Li Shufu made a feint

"You win!"

Zhang Xue, at the finish line, turned back and said to Li Shufu behind her.

In mid - June, the CCTV program "Dialogue" invited Li Shufu, the chairman of Geely Holding Group, and Zhang Xue, the founder of Zhangxue Motorcycle, together. The two had an unusual race: not competing on who could ride faster, but on who could ride slower and more steadily.

As a result, Li Shufu won.

Seeking stability rather than speed, this might be the ability that Li Shufu and Geely currently desire more.

On June 13th, at the Chongqing Auto Forum, Li Shufu said in a video speech: "The Chinese auto industry is currently putting on a false show of strength." He also announced that Geely would "orderly shut down, merge, and transfer" redundant entities.

In the week before that, two major brands under Geely changed their leaders one after another: On June 5th, An Conghui stepped down as the legal representative and chairman of Lynk & Co; on June 9th, Li Shufu stepped down as the chairman of Zeekr. Gan Jiayue, the CEO of Geely Auto Group, took over both brands at the same time.

The background of this personnel adjustment is that the industry has entered the stage of stock competition. From January to April, the output value of the Chinese auto industry increased by 6.1%, but the total retail sales of social consumer goods dropped by 11% year - on - year; the industry profit margin in the first quarter had fallen to 3.2%, lower than the average level of industrial enterprises above a designated size.

Specifically for Geely Auto, in 2025, Geely Auto's revenue reached 345.2 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 25%, hitting a record high; the sales volume exceeded 3 million vehicles for the first time, reaching 3.025 million vehicles, and the penetration rate of new energy vehicles jumped to 56%. However, in 2026, the cumulative sales volume in the first five months was 1.182 million vehicles, only a 1% year - on - year increase, and the completion rate of the annual target of 3.45 million vehicles was less than 35%.

Source: China Pictorial Library

Under the pressure of growth, Li Shufu's public statements convey a posture of contraction. But this kind of contraction is more like a feint - not a comprehensive retreat, but a selective reallocation of resources. While streamlining and integrating the traditional auto business, new businesses such as AI and intelligent driving are accelerating their expansion.

01

Contraction

Li Shufu has long attached great importance to Zeekr.

In March 2021, the Zeekr brand was launched, and Li Shufu personally served as the chairman. Three years later, Zeekr was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It only took 37 months from the brand launch to the listing, setting the fastest IPO record for new car - making forces. The market value exceeded $7 billion on the first day of listing.

However, the window period in the capital market was shorter than expected. From 2021 to 2024, Zeekr had net losses of 4.514 billion yuan, 7.655 billion yuan, 8.264 billion yuan, and 5.791 billion yuan respectively, with a cumulative loss of 26.224 billion yuan in four years.

What needs to be solved more urgently than the losses is the mutual consumption of internal resources. The Lynk & Co Z10 and the Zeekr 007 are in the same price range, competing for the same group of customers. According to public reports, before the merger, the R & D duplication rate of the two sides in the fields of intelligent driving, in - vehicle systems, three - electric systems, and vehicle architectures was about 15% to 20%. In 2024, Zeekr set a sales target of 230,000 vehicles, but actually achieved 222,000 vehicles. In the first four months of 2025, the monthly average sales volume hovered around 10,000 vehicles.

In May 2025, Geely Auto proposed to acquire all the issued shares of Zeekr. The merger agreement was signed in July, and Geely acquired all the shares it did not hold for about $2.4 billion. On December 22nd, Zeekr was officially delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and became a wholly - owned subsidiary of Geely Auto.

It was less than 600 days from listing to delisting.

In 2025, Zeekr delivered 224,000 vehicles throughout the year, only a slight increase compared to 2024, and was nearly 100,000 vehicles short of the target of 320,000 vehicles. The monthly sales volume of the main model, the Zeekr 001, dropped from over 10,000 in 2024 to 2,174 in April 2025.

Source: Visual China

Zeekr's delisting announced that Geely's "spin - off listing and independent financing" model hit the ceiling in the high - end new energy vehicle track. In the first year of Zeekr's return to the Geely system, its performance was a mixed bag.

Throughout 2025, Geely's administrative expense ratio decreased by 17.1%, the R & D investment ratio decreased by 13.5%, and the sales expense ratio decreased by 0.7%. The total R & D investment for the whole year still reached 21.9 billion yuan.

