Wei Jinqiao: Who is the public?

In the first half of 2011, despite the continuing downturn in the Chinese auto market, joint venture brands continued to lead the growth of the Chinese auto market.

When Chinese domestic brands Chery, Geely Automobile and BYD struggled to get rid of negative growth, all this seemed to have nothing to do with the development of Volkswagen and General Motors.

Market competition is nothing wrong. However, in the Chinese auto industry, joint venture brands have continued to expand their share in China and obtain excess profits while at the same time starting to tighten joint venture control rights.

Take the example of Volkswagen, the largest multinational company in the Chinese auto market. Since 2006, after Volkswagen launched a powerful product and market offensive around the world, its pace of advancement appears to have been unstoppable.

From this year onwards, Volkswagen has initiated negotiations to increase the stake in FAW-Volkswagen. On the other hand, it has begun to dilute the traces of joint ventures in China and unify the brand slogans of the public in China.

An interesting phenomenon is that from this year onwards, the final conclusions of the latest Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen product advertisements have all been changed to “Das Auto”. After that, the production of 2 million joint ventures between the two major north and south joint ventures is pushing Volkswagen’s performance. To the higher stage, but the two companies have their own ambiguity for a complete assembly plant.

In March 2009, Volkswagen developed a grand “2018 plan” in China, which was less than two years old and completed the set target of 2 million vehicles in eight years in advance in 2010.

With the perfect cooperation of partners, Volkswagen will never be content to stop at 2 million vehicles. On June 28, 2011, during the high-level consultation held by the Chinese and German governments in Berlin, Volkswagen was officially approved for a new 300,000-unit plant in Foshan and Yizheng Investment Plan. Volkswagen will build two new factories in China as planned, and strive to achieve long-term and sustained growth in China.

The two new plants in Foshan and Yizheng each have an annual production capacity of 300,000 units. To seize every gap in the fast-growing Chinese market, Volkswagen will invest an additional 10.6 billion euros in China from 2011 to 2015. In addition to building two new factories in Foshan and Yizheng, Volkswagen has announced that it will increase the production capacity of the Shanghai Volkswagen Nanjing Plant and the FAW-Volkswagen Chengdu Plant to 300,000 vehicles and 350,000 vehicles each year. According to the plan, Volkswagen and its partners will be assisted in 2014 at the earliest and will increase the production capacity in China to 3 million vehicles per year.

In this sense, Volkswagen really needs to thank the 2004 and 2005 market slumps in order to set things right. After suffering a painful two-year declining market, Volkswagen decided to formulate an adaptation strategy for the Chinese market, including lengthening the new generation of the Audi A6L, launching the Long Yat [review picture forum], and Bora's two new Chinese versions of the Volkswagen models. In 2009 and 2010, Volkswagen’s market share quickly rebounded to over 17%, which is the best reward for Volkswagen’s decisive change.

Since 2008, a series of products such as LaVida, New Bora, Audi A4L [Review Photo Forum], Skoda Octavia [Review Photo Forum], Golf [Review Photo Forum] A6 and Q5 have been successfully listed, and Volkswagen is in the full range of products. The aggressive offensives have been launched on the line and they have gained a lot of market share.

In addition, Volkswagen has begun to gradually regain control of the joint venture company while launching a full-scale production expansion and new product launches. One interesting sign is that from this year onwards, Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen’s product advertisements have finally come to an end. The familiar “from Shanghai Volkswagen” and “FAW-Volkswagen, automotive value paradigms” all disappeared and replaced by a unified global slogan: "DAS AUTO".

This fully shows that SAIC and FAW Group, in order to expand the market share of the priority strategy, exchange Volkswagen's product launch, and gradually give up the right to speak of technology and research and development.

Although the joint venture autonomy model led by Japanese brands has been criticized, even with this little bit of concession, both North and South Volkswagen have been struggling.

Volkswagen is, after all, the German public, a car trust driven by commercial interests, all of its power comes from rising profits and market share.

Therefore, Dr. Pirich, who is actually the head of Volkswagen, proudly calls Dr. Hahn's masterpiece Chinese market "the second hometown of the public." At the latest by the end of this year, nearly 10 million vehicles with the "VW" trademark will be distributed throughout China.

This is a rather contradictory but worthy of deliberation, because every step in the growth of China's auto industry over the past 30 years has been almost inseparable from the courageous step taken by Volkswagen 28 years ago. The establishment of Shanghai Volkswagen, the perfection of the community spare parts system, the start of the talent system and the localization of luxury brands have become a part of the Chinese automobile history and teaching materials that cannot jump. Therefore, each step of Volkswagen will affect every pulse of the Chinese automobile leaps.

However, capital is always unable to get rid of profit-seeking nature. The history of joint ventures in the past 30 years has made Volkswagen the biggest profiteer in the largest auto market. This is the brilliance that Volkswagen deserves.

And when China leans toward the joint venture side with almost the best and best quality resources, the giant, armed to the teeth, will become the biggest opponent of Chinese domestic brands' advancement.