Geely Automobile Focuses on Connected and Autonomous Driving Technologies

Major Chinese automaker Geely Automobile announced that its passenger vehicle factory shipments (excluding Volvo brand) decreased by 9.3% year-on-year in 2019 to 1.36 million units. Sales revenue decreased 8.6% to 97.4 billion CNY and net profit fell 34.8% to 8.26 billion CNY. The general decline is due to the slump in the Chinese automobile market. In addition to decrease is sales, profits also declined because dealers sold their inventories which did not meet new emission regulations at discounted prices.

In January 2020, Geely Automobile set its sales target for the full year to 1.41 million units, a 4% increase from the previous year. Although the company affected by the coronavirus from February, there was no downward revision as of May. To achieve its target, Geely plans to aggressively launch products under the Geely, Geometry and Lynk & Co brands in 2020, focusing on SUVs.

Looking at new products on the market, the Geely brand released the Icon in February 2019. The high-end BEV brand Geometry launched its first product the D segment sedan Geometry A in April 2019. It sold only 13,000 units within the year. The Geometry+ platform, which is intended to integrate autonomous driving, connected and BEV, was introduced in April 2020. Based on this platform, the Geometry C electric SUV is planned to be released within the year equipped with 5G-based autonomous driving technology.

In the connected field, Geely is focusing on developing Global Key User Interface (GKUI), a smart in-vehicle system, mainly through its affiliated company, ECARX. The company has adopted American software technology company Nuance’s AI voice automotive technology to realize speedy voice operation and voice signal processing. In August 2019, ECARX concluded an agreement with Taiwanese fabless semiconductor company MediaTek to jointly develop in-vehicle intelligent chips.