Li Shufu Hands Over the Baton, What Can Geely Rely On to Rebuild "One Geely"?

On August 17, Geely Automobile announced its mid-year 2026 performance. Almost at the same time, a more symbolic handover was also taking place.

Li Shufu resigned as Chairman and Executive Director of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited, with An Conghui taking over as Chairman. For Geely, amidst simple personnel adjustments, the enterprise achieved a governance upgrade after a new phase of development.

After all, today Geely Automobile has set its 2030 goal at sales volume over 6.5 million units and revenue exceeding 1 trillion yuan. Having reached the current scale, how to establish a systemic, professional, and young management system, to let Geely transform from being driven by "one person" to truly becoming the cause of "a group of people", has become key to supporting the next round of growth.

Right at this node, Geely presented a semi-annual report with considerable weight. In the first half of the year, Geely's total sales volume exceeded 1.42 million units, total revenue reached 173.6 billion yuan, up 15% year-on-year, maintaining growth for six consecutive years; core net profit attributable to shareholders reached 9.68 billion yuan, up 46% year-on-year, profit growth significantly outpaced revenue growth; gross margin reached 17.9%, core net profit margin increased to 5.6%, revenue per vehicle increased 16% year-on-year to 112,000 yuan. By the end of June, cash reserves further reached a historic high of 69.56 billion yuan.

If the management handover solves the question of "who will lead Geely forward in the future", then the semi-annual report this year answers what kind of Geely the new management team is taking over. At least based on the current portfolio, An Conghui is taking over an automotive group with a stable financial foundation, a gradually clear brand matrix, rapid expansion in overseas markets, while still possessing ample technology and cash reserves.

Of course, a good hand does not mean the game will be easy. Geely's full-year sales target for this year reached 3.45 million, completed 1.423 million in the first half, still needs to complete over 2 million in the second half; after rapid growth in new energy vehicle sales, the mainstream market of 120,000 to 250,000 yuan still needs to strengthen "mid-range products"; after overseas sales exceeded 470,000, how to move from exports to truly local operations has become a new exam question; meanwhile, "One Geely" still needs to continue to solve the efficiency problems behind multiple brands, multiple platforms, and a huge organizational system...

At this time, what is truly worth discussing in this semi-annual report is no longer how much money Geely earned. After the important management handover, they are jointly answering: When Geely goes from a 3 million unit-level automaker to a 6.5 million unit-level global automotive group, what does it rely on to achieve the next round of growth?

Aiming for One Million Units, Geely's Globalization Reached the Moment to "Change Track"

One of the most notable changes Geely witnessed in the first half of the year was overseas markets. Data shows that in the first half of the year, Geely Automobile overseas sales exceeded 474,000 units, up 158% year-on-year. Among them, new energy vehicle overseas sales reached 277,000 units, up 585% year-on-year, new energy vehicles accounted for 58.5% of overseas sales proportion. By the first half of the year, Geely has covered 114 core overseas markets, global channels exceeded 2,000.

Such growth directly changed Geely's goals set at the beginning of the year.

At the mid-year performance conference, An Conghui, Chairman of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited, announced raising the 2026 overseas sales target from 640,000 units to 920,000 units, and further proposed challenging 1 million units. The more long-term goal is even more aggressive; in the future, Geely hopes two-thirds of sales come from overseas.

The importance of this sentence may be even greater than "exporting one million units" itself. Because if calculated based on Geely's 2030 sales target of over 6.5 million units, two-thirds means in the future Geely may need to support a sales scale of millions of units overseas. At that time, overseas markets will not be a supplement to Chinese sales but must truly become core business on par with the Chinese market.

Therefore, what Geely is doing now is no longer just "selling more cars abroad".

