OREANDA-NEWS. January 16, 2013. SAIC Group released a marketing newsletter saying that in 2012 SAIC sold 4.4902 million units of complete vehicles with a year-on-year growth of 12%, including 1.39 million units sold by its joint venture Shanghai General Motors. with a year-on-year growth of 13.8%, 1.28 million units by Shanghai Volkswagen, 12.07%, continuing to maintain its leading position in China; the sales of SAIC’s own brands Roewe and MG reached 200,000 units, with a year-on-year growth of 23.46%.While expanding its scale steadily, SAIC Group is focused on implementing the strategy of “innovation-driven development”, with innovation at the core of overall development, building its own brands, new energy industrialization, and overseas business expansion, committed to building its core competitiveness and international operating capabilities, actively promoting the sustainable development of the enterprise.

SAIC’s Own Brands Achieved Dual Breakthrough

In the marketing environment in 2012 when China’s own automotive brands were generally unpromising, SAIC’s own passenger car brands achieved a dual breakthrough - “annual sales of 200,000 units, turnover 20 billion yuan”, which enhanced its leading position among China’s own brands in the medium and high-end segments. This is due to the systematic competitiveness of SAIC Group, which insisted on starting from a higher starting point, cutting into the medium and high-end market segments, and focusing on building its own brands from the very beginning. On the basis of this starting point, SAIC enhanced the links between brand, quality, technology, service etc. to build up its own brand system that leads the domestic market of China with international competitiveness. In six years SAIC Group has successfully explored a new way to develop its own brands featuring “high starting point and differentiation”, and has accumulated certain advantages in the aspects of brand, products, R&D, etc.

In the aspect of brand, according to the research done by a third party, SAIC’s passenger car brands Roewe and MG have taken the lead among China’s own brands and have established their image as medium and high-end brands. The brand awareness of Roewe has risen to 93.4%, and MG to 84.4% rapidly. In the aspect of products, with the release of multiple products – Roewe 750, 550, 350, W5, and MG7, MG6, and MG3, etc., SAIC’s own brands have basically completed the phase 1 product layout, achieving complete coverage of the mainstream segments. In 2012, the “Cross-Class British Coupe MG5” and “Chief Executive Car Roewe 950” were released, which initiated the introduction of second-generation products under SAIC’s own brands. In the aspect of R&D, SAIC’s R&D system for its own brands linking Shanghai, Nanjing, and the United Kingdom has been built up with near 3,000 engineers committed to the development of diverse products through globally integrated operations. SAIC’s Tech Center with total investment of 4.4 billion RMB will be completed in 2013 and will become a leading vehicle R&D center in China.

New Energy Strategy Enabling Industrialization

As an important part of independent innovation, in the recent three years SAIC Group kept accelerating the pace of new energy industrialization and actively seizing the commanding heights for the future development of the industry. In October 2010, the Roewe New 750 Hybrid sedan that can save over 20% of fuel was officially released to the market. In November 2012, SAIC Group’s first mass-produced pure electric car Roewe E50 was successfully released. At the beginning of this year, Roewe 550 plug-in strong hybrid sedan will be marketed in small quantities. Among the three new energy products, Roewe E50 is the first industrialized pure electric vehicle completely based on a whole-new platform with core technologies in the hands of SAIC Motor. It provides a good solution to zero-carbon urban travel by car. With the R&D and industrialization of Roewe E50, SAIC Group has taken the lead to form the capability of mass producing new energy vehicles, further improving the industry chain layout for new energy vehicles, cultivating and enabling the improvement of technological innovation capacity of a group of local parts enterprises, which laid a good foundation for industrial innovation and transformation.

In accordance with the principles of “independent innovation, internal and external integration, and walking on two legs”, SAIC Group has solved the bottleneck issues regarding three core technologies related to electric cars - motor, electric control, and battery, and has built up a leading system in China for the three core technologies and the key parts for new energy vehicles. SAIC’s wholly owned subsidiary, Shanghai Jieneng Company, focused on driving force system integration and control system development for hybrid and electric vehicles, has achieved break-through progress. The release of Roewe E50 means that SAIC Group has gradually grasped the “three electric-car-related” core technologies - battery, motor, and electric control through independent R&D of a series of new energy products – Roewe 750 mild hybrid, Roewe 550 plug-in strong hybrid, and Roewe E50 pure electric car, and the automaker is ready to face the next round of competitions in the global automotive industry.

Two Ways to Expand Overseas Operations

On the basis of continued improvement of its domestic market layout, SAIC Group actively explores the overseas market and participates into global competitions. In the aspect of joint venture, the products of SAIC-GM-Wuling have entered the markets of Egypt and India, and the cumulative export sales of SGM Chevrolet New Sail have exceeded 100,000 units. The joint ventures of SAIC Group are exploring new ways of overseas operations to export technologies and products.

In the aspect of SAIC’s own brands, in December 2012 SAIC Group and CP Group of Thailand announced to launch together the automotive development strategy based in Thailand and facing ASEAN. According to their plan, the two corporations will establish a joint venture in Thailand to produce and sell SAIC Group’s own brand - the MG series of products to the ASEAN market. Leveraging the MG brand resources and the R&D capabilities of SAIC Group, coordinating the local industry resources in Thailand, the two companies are actively seizing the developmental opportunities in the ASEAN market to explore the way of overseas expansion for China’s own brands.?

2013 is the first year to implement thoroughly the spirit of the 18th CPC National Congress, also a critical year for SAIC Group to implement its “12th Five-Year” Plan. SAIC Group will continue to focus on innovation-driven transformation and development, always exploring the markets with proactive state of mind and tough spirit; SAIC Group will accelerate the improvement of core capabilities with the belief in industries serving the nation, enhance the sense of crisis and urgency, work hard to keep improving the quality and efficiency of developmental, and contribute to changing China from a big automotive country to a strong automotive country.