30,000 yuan lower than the pre-sale price, who is the Battleship 700 aiming its muzzle at?
The Ti7 stands out uniquely in the boxy SUV market, and Great Wall H10 recorded sales exceeding 10,000 units immediately after its launch. As a leading automotive enterprise, Geely will definitely not miss this market track.
On the evening of October 10, the Geely Galaxy Warship 700 was officially launched, with Nicholas Tse invited as its spokesperson. This is also the first time in Nicholas Tse's 29-year career that he endorses a Chinese automotive brand. Although he has cooperated with Audi and Jeep in the automotive field before, he made an exception for the Galaxy Warship 700 this time, which has indeed aroused widespread discussion and public attention.
Celebrity influence may only help spread the name of this vehicle, but the author believes that whether a car can sell well and build sufficient influence in the market depends on its actual product strength and pricing.
Looking back at the pre-sale one month ago, the pre-sale price range was set at 199,800 yuan to 239,800 yuan, and the Land Ark version was priced at 389,800 yuan. After the official launch, counting in the official benefits and trade-in subsidies, the actual limited-time purchase price directly dropped by 30,000 yuan, reaching 169,800 yuan to 239,800 yuan, and the Land Ark version is now priced at 359,800 yuan.
For an SUV priced under 200,000 yuan, a direct 30,000-yuan price cut from pre-sale to official launch is a rare practice, no matter in the historical operation cases of the whole industry or in Geely's past product launches.
Therefore, as soon as this price was released, two distinct voices immediately emerged in the market. Some people think that this is a typical pre-sale price smoke bomb, which deliberately raises consumers' price expectations to create an illusion of excellent value for money. Others believe that this is a pricing strategy forced out by fierce market competition.
It should be noted that before the Warship 700 was launched, this segment was already surrounded by strong competitors. In addition to brands that have long been deeply engaged in the boxy SUV track such as Fangchengbao, Tank, Jetour, and BAIC Off-road, the GAC Trumpchi Yue 7, which has exactly the same positioning as the Warship 700, was launched not long ago with a starting price of more than 160,000 yuan. A number of new models including M-Hero M700 and BAIC Off-road Xingtan 5X are also eyeing this market segment.
In the exclusive interview after the press conference, the author directly raised a question to Fan Junyi, Executive Deputy General Manager of Geely Sales General Corporation: Geely's models have always been famous for their extremely high cost performance, which are usually slightly higher in configuration, larger in size but lower in price than competitors. It seems that Geely has once again taken the lead in launching a price war this time?
Fan Junyi responded that Geely does not fight a price war, but a value war. The core logic is not simply lowering the price, but making users truly feel that the car is worth every penny they pay under the premise of controllable costs.
Fan Junyi also did not avoid talking about the goals of the Warship 700. The launch theme of this model is "Meet at the Peak", which is not a simple publicity slogan. Its target is to break into the first echelon of the segment market, and even reach the peak as the launch slogan of this model puts it.
As Geely's first formal entry into the hard-core boxy SUV track, if Geely wants to gain the discourse power in this market and even become a new leading player, can Geely Galaxy really achieve this goal?
Consumers expect all-round performance, and so does Geely
When this model was unveiled two years ago, coupled with the public communication trends in the past year, most people actually thought that the positioning of this car would be quite high. For example, it is equipped with a hidden ladder frame, which is a 5-meter-class mid-to-large SUV, and it can even float on water in emergency situations. People generally believed that it would directly compete with products such as Fangchengbao Leopard 5, Tank 300 PHEV and BAIC Off-road BJ60, which are basically priced at around 300,000 yuan.
Especially for the emergency water floating capability, there were only two models on the market with this feature before. The first one is Yangwang U8, which belongs to the million-yuan level. The second one is Zongheng G700, which is priced at the 400,000-yuan level.
In addition, it was found at that time that this car is equipped with a power battery of nearly 50kWh, with a pure electric cruising range of more than 300 kilometers, as well as a 2.0T power configuration and three differential locks. So before all these functions and capabilities were officially announced, many people thought that the starting price of this car would probably be around 300,000 yuan.
In the end, the starting price of this car was directly pulled to less than 170,000 yuan, and the entry-level version is fully equipped, which really brings a great shock to consumers, and people have to admire Geely's capability and creative ideas in making hard-core off-road vehicles for the first time.
Many product definitions of hard-core SUVs easily fall into two extremes: they are either completely biased towards hardcore off-road, which makes them bulky to drive in cities with high fuel consumption; or they only have a boxy appearance, with almost no off-road capability at all. Geely's positioning of the Warship 700 is very consistent with the actual needs of users: users who buy this car spend 80% to 90% of their time on urban commuting, and only go off-roading and drive on rough roads on weekends and holidays.
The real mentality of users is "wanting all-round performance": they hope the car is comfortable and easy to drive in daily urban scenarios, and also has the hard-core off-road foundation for occasional outings. Therefore, the Warship 700 adopts the hidden integrated ladder frame architecture, trying to combine the two sets of demands of urban family use and off-road traversal into one vehicle.
In terms of product configurations, the configuration of this model is really generous. Users can get a four-wheel drive version for less than 200,000 yuan, which is also equipped with CDC dampers, Qianli Haohang advanced intelligent driving system, super EVA cockpit large model, spacious interior space, 47kWh large battery for all trims, and the pure electric cruising range exceeds 300 kilometers.
In contrast, many boxy competing products on the market are either built on a fuel-to-electricity chassis, or their pure electric cruising range is only about 100 to 200 kilometers. At the moment when pure electric performance is increasingly becoming a mainstream demand for family cars, the Warship 700 can be fully used as an electric car in cities, and it is also equipped with 6C ultra-fast charging that can be fully charged within 10 minutes, eliminating the energy replenishment anxiety during long-distance travel and off-road traversal. The Warship 700 just hits the pain points of this group of users.