In the first five months of 2026, Zeekr's sales volume was 143,000 vehicles, a year - on - year increase of 93%, making it the fastest - growing brand in the Geely system. However, its annual sales target for 2026 is 300,000 vehicles, and the completion rate in the first five months is less than 48%. Whether the sales target can be achieved as scheduled has become the pressure and challenge that the successor, Gan Jiayue, needs to face directly.

In September 2024, Li Shufu issued the "Taizhou Declaration" in Taizhou, proposing five major measures of "strategic focus, strategic integration, strategic synergy, strategic stability, and strategic talent". This is regarded as a programmatic document for Geely to shift from "multi - brand expansion" to "returning to one Geely". In this year, Geely's revenue was 240.2 billion yuan, a year - on - year increase of 34%. The annual sales volume was 2.177 million vehicles, and the proportion of new energy vehicle sales increased to 41%.

And the report card that Gan Jiayue will hand in next will be an important footnote to test whether Li Shufu's promotion of the "one Geely" strategic integration and optimization of the governance structure can succeed.

02

New Proposition

While the auto business is contracting, Geely's layout in the intelligent field is accelerating.

In July 2024, Yin Qi, the co - founder of Megvii Technology, acquired 19.91% of the shares of Qianli Technology (formerly Lifan Technology) held by Geely through his affiliated company for 2.43 billion yuan, becoming the second - largest shareholder, and then served as the chairman. In February 2025, the company was renamed "Qianli Technology", clarifying the "AI + vehicle" strategy. In the eyes of the outside world, this is not a simple financial investment, but a crucial step for Li Shufu to entrust the intelligentization lifeline of Geely to an external technology partner.

Li Shufu Source: Respondent

Since then, the integration has deepened step by step. In August 2025, Geely integrated the Zeekr assisted - driving team and Maichi Zhixing under Megvii to form Qianli Intelligent Driving, which was incorporated under Qianli Technology, with a R & D team of about 2,000 people. In May 2026, hundreds of people from the assisted - driving team of Geely's Central Research Institute were transferred again. So far, Geely has almost injected its entire intelligent - driving system into Qianli Technology. In September 2025, Li Shufu said bluntly at the Qianli Technology brand launch event that the future belongs to Yin Qi.

While the scale is expanding, the losses are also continuing. From 2023 to 2025, Qianli Technology's revenue increased from 6.698 billion yuan to 9.876 billion yuan, with a cumulative net loss of 912 million yuan in three consecutive years. Geely is both its largest customer and its largest supplier. As of March 2026, the number of Qianli Technology's intelligent - driving vehicles on the road was 460,000, almost all from the Geely system. Zhao Ming (former CEO of Honor) served as the co - chairman in February 2026 and set the goal of having 1 million vehicles on the road by the end of the year and aiming for 8 million vehicles in 2028 - this is a battle that requires continuous investment.

Meanwhile, Geely's layout of the "full - domain AI" technology base, Xingrui Intelligent Computing Center 2.0, self - developed satellite communication chips, and Aerofugia flying cars is still advancing. These new businesses are difficult to contribute to revenue in the short term, but they constitute Geely's "second growth curve".

According to public reports, Aerofugia has launched the guidance for IPO on the Science and Technology Innovation Board and officially launched a sprint into the capital market. According to public reports, Aerofugia, founded in 2016, is a technology company under Geely Holding Group dedicated to low - altitude transportation.

As a landmark figure in the Chinese auto industry, Li Shufu has experienced three role transformations: In 1997, he broke into the auto industry in the posture of a "car madman" and became the first private car - maker in China, breaking a gap in the joint - venture monopoly and growing wildly; in 2010, he made a "snake swallowing an elephant" acquisition of Volvo, incubating more than a dozen brands over more than a decade and pushing Geely to the peak of scale; now that the industry development has entered the stock era, he took the lead in stepping on the brakes and readjusting the business map.

These three role transformations correspond to three eras of the Chinese auto industry: the wild - west startup period, the capital expansion period, and the stock game period.

How to move forward steadily in the new development stage has become a brand - new proposition for Li Shufu.

This article is from the WeChat official account "China Entrepreneur Magazine" (ID: iceo - com - cn), written by Shi Siyu and Wang Yijie, edited by Ma Jiying, and published by 36Kr with permission.