Geely will publish high-end brands at the end of year and independent sales channels will be built

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai June 30^th)– Geely will publish a “L” series high-end brand with Volvo at the end of year. The brand is positioned between Volvo and Geely and the first new model will be SUV. Yang Xueliang, PR Director of Geely Group, admits that, “Geely will launch a new high-end brand, competing with SAIC Volkswagen and other joint-venture brands.”

It’s learned that the model of new brand will be developed on CMA, a platform co-built by Geely and Volvo. Geely’s new high-end brands and Volvo will develop their own products respectively on the platform. The new brand will be another high-end project after GC9. Besides, different from Geely, it will adopt a new channel to sell vehicles.

According to plan, Geely will launch many new models on the platform, including A-class vehicles, B-class vehicles and SUV products. The new models on production are sedan CS11, SUV CX11, crossover CC11, hatchback CH11 and other compact vehicles. SUVs will be firstly launched and the new model will adopt many technologies from Volvo, targeting at models with the same level from joint venture brands.

Besides, the high-end brands will be produced at the Zhangjiakou base, with a total investment of RMB 4.7b and capacity of 200,000 units. The factory is built in accordance with Volvo global quality standard, mainly producing models based on CMA module. It’s estimated that the factory will be completed and put into production in 2016.

However, Chinese brands’ marching towards high-end brands becomes a trend. The joining of Geely may change domestic auto brands’ weaknesses in competing with joint venture brands.