Consumers have the demand for "all-round performance", and Geely is no exception.
Geely not only wants to capture boxy SUV enthusiasts who drive in cities most of the time, but also wants to win over players who go off-roading and wade through water on weekends and need hardcore capabilities such as emergency water floating; even hardcore users who need to challenge extreme scenarios such as 45-degree maximum climbing slope are also the target group Geely wants to cover.
For this reason, the price range of the Warship 700 is very wide, covering from more than 160,000 yuan to more than 350,000 yuan. The limited Land Ark version is even used to show the upper limit of its technology: the configuration that other brands sell for millions of yuan can achieve similar experience on Geely's model priced at more than 300,000 yuan. It can be seen that Geely wants to occupy a large enough market interval, and hopes to win over users with different demands.
However, this market is no longer a blue ocean. Although the annual market capacity can exceed 1 million units, there are more and more competing products, and there are more than 50 models on sale or to be launched.
In the past, such hard-core boxy SUVs were basically concentrated in the price range of 300,000 yuan to 400,000 yuan. Now with the emergence of products such as Trumpchi Yue 7 and Warship 700, the price range of hard-core boxy SUVs has gradually dropped to less than 200,000 yuan, directly competing head-to-head with mainstream family SUVs. It all depends on Geely's capability to seize market share.
End the monopoly of Fangchengbao Ti7 in the market
It can be seen from the SKU settings of the Warship 700 that its core sales versions are mainly concentrated in the price range below 200,000 yuan. Although it has many competitors and a long list of market share targets, the Warship 700 also has its most core competing products.
BYD is one of its key competitors. In the past, people thought that the Warship 700 was aimed at the Fangchengbao Leopard 5, but judging from the sales volume and market trend of the Leopard 5, its target user group is very limited. The most popular boxy SUV of BYD now is Ti7, whose monthly sales can stably reach 20,000 to 30,000 units, leading the entire boxy SUV market by a large margin, with stable sales of both PHEV and pure electric versions.
From the perspective of price range, the Warship 700 and Ti7 are highly overlapping. After comparing the hardware configurations, the product strength of the two models is comparable. For example, both have a pure electric cruising range of more than 300 kilometers, both are 5-meter-class vehicles, and the best-selling versions of Ti7 are also two-wheel drive versions. From this point of view, the two models have formed a direct head-to-head competition.
The second core competitor is Great Wall H10. This 5-meter-class mid-to-large SUV with a wheelbase of 3 meters recorded sales exceeding 10,000 units in the first month after its launch, firmly occupying the 200,000-230,000 yuan price range, and it is one of the most popular new products in the current market.
Although the size of the Warship 700 is slightly smaller than that of Great Wall H10, in the 200,000-230,000 yuan interval, the configuration of the Warship 700 is significantly higher than that of Great Wall H10. For example, at the price of 230,000 yuan, the Warship 700 is equipped with 2.0T power and air suspension, while Great Wall H10 only has these configurations on its top trim priced at 230,000 yuan, and the Warship 700 is equipped with air suspension at a price of less than 210,000 yuan.
Looking further up, it also directly faces the Tank 300 PHEV. In the price range near 300,000 yuan, mature hard-core products such as Fangchengbao Leopard 5 and Tank 400 are also its benchmarking targets. Even traditional professional off-road vehicles such as BAIC BJ40 and BJ60, as well as fuel and high-end hard-core models such as Prado and M-Hero priced at 250,000 to 400,000 yuan, the Warship 700 also hopes to capture part of their users.
Judging from the early market feedback, the Warship 700 has a very high popularity at the beginning. During the pre-sale period, the number of small reservations exceeded 50,000 units, and the number of large reservations exceeded 10,000 units within 12 minutes after the official launch, which shows that consumers have strong curiosity about Geely's first hard-core boxy SUV.
Judging only from the paper parameters and configuration list, the Warship 700 does not fall behind in the same segment. But high popularity does not equal long-term sales, and there are two unavoidable questions.
The first one is that Geely has rich experience in making family SUVs, but this is the first time it has made a real hard-core off-road vehicle. The hard-core off-road circle attaches great importance to accumulated word-of-mouth. Simply equipping a ladder frame and differential locks will not make the market immediately recognize its off-road capability. The real car-using experience of the first batch of users, the actual performance in outdoor off-roading, and the subsequent word-of-mouth spread among users are the key factors that determine whether it can maintain stable sales.
The second question is whether the Galaxy brand logo can support the 170,000-230,000 yuan price range. Previously, the Galaxy M9 had tried to impact this price range, and its final market performance achieved a temporary sales peak but then fell back. The core problem cannot be simply attributed to fierce market competition. After all, Geely is a leading automotive brand, and the key lies in whether its brand value can support this price system.
In contrast, for competing products, Fangchengbao Ti7 uses the independent Fangchengbao logo, and Great Wall H10 does not use the Haval logo, but adopts a brand new Great Wall logo. These practices all reflect the realistic problem of brand positioning: consumers' value perception of the brand will directly affect the upper limit of product performance.
The Warship 700 is equivalent to Galaxy's second impact on this price range. Whether it can break the ceiling of Geely Galaxy in the 150,000-yuan level and realize brand upward mobility still needs to be tested by the market.
Looking at the entire boxy SUV track, there are more than 50 products on sale now, but there are only 5 or 6 models that can stably achieve monthly sales exceeding 5,000 units. A large number of products are just accompanying runners, and many high-sales models are concentrated in the price range below 150,000 yuan. Only leading large manufacturers can achieve continuous monthly sales of more than 5,000 units in the price range above 150,000 yuan. It remains to be seen whether Geely can make the Warship 700 a smash hit this time.
This article