Geely brand to die in 2012
Last week at Geely’s newest flagship dealership in Shanghai, Geely announced that the Geely brand will slip away from the mainstream by 2012, and will allow its sub brands to pick up the slack. Geely’s sub brands include Gleagle, Emgrand, and Shanghai Englon which will be strenthened over the coming months. Gleage is Geely’s global brand and is a shortening of ‘Global Eagle’, Emgrand is Geely’s luxury brand and Shanghai Englon will be used for the LTI Taxi project and other economy vehicles.
The vice president of Geely Group, Mr. Liu Jinliang was quoted as saying “We will not push this type of dealership elsewhere in the country, except for special areas of interested such as Nanjing and Tianjin”. The new flagship dealership covers over 1.2 acres of land and sells all of Geely’s brands under one roof.
Geely is finding slow growth in first and second tier cities, but third and fourth tier cities are seeing double digit sales growth for Hangzhou based Geely, with the fastest growth in Western China, and also North China.
Geely is going to ramp up the number of Emgrand dealerships to 200 by the end of 2010, and will increase to 250 by 2012, Geely is focusing on assisting dealerships achieve a greater profitability and increase service level, but will not increase the no of Geely dealerships, and dealerships that don’t meet the demand will be cut from the line up.
Once the Geely Freedom Ship and Yuan Jing models have been moved over to the Gleagle brand and the King Kong and Golden Eagle models moved over to the Shanghai Englon, then Geely will be retired from the market.
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My Chinese friends buy less faked goods and pay more money for quality products than my fellow foreigner friends.
(the ones who can afford it that is)
“GLEAGLE”: Oh God, please change us this name!.
The name Gleagle can cost you the future of your company.
Who can say without shame: “I DRIVE A GLEAGLE!!”?
You should think of hiring English speaking consultants, seriously guys
There is no rival to naming schemes like the Chinese: “Gleagle”? “Englon”? Don’t they know Chinglish is not cool in the professional world?
“Ponkey (Pony Donkey)” is still available if any Chinese automakers want it.
@Bob
good for him. perhaps more Chinese can learn from him.
@IHC
“People who know Chinese consumers are skeptical because Chinese consumers are price-driven and are unwilling to pay for quality.”
You would know because…? Are you Chinese yourself? Have you lived in China and studied the ways their consumers spend their money?
@Patrick
Sure, the name sounds ridiculous to you now, but it won’t be after a while. Toyota and Mitsubishi were strange names to Western consumers as well.
Of course everybody would buy good quality products at a more expensive price if they could all afford them, but can everyone afford them?
They should keep the Geely name because it is already famous since their takeover of Volvo.
How many thousands of international newspaper articles have been written about Geely in the past year(s)?
All that amazing PR for a now world famous Chinese brand would be wasted with this name change.
Before I never knew about Geely but since Volvo I know them as an international player in the auto market.
@King, they are just removing Geely as a car brand. The western media will probably use the term “Volvo, owned by China’s Geely” in much the same way they mention Warren Buffett when talking about BYD.
Guys, I am sure not everyone can pronounce “Hyundai” properly. Hyundai’s logo is also a disaster in image promotion, yet she is getting closer to Toyota & Honda in brand recognition. It is the quality and performance that matter. I don’t care what they are called as long as they meet the market needs.
@Ed
The thing is, “Toyota” and “Mitsubishi” are actual Japanese names – they’re not some hamfisted attempt to create a serious sounding English name by people who don’t clearly don’t understand idiomatic English.
“Gleagle” just sounds silly. It doesn’t roll off an English tongue, it just kind of hangs, droops, then flops off.
WarrenL, Eagle was a brand from Chrysler and I am sure Geely’s chief technical director was a fan when he was working in the US. Yes, it is a bit odd to add Gl to eagle to create the brand. May be he tries to pay tributes to the great Eagle.
@ Ed
> You would know because…? Are you Chinese yourself? Have you lived in China and studied the ways their consumers spend their money?
China-bashers have an intimate knowledge of people they bash. It is this intimate “know the enemy” knowledge that makes their bashing stick.
Chinese bashers of Japan and Korea on the other hand are pretty clueless about people they bash, so their bashing is not convincing at all.
A word of advice for Chinese nationalists; know the country you bash thoroughly if you hope to win an argument.
It makes sense for people,especially the Chinese to learn about Japan but what’s the deal about Korea ? And ofcourse I would expect more people around the world to know about China and the Chinese history than Korea. When people mention Asia, they immediately think of Japan and China. Korea as a nation is of very little importance on the world stage, it’s only relevant when North Korea becomes a hot topic. That’s why a lot of people, especially the Chinese nationalists don’t know much about Korea.
@mememe
“Korea as a nation is of very little importance on the world stage…”
Yup this is exactly what IHC was talking about. It’s pretty obvious you Chinese are clueless about Korea. Just because we didn’t murder millions of you Chinese doesn’t mean you should stay ignorant to your neighbors. But keep up the ignorance because it’s advantageous to us Koreans…:)
Come on guys, it’s a forum for talking “cars”.. Not international relationships.