Chapter 492 Sales volume exceeds 10,000
As the first model after Subaru was founded and also the legacy of the former Fuji Heavy Industries, the Legacy can be said to have been highly anticipated by the entire company.
After three months of non-stop promotion before the New Year, Legacy is not yet a household name in Japan.
But when people see it, they still have the impression that it looks familiar.
At that time, because of the emperor-licking incident, Japanese society would carry out so-called self-discipline every now and then.
This has had a certain impact on TV advertising, but with the cooperation of Shirakawa Holdings, Subaru's ground-based advertising has done a good job.
It’s okay if TV commercials are not allowed to be broadcast, but I can post my posters wherever I want, right?
As street posters and highway advertisements were everywhere, people finally had some impression of this new Subaru model.
After all, the advertising bombardment every once in a while is already familiar enough to people, and we often see it on the way home or while traveling, so everyone has a deeper impression of it.
However, what really attracts attention is the cool full-color LCD instrument panel of the Lion. It is no exaggeration to say that this is an unprecedented major innovation in the automotive industry.
Far ahead!
Even if the mechanical watches in the past had some lighting effects, they were still far from the high-definition LCD instruments.
For many people, the moment when the key is turned and the black screen suddenly lights up in the Subaru Legacy advertisement touches the hearts of countless people.
So beautiful, and so stunning.
Many people who didn't know the truth once thought that Subaru had stuffed a color TV in the car.
Although this idea is exaggerated, for this era, such full-color images are almost the same as color TV.
So Subaru caused a sensation when it launched the advertisement, but everyone was a little skeptical at that time.
After all, it is not uncommon for false advertisers to make exaggerated product advertisements.
Today's laws in Japan are far from being as perfect as they are in later generations, and phenomena such as false advertising are common.
So when it comes to Subaru's advertisement, everyone is amazed but also watching silently.
The things they brought out were too advanced, even if they were real, they still made people suspicious.
For this reason, some current affairs commentators have been arguing in newspapers or on the radio about whether full-color LCD instruments are real.
Subaru remained unmoved by outside doubts. It was busy with only one thing in the past three months, which was production and stocking.
After all, time is tight and large-scale mass production is required, so the OEM in Gunma has been extremely busy.
In this way, amidst the eye-catching, amazed, questioned and debated, the Subaru Legacy was launched as scheduled in early December.
People who had been waiting to watch the excitement flocked to Subaru's 4S stores all over Japan on the first day.
When they enter the store, they only look at the top-of-the-line luxury models.
It’s not that people are so rich, but people are simply curious about whether the LCD screen on the deluxe version is real or fake.
So when the employee of the 4S store turned the key and the Subaru blue six-star logo lit up on the black dashboard of the car, the crowd in the entire store was excited.
"It's colorful! It's actually colorful!"
“It’s so clear, so incredible~”
"It's amazing! The watch hands disappeared~"
"This screen design is really beautiful. I don't need to stare at the pointer to check the code speed anymore. It will be displayed directly on the screen."
In fact, the Subaru Legacy's LCD instrument panel also has pointers, but it achieves this function through the screen.
A white circle of numbers, a red pointer and the warning code speed are clearly presented in front of you.
The entire screen shows the speed on the left, the engine speed on the right, and the mileage and current driving speed in the middle.
In addition, there is basic information such as date and time in the upper right corner, and the empty space in the middle of the dial is reserved for the CD player.
That’s right, the display information of the car’s CD player has also been integrated into the LCD instrument panel.
The small monochrome LCD screen previously reserved for the CD player has now been removed for space considerations.
The full details and sci-fi design made everyone amazed.
After being shocked, everyone ran towards the sales staff of the 4S store.
Faced with a barrage of inquiries and endless ordering requests, the store employees were busy sweating.
Some impatient people even took out a bag of brown paper envelopes, stuffed them into the salesperson's arms and asked to pick up the car immediately.
There was cash in there, just over 5 million yen, and when stacked up it was only about 5 centimeters.
Usually, you can just put it in your bag and carry it easily. Of course, more people use credit cards.
In this day and age, swiping credit cards has almost become an instinct for everyone.
A dinner costs hundreds of thousands of yen, a discotheque costs hundreds of thousands. It is not unacceptable to spend 5 million yen on a unique luxury car.
That's right, people are scrambling to buy the Subaru Legacy, not for its so-called horizontally opposed car, full-time four-wheel drive, or safety performance.
People buy it simply because it has an LCD display instrument that is unique in Neon and the world.
The aesthetics of the bubble era are exaggerated and radical. They are not afraid of you being too unique, but they are afraid of you being too ordinary.
When people buy things, dazzling, novel, eye-catching and other features become the first considerations for purchase, and price is not so important.
There is no doubt that Subaru's LCD instrument meets this requirement, so the name Legacy has become the darling of the automotive industry.
Looking at the report in his hand, not only Nakamura Takao and others below him were extremely excited, even Shirakawa Kaede himself was delighted.
4,700 vehicles were sold in the first month, 6,300 vehicles in the second month, and 8,500 vehicles in the third month. A total of 20,000 Legacy vehicles have rolled off the production line since its launch, and now they have basically all been sold out.
