Chery is how step by step from a small local state-owned enterprises, grew to later domestic car boss?

Chery has not only created a record of 14 consecutive years of independent brand sales first, but also forward independent research and development of China's first car engine.

For a long time, it can be said to be the absolute boss inside the domestic brands.

Chery as a local state-owned enterprises in Wuhu City, Anhui Province, in the end how to do? Today we will tell the story of Chery.

Chery hard work from scratch, all on their own

Then it was called "Anhui Automobile Parts Industry Company". The company's name is "Anhui Automobile Parts and Accessories Company". Because at that time it was not qualified to produce automobiles.

The first few years of Chery's car building was done secretly. Chery's car project, in fact, as early as 92 years began to layout.

At that time, Wuhu had just experienced a flood and had to quickly restore its economy. The city government heard: "Hey" Wuhu a village-run factories, relying on a simple equipment, built hundreds of cars a year, creating more than 100 million output value?"

The heart of the matter is: to make so much money to build a car, build ah!

In the beginning, the city of Wuhu found the FAW this thigh, "snap" a hug, was established FAW Yangzi chassis plant. But I didn't realize that because of poor sales, only after 2 years, each went his own way.

Holding the spirit of not giving up and not abandoning, Wuhu people decided to do it themselves. And FAW had dealt with, decided to go to FAW to dig people.

So in '96, Chery poached a very important figure for Chery from FAW, called Yin Tongyue, who later became the chairman and general manager of Chery.

When Yin Tongyue arrived in Wuhu, he was confused and found that the conditions were not generally tough, with only 300,000 yuan of municipal government-approved funds on hand, which was enough to buy a Civic at the time.

The R&D team spent the first two years working in a dilapidated factory building with no air conditioning, and in the summer, people were able to carry on, but the computers were always dying, and it was too hot; and in the winter, everyone's hands were covered with frostbite.

It took a big government investment to really get Chery on the road to making cars.

Built engine was bullied by foreigners

To put it mildly, everyone says Chery's engine is great, and Chery started out by building the engine first.

Chery had to spend 29.8 million U.S. dollars to bring in a used engine production line from Ford because it couldn't buy an engine.

The foreign technicians also proposed an unequal "turnkey agreement".

What does that mean? It means that when the foreign technicians are assembling the engine, the Chinese are not allowed to go in and look at it, and they can only get the start key after the equipment is fully installed.

To put it bluntly: things can be given to you, want to learn technology? No way!

Not only that, these foreign technicians also like to "fish", a few months have not installed a production line.

Finally, Chery really couldn't wait any longer and decided to let the foreign personnel: "You go back, we'll install it ourselves."

More than 500 days of self-drilling, the production line was finally, at the end of '98, installed and commissioned. After another 5 months, the 1st engine ignited successfully.

This meant that the problem was finally solved, and then the body and chassis had to be solved.

Because Yin Tongyue is from FAW, Chery decided to follow the Jetta's lead, and the body couldn't be copied exactly, could it?

So Chery adopted a strategy of "saving the country through curves": it bought the technology for the Toledo from Spain's Seat.

Because the Toledo and Jetta, originally the same platform out, so that the body built, directly and chassis with, simply do not change, around a circle.

The car was built but there is no "birth certificate"

It was not easy for the car to be built, but Chery did not have a license to build the car. The Chery Fengyun has become a "black account" and cannot be sold on the market openly.

This is a bit like: now the electric car, the old man music, four-wheeled disabled car, a bit of this feeling, some are not also no license?

The Wuhu municipal government can only "curve save the country", the Chery into the bus catalog, playing the ball, the so-called "sneaky" as a cab sales.

Sales weren't great either, with about 2,000 units sold in a year.

Chery and SAIC "marriage" to obtain production qualifications

It was not easy to "give birth" to a son, can not be so as a "black household" ah, no name and no points.

But in the state side to get a "birth certificate", almost impossible, declare the difficulty is too big, and their own is behind the small action, a declaration is not just a self-inflicted trap?

"Hey, Dad, I've done something you wouldn't let me do before, can you agree to it now?"

The only way out now is to find a large domestic car manufacturer to work with, and by joining them, you also get a production license in disguise.

It's a bit like this: some of my friends want to be in a first-tier city, and they don't even live there, so they've got a "marriage agreement" and are settling down, so it's a bit like that.

Beginning to ask the FAW, Dongfeng: "Who are you? The first thing you need to do is to ask SAIC, which is not agreeable at first, and say that you don't want to give it to them for nothing.

