SVW made a good start of vehicle sales in the first quarter

The global financial crises cannot stop the forward advancement of the Chinese auto market. The overall situation of the Chinese auto market still remains highly promising in the spring of 2009. In the first quarter the output and sales were both booming, outstripping the North American market for the first time to become the No. one market over the world.

When interpreting the express news of SAIC s first place in terms of auto sales in the first quarter, people found that on the domestic passenger vehicle market SVW, which had been a champion of monthly sales for two consecutive months, achieved a total sales of 134,500 units in the first quarter and created a new record high. In March the company sold over 55,000 cars with a Y-on-Y increase of more than 6.8% and a month-on-month growth of 26.5%, giving a satisfactory performance to the shareholders. Analysis attributes SVW s good performance in the first quarter to the following factors.

The market opportunity was grasped and the product mix was adjusted. SVW s sales growth under the adverse market circumstances was the result of its diligent efforts to study the international and domestic economic situation, grasp the opportunity offered by the promulgation of the government s New Deal for the auto industry, actively tap the internal potential, timely adjust the product mix and make strategic adjustment of the marketing strategy, thus leading to the good sales start in the first quarter of the new year.

In face of the strong demand for automobiles at the beginning of the year and its full utilization of the production capacity, SVW quickly responded to the market changes by adjusting the production arrangement and product mix to meet the fast changing market demand. Early in the late January this year, SVW asked the parts suppliers to increase their production capacity in order to satisfy SVW s need for its growing vehicle production in the upcoming months, especially the production of 1.

6 L and smaller displacement models, such as Lavida, Polo, Octavia and Fabia , which increased substantially in the first quarter.

Efforts were made to inspire consumer confidence and introduce a marketing New Deal . To further the active marketing, respond to the policy-orientation, inspire consumer confidence and requite the consumers for their consumption, SVW was the first to introduce a marketing New Deal in February 2009, which included programs for enhancing the efficiency of internal management and business operation management, improving dealer capability for network operation and dealer confidence, and upgrading the capability to control the terminal market, straighten out and optimize the product mix, etc.

The pricing systems of Polo series, Santana Vista and new generation Touran were also adjusted, so that their value-for-money advantages were further improved, thus winning a warm response from the terminal market.

The Guest Centered Excellence (GCE) program was implemented and the dealer capability was enhanced. For SVW, in the macro background of escalating market competition, service has no doubt become a new strategic vantage point. As early as August 2008, SVW started to carry out the GCE program among the franchised dealers across the country.

The purpose of implementing the GCE was to enhance the dealer capability, especially to improve the customer experience in respect of the sales and aftersales service processes. The core idea was to further tap the customer demand, meet and overfulfill the customer expectations, as well as amaze the customers.

Up till now, preliminary results have been achieved, which will give more impetus to the hot sales in the first quarter of 2009.

Great exertion was made to build up the essential strengths. Insiders believe that the hot sales of SVW in the first quarter of 2009 are attributable to its assiduous efforts to build up the essential strengths. In 2009, to respond to the complicated market environment at present and beat the competitors amid the hot competition, SVW followed SAIC s guideline of making three breakthroughs , put into further practice the Scientific Outlook on Development and worked out the DYnaMic 2010 program to make improvement in marketing, product, quality, cost, etc.

on the basis of the achievement scored in the previous management reform and process reengineering. The purpose was to enable the company to gather essential strengths in the aspects of reducing cost for higher efficiency, raise the product quality, improve the productivity and strengthen the performance management, actively respond to the difficult economic situation, and scale a new height in the business operation.

So far, SVW has maintained a balanced sound development of its multi-brand and multi-product strategy. Its VW brand and Skoda brand products are performing quite well in their respective market segments. The products are classic in design and rational in their market positioning. The company has planned to launch several new versions of these products every year. It is believed that SVW will create new highlights in the market and scale new heights of business performance with more classic models and on the strength of the brand advantages.