The A520 carrying the 2.0L engine independently developed by Chery was officially released in Beijing on Jan.10. Price at 88,888 yuan, it for the first time reduced the price of 2.0L cars below 100,000 yuan. So it is quite surprising that Chery's planned sale of the product is only 30,000 units.

"We want to change our past practice. The marketing of A520 might take our planned marketing rhythm rather than the market demand as guidance". Li Feng, general manager of the Chery Sales, said the purpose is to build up confidence among the consumers. A520 is a very competitive product, Li Feng believed, but of course about thirteen or so domestic mid-market models are sharing the same market segment with it.

Chery will release six new models �C A5, S21, A18, V3, S22 and S12 in 2006. Meanwhile, it will launch the upgraded QQ, setting the target of annual sale at 281,000 units. Obviously, QQ which has made distinct contributions to Chery, will still shoulder the task of driving sales in 2006. "Without QQ's annual sale of over 100,000 units there would not have been the second and third model which can top annual sale of 100,000 units". Li Feng believed the second model to catch up with QQ in sale might be Qiyun and the next is A5 series.

Tiggo and Orient Son are the high-end products among Chery's existing models. However, sales of the two models were no quite satisfactory last year. Li Feng believed the world auto industry has its labor of division and it is hard for the growing proprietary brands to make eye-catching performance on the high-end auto market. All the same, it is hard for Benz and BMW to enter the market segments of less than 300,000 yuan. Chery will fortify its brand building and marketing of Tiggo and Orient Son in 2006. In the meantime, engines of existing models as a whole will no longer rely on outsourcing.

By People's Daily Onlilne