FAW releases five brand plans, Red Flag's status is mentioned as the highest in history

On October 30, FAW Group released the product planning of five major brands at the fourth FAW Science and Technology Conference. Including Red Flag, Pentium, Jiefang, FAW-Volkswagen, and FAW Toyota, the five brands, currently 112 whole vehicles on sale, 59 products in research and development, and 43 planning products.

Meanwhile, FAW continues to accelerate breakthroughs in technological innovation, and has achieved technological breakthroughs in seven major areas: forward-looking new charm, original experience, electric drive energy saving, intelligent Internet connection, safety and health, ecological integration, and enabling digitalization.

Previously, FAW Group made a new round of personnel changes at the top of its joint venture sales company. Tian Qingjiu, former party secretary and general manager of FAW Toyota Motor Sales Co., Ltd. will be transferred to FAW Mazda as general manager of the division; while Hu Shaohang, former general manager of FAW Group's brand public relations department, will take over from Tian Qingjiu as the new party secretary and general manager of FAW Toyota Motor Sales Co. At the same time, Zhao Yingru, former director of the Jetta brand's sales division, will be the deputy general manager of FAW-Volkswagen Sales Co.

In addition to frequent personnel adjustments. In this year, FAW Group in the capital operation also has a lot of action. March, FAW Xiali to all the production qualification to Bo County as the leading joint venture company, completed the "net body" work. Subsequently, the main body of the FAW car listed company has become the FAW Liberation Commercial Vehicles, FAW Pentium is back to the FAW shares. May, FAW Mazda management relationship is also adjusted, thus enhancing the status of the joint venture brand.

Historical high point for Red Flag

From the beginning of the year until now, FAW Group has been working non-stop to sort out the relationship between the group's various brands. The technology conference at the end of October was more like a summary of the group's work over the past period of time, and pointed out the future direction of FAW Group's development.

Among FAW's many brands, Red Flag has once again been recognized as a top priority for future development. With FAW's volume and resources, it's not difficult to support Red Flag, but there's still a long way to go for Red Flag to become a competitive luxury brand in the market.

From a sales perspective, Red Flag's cumulative sales from January to October this year exceeded 153,000 units, up 103 percent year-on-year. Among them, October sales reached 23,000 units, up 93 percent year-on-year, realizing three consecutive months of sales of more than 20,000 units. Red Flag has already accomplished 76.5 percent of its 200,000-unit sales target for this year, and is very hopeful of reaching its annual sales plan in the next two months if it can develop at its current growth rate.

From the product point of view, Red Flag H5 and Red Flag HS5 are still the top pillars of sales. According to previous data, Red Flag HS5 in September sales of 10,186 units, two consecutive months broke 10,000, the first nine months to achieve sales of 68,646 units; Red Flag H5 models in September sales of 7,399 units, January-September cumulative sales of 44,067 units. In addition, the launch of the 2.0T model of the Red Flag HS7, the starting price of which has dropped to 270,000 yuan, will also boost the sales of the entire vehicle lineup.

As for new products, the ? Red Flag E-HS9 will go on sale within the year, with a current pre-sale price range of 550,000-750,000 yuan. Positioned as a full-size SUV, the new car offers a choice of two types of power: high and low power, corresponding to a range of 460km and 510km, respectively, and the new car's launch will bring a new growth point for the brand's sales.

According to FAW Hongqi's product planning, in the next 10 years, the company will build four series of products: L (supreme car), S (coupe), H (mainstream car) and Q (business car). According to the above plan, by 2025 and 2030, Red Flag's products will increase from 8 models in 2020 to 23 and 28, respectively, which shows that 2021-2025 is the peak period of Red Flag's product launch in this round.

The most pressing task is still to push the new car

It is not difficult for FAW Group to support Red Flag's rise to the top of the market, but the only difficulty lies in the fact that Red Flag's product matrix is still not rich enough, and it is not something that can be decided by a slap of the thighs, as the broadening of the product line's depth and breadth will require not only time, but also financial and technological support.

From the perspective of single-vehicle model planning, among the H-series models, the Red Flag H6 is a brand-new model positioned as a luxury mid-sized car, and from the tagline of its planning, this car will become one of Red Flag's mainstream models, and the new-generation Red Flag H5 will become a pillar of the Red Flag sedan market in terms of sales.

