Great Wall Motor’s chairman, president fine themselves sum of RMB 5 million for uncompleted 2017 sales target

Shanghai (Gasgoo)- Great Wall Motor Company Limited (Great Wall Motor), delivered a total of 1.07 million vehicles last year which was far less than its initial annual sales target of 1.25 million vehicles. Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motor, and Wang Fengying, the company's president, fined themselves by RMB 3 million and 2 million of annual salary respectively as self-punishment for the company failing the 2017 sales goal. 

In 2017, Great Wall Motor's annual sales decreased 0.40% year on year to 1.07 million vehicles and its net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 5.035 billion, slumping 52.28% from a year earlier. In terms of the unsatisfied performance in sales last year, the automaker lowered its sales target to 1.16 million units in 2018.

As China's largest SUV maker, its Haval brand has gained the championship by annual SUV sales in China for 14 consecutive years. What's more, Great Wall Motor is famous for its strict management system with the penalty as one of important managerial measures. The amount of penalty has increased from RMB 100 to RMB 500 of each employee. Therefore, it is not a surprise that the chairman and president took an example of fining themselves by a sum of RMB 5 million from their annual salaries.

Great Wall Motor has focused on SUV segment all the time. Although, its concentration enables the company to maintain a strong presence in China's SUV segment, the single product structure makes the automaker be highly dependent on SUV market which causes that the automaker's risk resistance capacity has weakened.  

Since the automaker was surpassed by Changan Auto and Geely Auto from 2014, Great Wall Motor had realized the risk of highly relying on a single product strategy. Thus from 2015, Haval brand launched several premium models, H8 and H9, and divided its products into two series, red label and blue label. Last year, Great Wall Motor promoted an all-new high-end brand WEY. However, all of these moves have not jumped out of SUV area.

As to new energy vehicle area, Great Wall Motor has teamed up with BMW Group recently. Last Friday, Great Wall Motor announced that it had signed a letter of intent with the German automaker BMW Group to set up a possible joint venture to co-produce pure electric vehicles under MINI brand. Currently, the location of the electric vehicle production base is still under discussion.