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:
2010: 2,615,100 units
2009: 1,897,728 units
2008: 1,321,000 units
2007: 1,137,000 units
2006: 932,000 units
2005: 729,000 units
2004: 523,000 units
2003: 469,000 units

2009 sales by brand:
Nissan: 660,000 units
Peugeot / Citroen: 373,000 units
KIA: 330,000 units
Honda: 260,000 units

2010 domestic sales by models:
Nissan Tiida: 153,906 units
Nissan Sylphy: 142,511 units
Nissan Teana: 140,842 units
Nissan Livina: 114,072 units
Nissan March: 14,705 units
Citroen C4: 106,357 units
Citroen Elysee: 71,819 units
Citroen C5: 35,001 units
Peugeot 307: 65,506 units
Peugeot 408: 41,981 units
Peugeot 207: 41,875 units
Kia Forte: 105,750 units
Kia Cerato: 82,746 units
Kia Rio: 44,024 units
Kia Soul: 17,264 units
Dongfeng Fengshen S30/H30: 28,018 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 Its inefficient management and outdated technology prevented it from competitive in the free market.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.