Gan Jiayue, CEO of Geely Automobile Holdings Limited, stated that Geely is building an overseas system of "One Geely". Zeekr, Lynk & Co, Geely, and other brands share middle and back-office resources, and establish different scale goals around Pan-European, ASEAN, Latin America & Africa, Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Middle East regions. Among them, Pan-European market target reaches 600,000 units, ASEAN 500,000 units, Latin America & Africa 400,000 units, Eastern Europe 300,000 units, Central Asia & Middle East 200,000 units, together forming a 2 million unit overseas foundation. This is also what Geely internationalization calls the "123456" strategy.

Overseas goals have changed, and the methods to achieve these numbers are all different.

In the past, the most typical path for Chinese cars going overseas was producing domestically and exporting via trade; one step further, independently building factories locally. Now, Geely is trying to utilize industrial resources accumulated from years of global mergers and acquisitions and cooperation to turn overseas partners' existing capacity into its own global manufacturing network.

An Conghui revealed that Geely's overseas manufacturing system has already begun to take shape. Malaysia Proton factory is upgrading to a 500,000 unit Southeast Asian production base; Spain Ford factory has about 500,000 units capacity, will produce multiple Geely brand models in the future; Volvo Europe factory can take on Geely's high-end products; Renault合作的 Brazil project planned capacity about 300,000 units. Geely summarizes this as "industrial symbiotic" going overseas, that is, using existing resources of partners like Volvo, Proton, Renault, Ford, etc., to accelerate localization with a relatively lighter asset model.

The value of this system will be more obvious in the environment where global trade barriers are increasing. For an enterprise planning for most future sales to come from overseas, true globalization is having R&D, production, supply chain, channels, and after-sales service capabilities in different markets. To this, Gan Jiayue specifically emphasized at the press conference "whether after-sales service can be done well is one of the important marks of whether Chinese automakers can successfully go global", which actually explains that Geely's understanding of globalization is changing.

From selling products to managing markets, then to managing local industrial systems, this is a layer of change behind Geely's export numbers that deserves more attention. Moreover, overseas growth is turning back to improve Geely's profit structure. Taking Galaxy Xingyuan as an example, it undertakes the task of sales volume domestically, but overseas markets, due to higher selling prices and profit space, can contribute better revenue per vehicle. In the first half of the year, Xingyuan exported 87,000 units, accounting for over 40% of Galaxy brand exports, some overseas market selling prices significantly higher than domestic.

In other words, past exports solved "selling more cars", in the future Geely hopes to solve "where to sell cars for more profit".

Strengthen Both Ends, Next Step is to Strengthen the "Waist"

However, the beautiful numbers in the semi-annual report do not mean Geely has no problems. At the performance meeting, An Conghui directly pointed out the most realistic shortcoming in the current product structure: Geely new energy still lacks a strong enough "mid-range product".

Today Geely's product matrix two ends are already quite clear.

High-end market, Zeekr has gradually built price and brand support. In the first half of the year, Zeekr sales reached 178,400 units, up 97% year-on-year, sales accounted for 12.5% of Geely total sales, but contributed 31.7% of revenue, average transaction price around 350,000 yuan, meaning Zeekr is undertaking the important task of Geely improving revenue per vehicle and profit structure. The other end, Galaxy has established scale advantages. In the first half of the year, Galaxy sales close to 520,000 units, Xingyuan and other products became important volume-driving models.

What truly needs strengthening is the middle.

120,000 to 250,000 yuan is exactly one of the most cruel and largest mainstream battlefields for China's new energy vehicles today. This market faces not a single brand, but a product group formed by many domestic new energy brands densely layout. Consumers are extremely sensitive to range, space, intelligent driving, cockpit, hybrid efficiency, and even price.

Of course, Geely is not without products. Galaxy E5, Starship 7, and Lynk & Co some models have already entered this market, but from the whole new energy matrix perspective, there is still a need for more "mid-range forces" that can continuously stand at the top of niche markets and form stable monthly sales volumes. This is why the second half of the year is so important for Geely.

