The veteran leading automaker changes leadership

Author | Wang Xiaojun

Editor | Chai Xuchen

At the end of the year and the beginning of the new year, many car companies are undergoing a new round of personnel changes.

On February 4th, GAC Group announced that Zeng Qinghong has retired upon reaching the age limit and has resigned from his positions as the company's chairman, director, and chairman of the board's strategic committee; former general manager Feng Xingya has taken over as the chairman of the sixth board of directors of the company.

GAC is currently at a critical juncture of transformation, and this leadership change is one of GAC's ongoing reform initiatives.

Zeng Qinghong is a veteran of GAC. After starting his career, he first worked at the Guangzhou Automobile Repair Factory, and later, riding the wave of automotive joint ventures, he became the party secretary and executive deputy general manager of GAC Honda in 1999, and has since held important positions within GAC. He has served as chairman of GAC Group and party secretary since 2016.

Zeng Qinghong witnessed GAC's most glorious era. In 1999, the GAC Honda joint venture was established; in 2004, the GAC Toyota joint venture was established. These two joint ventures once contributed the majority of GAC's sales and were also profit cows.

While the joint venture brands brought GAC huge sales and substantial profits, under Zeng Qinghong's leadership, GAC also began to develop its own technology and brand. In 2006, GAC officially established the GAC Research Institute. In 2007, GAC Group began to promote the construction of its own brand projects and established GAC Passenger Vehicle in 2008.

At that time, the market-for-technology approach had reached its results, and the resources accumulated from joint venture brands, such as funds, technology, and talent, were gradually being injected into the independent brands. In 2010, GAC Trumpchi was officially established; a few years later, in the wave of new energy, GAC Aion emerged and once became a star new force with a valuation exceeding 100 billion.

However, in the past two years, GAC's situation has not been as prosperous as before. Against the backdrop of the decline of joint ventures, GAC's sales and profits have been on the decline.

In 2024, GAC Group's overall sales were 2.0031 million vehicles, a year-on-year decline of 20%. Among them, GAC Toyota and GAC Honda's sales fell by 22.32% and 26.52% year-on-year, respectively. Under the dual pressure of insufficient contributions from cash cows and huge investments, GAC's performance has also suffered a heavy blow.

The overall financial situation of GAC in 2024 is not optimistic, with a projected net profit attributable to shareholders of 800 million to 1.2 billion yuan, a decline of 72.91% to 81.94% compared to the same period last year; the net profit excluding non-recurring items is expected to be -3.3 billion to -4.7 billion yuan.

In this situation, the new successor also faces enormous pressure.

Feng Xingya is also a veteran of GAC with 20 years of service. He has been working at GAC since 2004, serving as deputy director, deputy general manager, executive deputy general manager, and director of GAC Toyota Motor Co., Ltd., and later took on positions such as deputy general manager of the group.

In 2016, he began serving as general manager of GAC Group, partnering with then-chairman Zeng Qinghong; to this day, the two have worked together for 9 years. In addition to his group-level position, Feng Xingya also serves as chairman of GAC Trumpchi and Aion, as well as chairman of GAC International.

The upward movement of independent brands and stepping into overseas markets is an important lever for GAC's planned transformation and reform At last year's Guangzhou Auto Show, GAC fought on home turf and announced the launch of the three-year "Panyu Action," relocating its headquarters to Guangzhou Panyu Auto City. The management model shifted from strategic control to operational control, directly descending to the front line, hoping to create a vibrant "New GAC" through four major reform measures: brand leadership, product supremacy, technological advancement, and international market expansion.

This transformation aims to hear the sound of gunfire at the front line and accelerate its own reform.

The focus of this transformation is to enhance the sales of its own brands. GAC has set a new goal for the next three years: to achieve over 60% of the group's total sales from its own brands by 2027, challenging the target of 2 million units in sales for its own brands.

GAC plans to launch 22 new vehicles under its three major self-owned brands in the next three years, including 7 models to be launched in 2025, covering all mainstream new energy power forms such as pure electric, extended range, and plug-in hybrid.

In addition to betting on the comprehensive rise of its own brands, GAC is also actively investing in overseas markets this year to capture new growth.

At the Paris Auto Show in October, GAC launched the global strategic model AION V second generation; GAC also decided to establish a technology center in Europe, build a local ecosystem, and construct factories in Europe, aiming for full market coverage across Europe by 2028.

The results of the Panyu Action are gradually taking shape. In January, the new car AION UT officially began pre-sales, with Feng Xingya stating: "AION UT is the first result of GAC Group's integrated operation of its own brands, and can also be regarded as the first car of the 'Panyu Action.'"

In addition to its own efforts, GAC, like many industry peers, has chosen to band together for warmth. At the end of November last year, GAC Group signed a deepening cooperation agreement with Huawei to create a brand new high-end intelligent new energy vehicle brand in addition to Trumpchi, AION, and Haobo.

The two parties will cooperate in product development, marketing, and ecological services for the new brand. This cooperation is also an important move for GAC's bet on the second half of intelligence. Moreover, for GAC, its long-anticipated high-end new energy brand Haobo has struggled to gain traction, and this cooperation to create a high-end brand perfectly compensates for GAC's shortcomings in high-end development.

However, GAC stated that this cooperation is not the previous "Aito, Zhijie, Zunjie, and Xiangjie" Harmony Intelligent Travel model, but rather an exploration of a new cooperation model.

Although many car companies have successfully turned around after cooperating with Huawei, for a local leading car company like GAC, whether its own brands can rise is the biggest test for GAC. Under the leadership of Feng Xingya, what future GAC will steer towards remains to be seen