In fact, in the first month, everyone already knew that Legacy would not be bad.
Although less than 5,000 vehicles were sold that month, it was lower than Nissan's CIMA.
But that was because production capacity limited sales. In the following two months, as the production capacity of the OEMs was gradually released, sales also continued to rise.
A big part of the reason for this is that the orders placed in the first month were piled up for delivery in the last two months.
However, as the reputation of Legacy spread, subsequent orders also came in continuously.
According to Subaru's internal estimates, this growth will continue for some time.
But no matter what, sales of nearly 20,000 in three months is definitely an unprecedented victory for Subaru.
There are not many cars from Toyota, let alone Fuji Heavy Industries, that can break this record.
Of course, the premise is that only the domestic market is counted. If the whole world is included, Toyota will beat Subaru to the limit.
However, although it is not as good as Toyota, Shirakawa Kaede is already very satisfied.
You should know that Subaru's net profit from selling a car can reach 13%, and most of the nearly 20,000 sales are contributed by the luxury version. After all, only it is equipped with a full-color LCD instrument.
Based on the luxury version's selling price of 5.4 million yen, Subaru makes an average net profit of about 600,000 yen per car.
20,000 vehicles means a net profit of nearly 12 billion yen in three months, and these are three months of ramping up production capacity!
It turns out that selling cars still makes money. Neon’s production capacity has not yet reached its peak, and the vast overseas market has not yet been developed.
Baichuan Feng has already seen countless small coins waving at him, and Legacy is the first one.
There will be a subsequent Alcyone SVX version, and more models are waiting for Subaru after that.
Baichuan Feng took a deep breath and suppressed his excitement. The 12 billion profit in front of him was enough to get Subaru out of the shadow of continuous losses.
"Let the factory in Gunma fully produce the Lion model, and discuss with Isuzu to convert the production capacity of the Oizumi factory into the production capacity of the Lion."
Due to losses in its overseas business, Subaru's own production capacity utilization rate was less than half.
In order to find a way out and to save itself, Subaru chose to manufacture for Isuzu.
The two companies have previously cooperated in special vehicle areas such as buses, and Isuzu even holds a 1.7% stake in Subaru.
However, the hot sales of Legacy not only utilized all the factories in Gunma, but it was still not enough to make up for the market consumption rate.
In this case, we can only give priority to internal needs and postpone the OEM orders.
Nakamura Takao was not surprised by Shirakawa Kaede's order. After all, the profit of OEM was so little.
"Please rest assured, Mr. Shirakawa, we have already communicated with Isuzu.
The other party also expressed understanding of our demands and expected that the model switch could be completed within a month.”
Subaru and Isuzu have a shareholding connection and technical cooperation, so the relationship between the two is generally good.
Unfortunately, Subaru currently has too few fully automated production lines. If it could assemble a car in less than two minutes like Toyota, there would be no capacity constraints.
Some of Toyota's popular models can sell millions of units a year. For example, Lotus previously shipped 900,000 units a year worldwide.
If we take into account Toyota's many other models, the output is actually very terrifying.
But Toyota's automated production line is equally impressive, with a car rolling off the line almost every 72 seconds.
This speed is undoubtedly the best in Japan, and no other manufacturer can match it.
At this time, Shirakawa Feng was very envious of Toyota's fully automated production line, but for now he could only think about it.
Not to mention that Subaru models have complex process flow and greatly reduced vehicle production speed due to their horizontally opposed and full-time four-wheel drive.
Just the fully automated production line alone is a huge expense, and the extent to which it can achieve is that a pile of steel is transported into the factory and a complete car comes out.
Subaru is having a tight time now , so the fully automatic production line can only be developed later.
"When will the North American and European models be launched on the market?" Neon's sales are very attractive, and Shirakawa Kaede is also looking forward to its performance overseas.
"It will be launched in April, and we have prepared 10,000 vehicles in stock in advance."
When he reported the number "10,000", Takao Nakamura even gritted his teeth.
The reason why he behaved like this is because the inventory pressure is very great.
As we all know, the inventory quantity of automobile production is also a science. Too little will cause the supply to fall short of the demand, affecting the optimal sales cycle.
If there are too many, there will be pressure to make a loss. The manufacturing cost of cars is very high, especially luxury models, which cost millions.
Ten thousand vehicles would mean an investment of several hundred billion yen.
This is another huge expense, and there is also a saying that new cars are inventory cars.
If a car is not sold within six months after it leaves the factory, it becomes inventory.
Although there is no significant impact on performance, many consumers mind this and say they just don't want to buy stock cars.
So no matter from which perspective, a stock of 10,000 vehicles is a lot.
After all, the overseas market is not as crazy as Japan, where everyone only considers spending money and nothing else.
The overseas market at this time is still rational and calm, so Baichuan Feng doesn't know how Legacy will perform overseas.
But there is no need to worry too much, at least there is the neon market to provide a backup.
If they really can’t be sold, the worst that can happen is that they can be brought back and consumed internally.
"Mr. Shirakawa, according to the marketing department's forecast, the sales volume of Legacy in April is likely to exceed 10,000 units!"
"Um?"
When Shirakawa Kaede was thinking about the fully automated production line, he was surprised by Nakamura Takao's words.
"So many?"
