu to achieve the market performance he expects?