Economy
Geely's growth: Appliances to autos in 13 years
By Du Li (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-04 07:44
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Now a star company well known for its landmark acquisition of Volvo, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group was only a small company 13 years ago when it started to make cars.
 The Gleagle, a new sedan from Geely, premiered at the Beijing auto show. Da Wei / For China Daily |
The former refrigerator and motorcycle manufacturer based in eastern Zhejiang province began by producing only low-end vehicles in 1997 due its lack of experience and technologies.
Its founder Li Shufu has a motto then -" to build good cars that common people can afford".
A decade later, the former slogan was replaced with "making the safest, most environmentally friendly and energy-efficient cars".
At the recent Beijing auto show, the nation's largest privately owned automaker displayed 39 car models and several engines and transmissions to demonstrate its increasing technical prowess.
Its 3,000 sq m exhibition area also set a record in size for all homegrown brands.
In one of its display zones themed "safety technology", the company showcased three cutaway models - the Panda, EC7 and EC8 - all meeting the five-star standard of the C-NCAP (Chinese New Car Assessment Program) crash test.
The Geely Panda was the first China-made micro car to receive a five-star C-NCAP rating, which is seen as remarkable progress in quality for China's own-brand auto industry.
The company also exhibited six new-energy cars at the show, including two electric cars, the intelligent GSG - Geely Stop-Go - two plug-in hybrids and a model called the IG powered by batteries and solar energy.
At the start of this year, Geely won the second prize in the 2009 State Science and Technology Award for its technological innovation, with no first prize awarded. For the past two years, only 12 out of more than 5 million candidate companies received the prize.
The State-level award is not about a single patent or design, but the entire system that cultivates more talent and new technologies, marking a great leap in Geely's capacity for innovation, said Zhao Fuquan, Geely's vice-president in charge of research and development.
With continued efforts on enhancing its "internal work", Geely also set its sights on overseas markets.
In 2006, the company bought a 23 percent stake in Manganese Bronze Holdings Plc, the producer of London's iconic black cab.
In March 2009, it purchased Australian automatic transmission maker Drivetrain Systems International.
The company said at the Beijing auto show that the first model equipped with the company's 6-speed automatic transmission will be put into mass production by the end of this year.
Recently it signed an agreement with Ford to buy Volvo for $1.8 billion.
The new owner of Volvo pledged to run the Swedish brand separately from Geely, and encouraged by the large potential of the Chinese market, expects to make Volvo profitable as soon as the fourth quarter this year.
Geely now runs facilities in seven cities across China, including Linhai, Ningbo, Luqiao, Shanghai, Lanzhou, Xiangtan and Jinan, with total production capacity of 400,000 cars and 400,000 power trains a year. It also operates production lines in Russia, Ukraine, Indonesia and Malaysia.
The company plans to offer 12 all-new and upgraded products this year and aims to move 400,000 vehicles this year after its sales surged 48 percent to 330,000 units last year.
Between January and March, Geely sold nearly 103,000 cars, about one-fourth of its full-year sales goal.
Its mid-term outlook is to produce and sell 2 million vehicles annually by 2015, with half of the sales for exports.
According to a recent report by Chinese Business News, Geely now has more than 500 dealers for its three sub-brands Emgrand, Gleagle and Shanghai Englon.
The report also said this year Geely will mainly promote the Emgrand, the company's mid and high-end marque, and increase its dealers to over 200 from about 140 now.
