Geely

Country

China

Parent

Independent

Subsidiaries

Volvo (Sweden)

Shanghai LTI (China) - 51% (produces London Taxis)

Brands

Geely, Maple, Gleagle, Emgrand, Englon

Location

Headquarters: Hangzhou
R&D center: Linhai
Main assembly plants: Ningbo (Free Cruiser, EC7), Shanghai (TX4, SC7), Luqiao (Kingkong, SC5), Linhai (Panda), Xiangtan (Vision), Chengdu (EX7), Jinan (EC8), Lanzhou (Free Cruiser).

Sales figures

2010: 415,843 units
2009: 326,710 units
2008: 204,205 units
2007: 181,517 units
2006: 164,495 units
2005: 133,041 units
2004: 96,693 units
2003: 76,274 units
2002: 47,800 units

2010 sales by models:
Free Cruiser: 95,189 units
Kingkong: 85,063 units
EC7: 71,360 units
Vision: 63,421 units
SC7: 53,124 units
Panda: 40,588 units
EC8: 1,335 units
TX4 (London Taxi): 1,033 units

Introduction

Geely is quite a legend at its home. It was the first privately-owned car maker in China, unlike its state-owned rivals. Born as a small company, it grew quickly by its own effort and went listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Without forming any joint-ventures with foreigners, Geely always emphasizes that it developed its cars and technology by itself, although many of its early cars did immitate foreign cars.

Geely has an ambitious expansion plan which will see its model range significantly updated and expanded in the next few years. Apart from the Geely brand, it has created sub-brands Gleagle (dynamic brand), Emgrand (premium brand) and Englon (mainly produces London taxi).

Brief History

The Geely factory was founded by enterprizer Li Shufu in 1986, initially produced refrigerators, then decoration materials, scooters and eventually entered car production business in 1997. The earliest Geely cars were clones of Daihatsu Charade, licensed by Tianjin Xiali (which had a JV with Daihatsu).

In 2003, Geely developed the first car by itself, Beauty Leopard. It was a 2+2 coupe whose odd appearance and poor performance contradicted with its name. However, history will remember that it was the first coupe developed by a Chinese manufacturer.

Beauty Leopard (2003)

In order to raise its game, Geely hired Korean engineering consultants headed by Daewoo International (not Daewoo motors) to develop its next generation mass production models, Free Cruiser (2005) and King Kong (2006). They gradually replaced the cheap Daihatsu Charade-based models and lifted Geely to an independent car maker in its own right. Meanwhile, through technology transfer and acquisition, Geely got the know-how of building modern VVT engines and automatic transmission. By the late 2000s, it had basically established its own R&D capability.

Vision (2007)

Nevertheless, the fast progress was associated with criticisms that it copied others - its Vision sedan was clearly a clone to Toyota Corolla, while its GE luxury limousine was even a downsized version of Rolls-Royce Phantom. It would take some years to clean its image.

In 2010, Geely surprised the world by taking over Volvo from Ford. The business synergy is doubtful, but at least Volvo can bring it valuable expertise in R&D and quality control, shortcutting its path towards a world class car maker.