Geely Automobile has announced it will kill all sub-brands and go back to the Geely brand. The sub-brands Emgrand, GLEagle, and Englon will die within this year. The sub-brands were born in 2009 as part of a strategy to create more brands and thus more sales. It didn’t turn out that way as Geely didn’t differentiate, selling very similar cars for very similar money, confusing consumers and media alike.

My ‘infographic’ shows the extend of the problems Geely got itself into. Only the TX4, which is originally a British car, and the Emgrand EC8, which is basically a souped-up EC7, are brand-originals. All the other cars have brothers and sisters in the other brands. The best example of the madness are the GLeagle GX7 and Englon SX7 SUV’s, which are exactly the same, and Geely was planning an exactly-the-same-again Geely Emgrand EX7, but that one is apparently cancelled now.

The new strategy will see ‘Geely’ come back as the one and only brand of Geely Automobile. The move will eventually result in a simpler line-up that makes sense to buyers. The move will also save Geely a lot of money, especially in the marketing and sales departments, where every yuan can be used to promote the Geely brand.