a red sports car parking on the side of the road
On February 14, Chinese electric vehicles brand ZEEKR completed the acquisition and capital injection of Lynk & Co. After the completion of the transaction, 51% of Lynk & Co's interest belongs to ZEEKR, 49% of the interest belongs to Geely Automobile, and the new company after the merger of ZEEKR and Lynk & Co is named Zeekr Intelligent Technology Holding Limited (极氪科技集团).
Conghui An (安聪慧), CEO of ZEEKR Technology Group, said that on the consumer-facing front end, ZEEKR and Lynk & Co maintain independent operation and adhere to the dual-brand operation strategy; Manufacturing system, supply chain and other middle and back office organizations as well as overseas organizations will be fully integrated, and through AI enabling, to build a more competitive integrated strong consortium.
In terms of brand, ZEEKR is positioned as a "global luxury technology brand", focusing on the market of CNY 300,000 and above, mainly focusing on medium and large cars, medium-sized cars focusing on pure electricity, and large cars focusing on super electric mix; Lynk & Co is positioned as a "global high-end brand of new energy", focusing on the market of CNY 200,000 and above, focusing on pure electricity for small cars and hybrid for medium and large cars.
The integration of the two major automobile brands can avoid overlapping product positioning and repeated investment in R&D resources within the group, improve scale advantages and save development costs. Conghui An believes that after adjustment, the company is more flat in product planning, project management, hardware and software function integration modules, product-line organizational structure, decision-making efficiency is higher, and development costs are lower. According to reports, after the merger, the number of products originally planned by Lynk & Co and ZEEKR has been reduced by more than 20%, and material costs are expected to be saved by 5% to 8%. Jing Yuan (袁璟), CFO of ZEEKR Technology Group, said that after the scale effect is amplified, the Break-Even Point of ZEEKR Technology Group will be much earlier than expected.
The combined company also announced its goals for this year: to launch five new products in 2025 and strengthen global market expansion; Focus on the three innovation priorities, namely super electric mixing, full chain AI and global security; It is planned to achieve the annual sales target of 710,000 units, with Lynk & Co contributing 390,000 units and ZEEKR contributing 320,000 units; Grow into a high-end luxury new energy automotive company with annual sales of one million units within two years.
The ZEEKR Technology Group's overseas channel expansion will also speed up, and it plans to build more than 200 stores with the help of Volvo's overseas resources and service system. Outside the European market, the two brands will establish a unified sales company to strengthen global channel synergies.
Previously on February 9, the two Chinese central enterprise vehicle giant Dongfeng Group and Changan Automobile have annouced that the two sides are planning to restructure with a state-owned central enterprise. From the development of the global automobile market, integration and cooperation have become a trend, and the collaboration between automobile companies is gradually becoming an important way to cope with fierce competition and technological change.