Author | Anjou Cao

As the domestic new energy market becomes increasingly internal, as China's top 3 independent brand exports, Great Wall Motor has shown more ambition for overseas markets.

On April 25, at the Great Wall Motor Ecological Outbound Strategy Conference, Great Wall Motor President Mu Feng proposed that Great Wall Motor will promote “ecological going overseas”, focusing on the “four new international modernizations” of localizing production capacity, localization of operations, cross-cultural brands and supply chain security, and promoting comprehensive “going overseas” for research, production, supply, sales, and services.

The ultimate goal is that by 2030, Great Wall Motor will sell more than one million vehicles overseas, accounting for more than 1/3 of sales of high-end models.

This is no small goal for the current Great Wall.

In 2023, the overseas sales volume of Great Wall Motors exceeded 300,000 units for the first time. In other words, over the next seven years, Great Wall's annual overseas sales volume will reach more than 3.33 times that of last year before it can achieve its target.

To this end, Great Wall Motor has put forward a series of “going overseas” ideas with “globalization rooted in China and localization rooted overseas” as the core.

According to Mu Feng, first, Great Wall Motor will rely on research and development bureaus in seven countries and ten regions to build a full-link development system. Based on user needs, we carry out product planning, implement engineering development, implement real local verification, and truly serve the local community.

In addition, Great Wall Motor should pay attention to local social responsibility contributions, and the layout of factories in ASEAN, Latin America and other places should rely on local mass production to improve cost competitiveness while contributing more jobs and taxes to the local market.

Finally, the Great Wall plans to keep up with the development of the Internet, increase publicity on Douyin, etc.

Shi Qingke, vice president of Great Wall Motor, said that in general, what Great Wall Motor needs to do is wherever the market is, where the factory is. Great Wall Motor will build a professional management team, supply chain and other ecological services locally, relying on the system and capabilities of research, production, supply and marketing in the Chinese market, combined with the culture of the international market, to take root.

Great Wall Motor's ambition to set a “small goal” is that Great Wall Motor's “going overseas” has already entered the harvest period, and the five major brands, Haval, Weipai, Euler, Tank, and Great Wall Cannon, have all “gone overseas.”

Financial reports show that in 2023, Great Wall Motor achieved overseas sales of 314,000 vehicles, a year-on-year increase of 82.37%, a record high. The share of high-end model sales gradually increased; foreign revenue was 53.114 billion yuan, an increase of 101.53% over the previous year.

Currently, Great Wall Motor has 14 million users worldwide and more than 1,000 overseas sales channels.

As far as the industry is concerned, Great Wall Motor's accelerated “going overseas” is also expected to not only achieve its own sales breakthrough and increase its position on the new energy circuit, but also help develop more new paths for Chinese cars to “go overseas.”