As part of the implementation of its 'Push to Pass' plan and to support the China & southeast Asia region's goal of selling 1m vehicles in 2018, Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile (DPCA) inaugurated its fourth Chinese assembly plant, this one in Chengdu.
This fourth DPCA plant will manufacture vehicles for the Dongfeng Peugeot, Dongfeng Citroën and Dongfeng Fengshen brands on the PSA Group's EMP2 platform, primarily SUV models. Production will begin with the new Peugeot 4008 scheduled for launch in November 2016. Following a gain of 53% in 2015, the SUV segment continued to expand rapidly in first-half 2016, with 44% growth. It currently accounts for 38.8% of the Chinese market. As a whole, the Chinese auto market offers great potential. Car ownership stands at 75 vehicles per 1,000 inhabitants, and the country recently overtook the United States to become home to the world's largest middle class, which represented 110m people at end-2015. This figure is forecast to double to 220m by 2022.
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DPCA built the plant in two years. It uses a flexible manufacturing system that enables close cooperation with suppliers.
In addition to the CAPSA plant in Shenzen, which manufactures DS models, DPCA's production base now comprises four assembly plants: three in Wuhan, in Hubei province, and one in Chengdu, in Sichuan province. With this new facility and DPCA's latest 5A+ medium-term plan unveiled on 11 May, the PSA Group and DFM have demonstrated their commitment to strengthening their strategic partnership in order to satisfy the needs of the Chinese market. The two partners are pursuing three clear-cut objectives for improving the joint venture's financial performance:
- Significantly increasing customer satisfaction with products and services to become one of the top three in the industry by 2018 and No. 1 by 2020
- Generating revenue in excess of RMB100bn by 2020
- Achieving profitable, sustainable growth underpinned by productivity gains of 30% by 2020
PSA Group chairman Carlos Tavares said: "This new plant will help us to expand our vehicle range in the fast-growing SUV segment and meet the needs of our Chinese customers. It represents an important step in implementing our Push to Pass plan and achieving our objective to launch 20 new models in China by 2021 and sell over 1m vehicles in the region by 2018."