In the H-series SUV family, Red Flag will launch three new SUVs, including a large, fuel-efficient version of the HS9, a midsize HS6 and a compact HS3. The midsize HS6 will be positioned between the HS7 and HS5, serving as a point of convergence for the segmented models.

In the L series, which is positioned in the high-end luxury segment, four new models will be launched. Among the L series models will be launched Ming Red Flag L3 and Red Flag L1 two cars sedan, and this car sedan will be as Red Flag high-end luxury products in the entry-level models, the purchase of which will not be and Red Flag L5 harsh.

Q series of products positioning business car, from now on the time is still relatively long.

In terms of electrification, Red Flag plans to electrify all of the brand's models in 2023, and will launch 15 electric models in 2025. To this end, Red Flag officially released the "532" big three electric platforms, specifically five electric drive system platforms, three power battery platforms and two vehicle control platforms. The "422" small three-electric platform is 4 charger platforms, 2 DC/DC platforms and 2 electric air conditioning platforms.

In the future, in addition to the already released first pure electric SUV Red Flag E-HS3, more new energy models will be built based on these platforms, thus further enriching the Red Flag brand's product lineup and improving the brand's competitiveness.

Plugging the Red Flag into the new energy market

From the above, we can see that Red Flag's planning for all aspects of its own positioning and future development has been very specific, but whether it can play according to the "script" is still a test of the brand's ability to execute. The test of whether it can play according to the "script" is the ability of the brand to execute.

Over the past three years, Red Flag's sales have increased 42 times; in 2021, Red Flag's sales are expected to hit the 400,000-vehicle target, entering the first camp of China's luxury market; and in 2025, the brand will be able to win the first and second targets in China's luxury car market.

Clearly, Red Flag's goal is to be the Chinese version of Lexus. The big auto groups that have this desire are not only FAW. A number of big Chinese auto groups are almost united in pace, focusing their attention on the field of high-end electric vehicles, hoping to reach the top in the era of automotive intelligence and electrification going hand in hand.

But unlike FAW, which has already entered the operational phase, SAIC's L project, which focuses on high-end intelligent new energy vehicles, is still in the limelight. The timeline goes back to the Beijing Auto Show, where BAIC New Energy's ARCFOX Extreme Fox and the Dongfeng Lantu both showed up. In contrast, BAIC New Energy's high-end project is advancing a bit faster, the first production ARCFOX?αT officially opened for pre-sale, and the Dongfeng Lantu iFREE is still only in the concept car display stage, and there are still hundreds of thousands of miles to go before the mass production market.

Instead, Geely, Great Wall, Changan in the brand high-end harvest, FAW Red Flag and Great Wall WEY annual production and sales have exceeded 100,000 units, in the high-end market segments, Red Flag H7, WEY?VV7, Link 01 have a good market share. Changan is also about to debut its second UNI-K after launching the UNI-T.

And it's a very good decision for FAW Group to put its hopes for premiumization on Red Flag. For one thing, it is because the Red Flag brand is born with an aristocratic gene, and in terms of storytelling, FAW almost does not need to add a persona to the Red Flag brand. Secondly, since Red Flag started selling to the mass market in 2018, it has a great advantage in brand landing compared to several other large groups, and FAW has the right to speak within the group, and resources within the group can be mobilized at will, which is objectively conducive to the rapid formation of the Red Flag brand product matrix.

Finally, in terms of technical reserves, Red Flag is also a leader. In addition to the "532" program above, Red Flag will launch the R.Flag technology innovation strategy. This strategy will guide FAW Group's scientific and technological innovation work by laying out seven technological sub-brands, namely "QiYi, QiYin, QiShang, QiYin, QiYuan and QiNumber", and accelerating the transformation, upgrading and high-quality development of the enterprise. In the future, FAW Group will take this strategy as a guide, continue to promote the scientific and technological innovation work of China FAW, climb the peak of technology, and promote the continuous development of the brand and enterprise.

People's car review

FAW Group Chairman Xu Liuping once set a flag: "Our goal is to build the new Red Flag into a new noble brand that is 'No. 1 in China and famous in the world'. Now, Red Flag's 2020 sales target of 200,000 is just around the corner, and Xu Liuping's "blown bulls" are being realized one by one, so Red Flag will be able to stand up and move forward on the road of revival with resounding force.

This article was written by the author of AutoNation, and does not represent the views of AutoNation.