Volvo’s 2022 Year-End Review Meeting

At Volvo’s 2022 year-end review meeting, QIN Peiji, the President of Volvo Sales Company in Greater China, mentioned some data and shared some insights into Volvo’s brand development direction and planning for 2023.

2022 Sales Data

Volvo’s overall brand sales for the year were 162,000 units, which is slightly lower than the previous year’s sales of around 170,000 units due to the shrinking overall market. However, Volvo’s market share has increased by 0.1%, reaching 6.4%, which is comparable to the level of luxury car markets. The growth rate of pure electric vehicles was 201%, which is encouraging for XC40 and C40 two electric vehicle models that have undergone oil-to-electric changes, with sales figures that are relatively acceptable.

Volvo had 5.15 million leads and 918,000 first-time store visitor data in 2022. The showroom conversion rate of Volvo is generally 20%, corresponding to 918,000 visitor data, making it relatively easy for 4S stores to achieve their goals. However, there are many fake leads, so Volvo has a 100% coverage lead verification mechanism to address this issue.

Four Tasks and Four Challenges

After releasing the new pure electric model EX90 on November 9, 2022, Volvo’s next step in the electric transformation is to launch three new pure electric models in the second half of 2023. These three pure electric models are EX90 EXCELLENCE (EX90 4-seater version), a small pure electric SUV, and a luxury pure electric MPV, respectively representing three new sub-segment markets.

This is also something that Volvo needs to strive for by 2023, to accelerate the electrification transition.

The second task is the transfer of brand assets. Volvo needs to do well in pure electric transformation. Safety has been the biggest positive brand label for Volvo in the past, and this is a key consideration for both fuel car users and pure electric car users. All other needs are derivative.

The third task is to expand the new energy terminal and firmly adopt direct sales model. Volvo has opened 25 shops in 2022 and will continue to develop city center shops in urban core business districts. By 2023, there will be more than 60 city center shops opened nationwide, which is also a task that needs to be done together with dealers.

The last task is digitalization. Qin Peiji mentioned that Volvo has taken some detours in internal management digitalization in the past few years, which is also a relatively weak part compared to some new forces. Digitalization needs to be done for both B-end and C-end. This has been explored in the management system for several years.

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.