But in the end, the city government's efforts to mediate, or became. You see, this government is still very active.

In the past, you could see the words "SAIC Chery" on Chery cars, which is something that came out of a roundabout way at that time.

But SAIC did not give Chery a good face at first, stipulating a "four no" principle, what does it mean? No investment, no dividends, no participation in management, no risk, and Chery also has to give SAIC 20% of the shares.

This is exactly the same as some of the couples who have agreed to get a household registration, where one pays the money and the other doesn't pay anything, but just wants a name and an identity, right?

Chery can't do anything about it, just give it to you if you want it and have the production qualification.

Chery's rapid development, began to take off 01 to 03, Chery sales rose rapidly

Relying on SAIC, Chery now has a name and identity, can let go to sell.

At that time, Chery Fengyun relied on the pricing of 88,000 yuan, which was 1/3 cheaper than its Jetta counterpart, and the bottom and appearance were originally borrowed from the Jetta, which was quickly accepted by the market.

Finally, after deducting costs, it made a profit of 1.3 billion yuan, and even Chery executives at the time were exclaiming, "It turns out that building cars makes so much money."

Then in '02 and '03, sales continued to rise exponentially, to 50,000 units and 90,300 units, respectively.

It was also a crucial year for Chery, which not only launched its most famous model, the QQ, but also collaborated with Austrian engine company AVL to design as many as 18 engines at the same time.

This also laid a very solid foundation for Chery to develop its own engines in the future.

Over here, SAIC saw Chery's sales skyrocket, so it said to Chery, "Why don't I invest more, and you let me take more shares?"

I think of it this way, Chery probably think of it this way: when I was looking for you, I ignored you, and said that I do not invest, do not take the risk, and asked me to 20% of the shares for nothing, and now began to be solicitous? Disagree!

Shanghai Automobile has increased its shares many times and failed to end this "marriage" with Chery in 2003, and this year Chery itself also got the production qualification, which is considered to have an "independent account".

But in good conscience and fairness, SAIC is not so snobbish, cooperation for a few years, indeed also helped Chery a lot of favor.

First of all, through its own marketing network, to help Chery open up the market; then Chery because of the wind cloud body, chassis problems by the public prosecution, but also SAIC to help deal with.

Only we are talking about business, profit first, so we do not need to bring emotions, is a normal business above the split.

04, 05 Chery began to leave hidden problems

Chery in 04 years encountered some trouble: first of all, the leadership change, the original chairman of the board of directors of Zhan Xialai resigned, at the same time, Chery QQ by the general prosecution of plagiarism, which led to the decline in sales, only 86,500 units, but also a lot of it.

Well, after things were sorted out, Chery's sales jumped 118 percent in '05 to 189,000 units.

So it looks like the overall performance in '04 and '05 was passable and good, but the seeds of danger have been vaguely planted.

First of all: too frequent internal adjustments of the company's personnel will affect the development.

Then in 2005, the "volume for the market" of a behavior, resulting in the aftermath of the Chery, low-end and cheap image y rooted in people's hearts, but also compressed their own profit margins, resulting in increased indebtedness.

This buried mines, after letting Chery eat a lot of pain, if you friends interested in, later I separate, special talk about it.

Of course, in 2005, Chery also did a big thing: the first completely independent forward research and development of the ACTECO engine ignition line, marking the Chinese brand finally began to have their own engine.

So that, in the years after this, Chery sales continued to climb: 06, 305,000 units; 07, 381,000 units, are very good.

These 2 years are considered Chery's peak moment, sales ranked No. 4 among all brands, is all, Toyota, Honda and such all together, it can be ranked No. 4.

Later in '08, Chery's sales began to decline, that year, sold 356,000 units.

The reason for this is more complicated, on the one hand, China's auto sales growth rate fell, from 21.84 percent the previous year directly down to 6.7 percent; and then Chery itself has a lot of problems.

First of all, in August of the same year, it changed a general manager of sales; fist product Chery A3, a variety of "jumping", the second half of September 26th before the official listing, but also will affect sales.

The so-called "new corporate strategy", "multi-brand transformation", so engaged, but also prone to problems.

'09, '10 is Chery's last hurrah

The next year, '09, is another very important year for Chery.

This year, Chery split itself into 4 brands: Chery, Kerry, Ruiji, and Weilin.

Anhui Normal University's "Chery Automobile Marketing Model Countermeasures Analysis" says that Chery chose a multi-brand strategy to get rid of the low-end, cheap image of domestic cars, and to lay out a mid-range and high-end automobile market, to make an attempt.