Li Yunfei: BYD aims to build a world-class car brand with long accumulation

When answering a question from a reporter from China Economic Net, Li Yunfei, general manager of BYD's Brand and Public Relations Department, confidently said, "China is the world's largest automobile market and the market with the highest penetration rate of new energy in the world . Faced with such a large scale and fierce competition, In the automobile market, from an emotional point of view, independent brands should carve out a way out and create several world-class automobile brands. BYD must seize the window of opportunity and build a world-class automobile brand."

Li Yunfei, General Manager of BYD Brand and Public Relations Department 

On April 18, the 2023 Shanghai International Auto Show officially kicked off as scheduled. On the opening day of the auto show, Li Yunfei accepted an exclusive interview with media such as China Economic Net and responded to BYD's participation in the exhibition, brand strategy, sales targets and other issues.

According to Li Yunfei, BYD brought a luxurious lineup of exhibitors and built three booths. Among them, BYD brand Dynasty.com not only exhibited the Han, Tang and Song flagship models, but also brought the world premiere of the Song L concept car; Haiyang.com launched the new destroyer 07 and the world premiere of the Seagull; Denza exhibited the N7 Waiting for new cars; looking forward to the first real car display of U8 and U9, and starting the pre-sale of U8. In addition, BYD also exhibited its latest blockbuster technologies such as Yunnan, Yi Sifang and dual-gun supercharging.

Twenty years of preparation

"It was unthinkable to build three exhibition stands at once. In order to develop and accumulate core technologies, BYD had to tighten its belt and cut back on food and clothing," Li Yunfei said bluntly, "In the past ten years, BYD has made great progress in the field of technology research and development. It has invested hundreds of billions of yuan in total, has nearly 70,000 technical research and development personnel, and has applied for more than 40,000 patents."

According to BYD's previously released financial report, R&D investment in 2022 alone will exceed 20.223 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 90.31%, and R&D investment is higher than the net profit of 16.622 billion yuan that year.

"It is precisely because of BYD's long-term persistence in technology research and development that a series of technologies have now been applied to the company's different products, which has also contributed to BYD's rapid rise in recent years," Li Yunfei said.

Information shows that on January 22, 2003, BYD acquired 77% of the equity of Qinchuan Automobile for 270 million yuan and entered the automobile industry. However, the capital market is not optimistic about BYD's layout. At that time, BYD's Hong Kong stock was sold off crazily, and its market value evaporated by more than 70% in three days.

By 2022, BYD will not only become the annual sales champion of domestic car companies, but will once again become the global new energy vehicle sales champion. Data show that in 2022, BYD's cumulative sales of new energy vehicles reached 1.8635 million units, a year-on-year increase of 208.64%, of which passenger car sales were 1.8574 million units, a year-on-year increase of 212.82%, and overseas sales of passenger cars exceeded 55,000 units. "BYD has been preparing for 20 years to achieve its current results," Li Yunfei said frankly. "BYD has done two things well in the past 20 years: the first is to persist in technology research and development, and the second is to persist in vertical development. Integration enables independent control of the supply chain. Because we have established a stable and mature supply chain control system, we can cope with the shortage of chips and electricity much more calmly than other companies during the epidemic. "

The transition to electrification is coming faster than expected

Entering 2023, affected by many factors, the overall performance of the domestic automobile market is weak. According to data released by the China Automobile Association, in the first quarter of this year, domestic automobile production and sales completed 6.21 million units and 6.076 million units respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3% and 6.7% respectively.

In order to boost sales, various car companies have launched preferential measures one after another, and the market competition has been unprecedentedly fierce. "The 'price war' that emerged in the first quarter of this year was mainly due to reasons such as relatively conservative car consumption at the beginning of the year. Some car brands were anxious to boost sales and launched drastic price cuts, which was very harmful to the brands; it is even more disturbing. What is concerning is that the recent intensive promotional activities of some fuel vehicle brands may accelerate the replacement of fuel vehicles by new energy vehicles," Li Yunfei said.

"The past few years have been a critical point in the development of the domestic new energy passenger vehicle industry. The market share of new energy passenger vehicles has increased from less than 5% to over 30% in the first quarter of this year. The process of electrification in the automotive industry will It will be faster. If fuel vehicles continue to be promoted, the domestic new energy vehicle market penetration rate may reach up to 50% by the end of this year, and there is even hope that the domestic new energy vehicle market will start with a penetration rate of 50% by 2025. The penetration rate may be as high as 80%." Li Yunfei analyzed that "the transformation of fuel vehicles into electric vehicles is accelerating faster than everyone expected."

A long life

While ensuring its own price advantage, BYD is also further building a technological moat and building a brand matrix. Since announcing the discontinuation of fuel vehicles in April last year, BYD has successively launched a number of technologies such as CTB battery body integration, DM-p King Hybrid, Yi Sifang platform, and Yunnan. Prior to this, BYD had released technologies such as blade battery, DM-i super hybrid, and e-platform 3.0.

According to Li Yunfei, BYD currently has four brands, among which BYD brand is positioned in the market with a price of less than 300,000 yuan, Denza brand is positioned in the luxury car market with a price of 400,000-600,000 yuan, and F brand is positioned in a market with a price of 600,000-800,000 yuan. Professional and personalized market; Looking Up brand targets the high-end market in the price range of 800,000 to 1.5 million yuan.

"If you have many children and they are all excellent, they must be arranged separately. When BYD ushered in the technological explosion period, it launched a multi-brand strategy to meet the needs of consumers from different classes," Li Yunfei said happily, "There is a saying It’s called accumulating but not making progress, but we are making progress through thick and thin accumulation.”

"The four brands are independent from R&D to operations to channels. The group will assign general managers of their respective sub-brands. They will be in charge of both strong and weak tasks. We will focus on the sub-brands in management, and we will focus on the big things. , everyone maintains collaboration." Li Yunfei revealed, "At the end of the third quarter of this year, the products of the Fangwang brand will be delivered; from May to June this year, the name and LOGO of the F brand will be officially released to the outside world, and its first model will also be unveiled at the Chengdu Auto Show. It will be unveiled for the first time, and deliveries and sales are expected to begin in the fourth quarter."

"With the improvement of the brand matrix and the accelerated introduction of new models into the market, BYD's sales target in domestic and foreign markets in 2023 is 3 million vehicles," Li Yunfei said confidently.