Article by Li Ka-shing

Edited by Cold Ze-lin

In 2003, BYD acquired Xi’an QinChuan Automobile and established BYD Auto Co., Ltd, which marked BYD’s official entry into the automotive circle.

Since its inception, BYD has accompanied numerous users of different age groups, but its reputation varies greatly among different age groups of users. Especially for older fuel vehicle users, BYD and other domestic brands have always been synonymous with low-end.

In fact, in the era of fuel vehicles, BYD was always overshadowed by independent domestic automakers such as Geely and Great Wall, which means that BYD was not recognized by consumers for most of the time.

BYD Gets Younger

Due to stereotypes, that group of users still have a lack of goodwill towards traditional automakers today. However, young people in the Z era may have become an important role in breaking the “stalemate”. They gradually accepted domestic car models with the rise of independent brands.

Obviously, if BYD wants to continue to move upward, it must seize this wave of young people to reverse its brand image.

In 2018, BYD once again launched the “Branch Network Action” and established e network and Wangchao network separately. This branch network is different from the earlier ones motivated by quickly opening up the market.

After this branch network, BYD’s product layout strategy became very clear. The Wangchao series became BYD’s main attack point to increase its sales price range.

The establishment of the e network was obviously to seize young consumers, and the prices of the e1, e2, e3 and other models it launched were not high. However, in fact, the e network has become a gathering place for ride-hailing cars.

The shaping power of the brand by ride-hailing cars is still unknown, but GAC and BAIC have become a warning.

So BYD quickly adjusted its strategy and upgraded the e network to Ocean Network last year. From offline stores, brand image to vehicle style were all upgraded to be younger.

The dolphin born on the BYD e-platform 3.0 became the first product of the Ocean series. In April 2022, its sales reached 12,040, a MoM increase of 14.7%, and its cumulative sales have exceeded 70,000 since its launch.

Although the overall consumption level of the young group is not high, the brand image reversal for BYD may be a long process. What BYD needs to do is education on the one hand and waiting on the other, waiting for the purchasing power of young consumers to reach its peak, and the accumulated word-of-mouth will naturally turn into sales.## Ocean Share the Dynasty?

Comparing the Qin PLUS DM-i from Dynasty and the Destroyer 05 from Ocean.

As two different models in the Dynasty and Ocean systems, both similarly positioned as compact sedans, the starting price of the BYD Qin PLUS DM-i is 111,800 yuan, while that of the Destroyer 05 is as high as 119,800 yuan, as a youth-oriented positioning, its price is actually higher than the level of King’s car model.

Where exactly is the extra eight thousand coming from? Let’s continue to read.

In terms of size, the two cars are basically the same, and the Destroyer 05 is only 1.5 cm larger than the Qin PLUS DM-i, even the wheelbase of the two cars is the same.

In terms of power, the two cars basically achieved more than 90% overlap, both equipped with BYD DM-i series hybrid engines. NEDC pure electric range is both 55km and 120km, battery capacity is 8.3kWh and 18.3kWh respectively, and the lithium iron phosphate blade battery is also used.

In terms of design style, the Qin PLUS DM-i uses a more mature design style from the Dynasty family, while the Destroyer 05 adopts the “Ocean Aesthetics” design style, combined with the innate positioning of new energy, it is more inclined to the design concept of new energy models. The difference in interior and exterior design style is almost the biggest difference consumers perceive between the two.

Looking at the sales volume of the Dynasty series Qin PLUS DM-i and the Destroyer 05, the latter actually failed to attract more young people.

In March 2022, when the Destroyer 05 was launched, the sales of the Qin family were 24,797 units. In April, the sales of the Destroyer 05 were 2040 units, and the sales of the Qin family were 23,520 units. In May, the sales of the Destroyer 05 were 4558 units, and the sales of the Qin family were 20,753 units.

Looking solely at the sales of the Destroyer, Ocean is slowly catching up, but combined with the sales of the Qin PLUS DM-i, the total sales of the two models have not changed much, and there has even been a decline.

In other words, the sales of the Destroyer 05 may likely come from consumers who were originally focused on the Qin series.

However, as more and more people compare BYD Dolphin with Han EV, the discussions comparing it with Tesla Model3 are not as popular.

Thus, it seems that BYD’s differentiated sales strategy may have deviated from its actual effect, and even had a negative impact. If BYD wants to go further and target a younger audience with its Ocean network, it may need to introduce even more heavyweight products to stand out despite its poor brand marketing ability.

This article is a translation by ChatGPT of a Chinese report from 42HOW. If you have any questions about it, please email bd@42how.com.