Disastrous High-end SUV Performance May Force Great Wall Motor to Leave Growth

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai Mar 2ed)— Despite of Haval SUV’s top performance, Great Wall Motors Chairman Dong Jianjun is still concerned by high-end models’ failure in achieving sales target, represented by H8 and H9.

Since Chana replaced GWM as self-owned brand champion, the gap was widening between them. Although GWM still ranks first in SUV market, it has been transcended by Chana in terms of size and profit.

Compared with the 2015 sales volume of 852,700 units, GWM sets a somewhat “conservative”2016 sales target of 950,000 units. Some analysts say it’s a signal of GWM’s adjustment strategy. The increasing volume is expected to come from H7, H8 two-wheel model and blue-logo H6, H2.

According to SUV data released by CAAM, Haval won 2015 sales champion with 662,500 units, occupying for 10.65% SUV market share, much higher than that of Honda, Hyundai, Volkswagen and other joint venture brands.

In the meantime, Haval H6, the sales volume of which has exceeded 40,000units for consecutive three months, wins domestic SUV market champion again.Currently, H6, H2 and H1 contribute to about 95% of Haval’s sales volume, compared by the fact that H8 and H9 still fail to achieve target.

The highly expected H8 finally made its official debut on 2015 Shanghai Auto Show. However, the slowdown of market growth since June 2015 forced GWM to stimulate sales by dropping prices. H8 two-wheel luxury model’s price dropped 22,000RMB to mainstream joint-venture compact SUV price range of 200,000 RMB.

On last year’s November Guangzhou Auto Show, GWM extended its 22,000 RMB price benefit to the full range of H8 products, and launched new H8 model with a price started from 188,800 RMB.

But surprisingly, sales volume hasn’t been promoted by the two price drops. Official data reveals that H8 and H9 have a respective sales volume of 1,064 and 1,054 units, far behind the monthly target of 5,000 units.

Confronting bad performance of high-end vehicles and cars, together with opponents’ efforts in seizing alternative energy vehicle market, GWM’s silence adds more worries to its competitive advantages in 2016.