Dongfeng

Country

China

Parent

Independent

Subsidiaries

Dongfeng Motor (JV with Nissan) - 50%

Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen - 50%

Dongfeng Honda - 50%

Dongfeng-Yueda KIA - 50%

Brands

Dongfeng

Location

Headquarters: Wuhan
Main assembly plants: Shiyan, Xiangfan, Wuhan, Guangzhou.

Sales figures

Group sales:
2007: 1,137,000 units
2006: 932,000 units
2005: 729,000 units
2004: 523,000 units
2003: 469,000 units

Introduction

The third largest Chinese car maker is actually a summation of joint-ventures with foreign car makers, i.e. Nissan, PSA, Honda and KIA. Virtually all its passenger car designs are provided by its partners. This mean Dongfeng does not have the competence of product development.

Brief History

Second Automobile Works was founded in 1969 as a spin-off of First Automobile Works. Like FAW, it was essentially a truck manufacturer during the first 3 decades. Its trucks were branded as "Dongfeng", which means east wind.

In 1992, SAW was simply renamed to Dongfeng. As China was migrating to free market economy, Dongfeng, like many other state-owned enterprizes, suffered from the lost of government protection and ran into heavy loss. Its inefficient management and outdated technology prevented it from competitive in the free market.

In 2000, Dongfeng underwent a debt restructuring, which eventually put most of its assets into a new public listed holding, Dongfeng Motor Group, although majority shares were still held by government-controlled firms. In order to introduce foreign investment and technology, it formed a 50-50 joint-venture with Nissan, which assembled Nissan cars and trucks for the booming local market. Later on, similar joint-ventures were established with PSA group, Honda and KIA. In this way, Dongfeng succeeded to reach a sales volume of over 1 million units without resorting to build its own R&D capability.