Shanghai (ZXZC)- Dongfeng Citroen, a brand of Dongfeng Peugeot Citroen Automobile Company Ltd (DPCA), sold 13,850 vehicles in January this year, jumping 68.9% year on year. This is also the best sales performance since the brand implemented marketing reform in September last year. 

DPCA suffered a substantial year-on-year sales decrease of 37% to 378,000 units in 2017. The weak sales largely resulted from mismatching position of products and prices and the unnecessary competition among its own products. 

DPCA has taken many reforming measures to put its sales performance back on track. For instance, Dongfeng Citroen conducted a series of actions (called “Hurricane” inside) to adjust its deficient commercial policies which did reap some positive results. The overdue inventory of sales networks had decreased nearly 22,000 units by the end of 2017 with coefficient of inventory falling to 0.9. Besides, Dongfeng Citroen achieved sales growth month by month since the SUV model Aircross went on sales in September last year and reached a monthly sales volume exceeding 22,600 in the year-end spurt.

Dongfeng Citroen will continue the dynamic momentum this year by means of promoting brand image, optimizing product portfolios and enhancing management capability of enterprise. 

The automaker will put forward a new brand concept, "inspired by you", to guarantee of focusing on consumers’ experience and interests. In the meantime, it wishes to build a more energetic and more innovative brand image by designing and launching several new products.

Reportedly, Dongfeng Citroen plans to launch the first SUV model carrying the operating system from Alibaba Cloud this year. As to sedans, the automaker will stress the vehicle’s capacious space to ensure drivers' comfortable experience.

In addition, Dongfeng Citroen plans to launch its first electric vehicle in the last quarter this year. It also has a blueprint to release at least one all-new model and a competitive refreshed model each year.

Dongfeng Citroen will pay much attention on the reconstruction of its sales channels, commercial policies and service system. Meanwhile, Groupe PSA will carry out revitalization planning tailored for its Chinese market in four major aspects, brand image, products, sales networks and prices. Besides, DPCA also provides support for Dongfeng Citroen brand in several areas, such as new energy vehicle, platform-sharing and resource synergy. 

DPCA aims to hand over 476,000 vehicles this year and reduce the cost by 10% from the previous year. From January sales performance of Dongfeng Citroen, the reform has given preliminary results to some degree.