The SAIC Passenger Vehicle Co held its sales meeting for 2014, on Feb 25, where the operation directors for Roewe and MG signed a pledge with SAIC’s executive vice-president and SAIC Passenger Vehicle GM, Chen Zhixin, and SAIC Passenger Vehicle vice-GM, Jiang Jun, to end this year with sales of 265,000 vehicles and possibly 280,000.

At the same time, Chen emphasized the marketing department’s important role at SAIC Passenger Vehicle and the need to face market challenges, while being aware of any crises, while picking up the pace of market response and bringing an innovative spirit to marketing work.

Jiang added to this by saying that marketing needs to focus on making optimal use of the two brands, building experience, having a firm grasp of market trends and market share, and strengthening marketing ability.

Last year, China’s own brands have seen slower growth than passenger car sales overall and its market share fell significantly. According to January data, most independent enterprises lost growth, especially when compared to joint ventures. Domestic sales of passenger vehicles were 1.8 million in January, up 13.5 percent year-on-year, while domestic brands only accounted for 541,000, up a mere 3.2 percent. In view of this, SAIC Passenger Vehicle faces great pressure.

To deal with the challenge, SAIC Passenger Vehicle‘s first step was to make better use of brand positioning to develop Roewe and MG differently, and basically finished brand positioning and diagnosis in 2013. It will integrate resources and experience to come up with a blueprint for differentiated development of the two and adjust its marketing strategy, communications, and planning for a more clear-cut brand image.

It plans to gather different marketing experience for different competitive advantages in marketing and will expand four major marketing zones to five to better study the regional markets. At the same time, the marketing zones will improve market and price management to give dealers greater support and quicker response time.

The company needs to adjust to local conditions and continue its brand zoning and will establish training programs tailored to dealers in different places to help them grow, while developing tailor-made training system, for dealers’ life cycle management. It also needs to pay more attention to online sales and sales through other channels and take advantage of SAIC’s or other e-commerce platforms to be innovative in its marketing network.

In the area of after-sales service, which customers put much attention to, SAIC Passenger Vehicle will improve the content of its pioneering one-stop service so users don’t have to leave home to solve their car problems.

And, although this poses a huge challenge, thanks to the continued growth and market demand from third, fourth, and fifth-tier cities, and the expected wave of car repurchasing, there are plenty of market share opportunities. In addition to improving the dealers network in first and second-tier cities, SAIC Passenger Vehicle will look for opportunities other cities and take advantage of second-hand car sales from 2009 to 2010 to expand the second-hand car business.

For Roewe, the Roewe 350 is a major product this year, while the 550 is expected to see a breakthrough in sales and the W5 will rely on its image as a “professional SUV”. MG’s focus this year is the 90^th anniversary brand and its competitive advantages. SAIC Passenger Vehicle sees this as an opportunity to increase MG’s publicity while inheriting and innovating in brand fashion and sporty design.

So, at the sales meeting, the operation directors at Roewe and MG promised to face their annual sales task and marketing personnel said they clearly understand the goal and situation in 2014 and are confident in facing the challenges and setting a record in sales for SAIC Passenger Vehicle.