The separation of Great Wall and Haval attracts investors' high attention

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai May 18th) – In accordance with annual report of Great Wall Automotive in 2014, the sales volume was 730,700, declining by 0.3% YoY and accomplishing only 82% of sales target. Industry analysts figure the reason is that almost all the resources of GWA are invested on Haval.

As reporter knows, GWA announced the independence of Haval in as early as 2012 and confirmed all resources would be put on the development of Havel. In early 2014, GWA transfer the capacity of saloon car to Haval again, leading to sales decline of saloon car in 2014. The sales volume of GWA saloon car was only 93,000 in 2014, declining by 55.71%. This strategy was supported by some investors of GWA. In fact, the gross profit rate of SUV has been much higher than the data of saloon car, which is even lower than the data of pickup truck.

In this general meeting of stockholders of GWA, one of the hot topics is absolutely whether the release of Haval H8 in Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition this year misses best opportunity after delaying for twice. As the strategic model of GWA, Haval H8 was released in December, 2013 for the first time and delayed for times in January and May of 2014 due to main reducing gear problem. Now the problem is solved completely and core parts are supplied by ZF. The price maintains between 201,800 CNY and 256,800 CNY.

Haval H8 has been released for more than 10 days. The production volume in first month was 278 and sales volume was 252. The performance of H8 is not as satisfied as the sales volume of 2000 for H9 in first month. The distributors have to reserve first to get H8 and the capacity of H8 is being promoted at present according the information from GWA.

The main models of GWA were priced at around 100,000 CNY before and there were seldom advertisements of GWA in the media. As first middle & high end SUV, the higher price will be tested more in the market. Some investors ask in the meeting whether GWA would take the same strategy on Havel H8. Mr. Wei, the chairman of GWA, said the experience was the most important for automobile and could facilitate the orders. He also figured that customers would inquire parameter configuration before purchasing and there was really no need for advertisements of GWA automobiles.

Mr. Wei also said the red & blue brands strategy would be perfected in 2 or years, which meant 2 different design versions for same model of GWA. He denied the news of cooperation between GWA and Volkswagen and said there was no need and demand of GWA for this.