Gan Jiayue stated that Galaxy TT, Galaxy Warship 700, and Lynk & Co 07 GT, New Lynk & Co Z20, and other products are entering the market one after another, essentially bearing the same task: to let Geely new energy's sales structure further transform from "few star models + high-end brands" to a product matrix with multiple stable pivot points. According to Geely announced plans, Galaxy will also expand mainstream market coverage through featured new products, main model upgrades, etc., while Lynk & Co 07 GT aims for the 150,000 to 200,000 yuan B-class plug-in hybrid wagon market.

An automotive group that reached 3 million units, 4 million units, and future 6.5 million units scale cannot always rely on one or two hit products to support growth. In the second half of the year, what Geely truly needs to prove is whether it can establish a whole row of "mid-range forces". This is the first product system exam that "One Geely" must accept after completing brand sorting.

"One Geely" Starts Subtraction, Profit Sheet Starts Addition

In the past decade or so, Geely built a huge brand and technology system through acquisitions, incubation, and internal innovation. It helped Geely complete the leap from a Chinese independent automaker to a global automotive group, but following this came multiple brands, multiple platforms, multiple R&D teams, multiple sales systems, and even product cross-over in similar price ranges.

During the industry's high-growth period, this model could cover efficiency problems through incremental growth; when the industry enters stock competition, repeated R&D, repeated procurement, repeated channels, and internal product competition will directly reflect on the profit sheet. Therefore, the most important significance of "One Geely" is to do a "subtraction" to the complex system left behind by past rapid expansion.

Gan Jiayue revealed that after "One Geely" integration, Geely has adjusted product planning with cross-over, reducing product quantity by about 20%. At the same time, R&D starts sharing vehicle architecture, electronic-electrical architecture, three-electric, assisted driving, and smart cockpit technology resources; procurement promotes joint procurement; manufacturing coordinates production; channels and after-sales gradually co-build, middle and back-office human resources, finance, legal, and other resources also begin coordination.

These changes have finally entered the financial statements. In the first half of the year, Geely's administrative expense ratio decreased 0.2 percentage points year-on-year to 1.7%, R&D investment ratio decreased 0.3 percentage points to 5.2%; in the case of rapid overseas business expansion, sales expense ratio still remains basically flat compared to the same period last year. At the same time, Geely's total R&D investment still reached 9.061 billion yuan, up 8% year-on-year.

Even more noteworthy is that in the first half of this year, Geely continued to actively compress supplier payment terms, currently supplier payment terms have been unified to within 60 days, small and medium suppliers further shortened to within 30 days; listed company accounts payable turnover days decreased from 115 days last year to 103 days, second quarter further dropped to 96 days.

For automakers, extending payment terms can improve short-term cash flow, shortening payment terms means true money flows out earlier. Geely chose the latter, essentially using its own cash reserves to exchange for supply chain stability. By the end of June, Geely cash reserves still reached a historic high of 69.56 billion yuan.

So, the value of 69.56 billion yuan besides "Geely has a lot of money on the ledger", it also gave Geely the qualification to make long-term choices in the industry's low-profit cycle.

Gasoline Vehicles Are Another Card in Geely's Globalization

There is another number in the semi-annual report that is easily overlooked.

In the first half of the year, Geely gasoline and gasoline hybrid model sales reached 623,500 units, down 8.8% year-on-year. Surface appearance seems not very eye-catching. But Gan Jiayue responded that the same period China gasoline and gasoline hybrid market overall decreased about 17%, Geely decline significantly smaller than market, thus instead achieving market share increase.

In past few years, some automakers equated "comprehensive new energy transformation" with quickly exiting gasoline vehicles, but for an ultra-large automotive group like Geely, the answer is obviously more complex. So what Geely did to gasoline vehicles was redefinition, laying out from harmless and intelligentization two directions.

Gan Jiayue pointed out that in the future Geely will no longer continue to develop traditional pure gasoline products, but gradually transition to i-HEV Smart Engine hybrid, reducing fuel consumption through electrification, while moving intelligent cockpit, assisted driving, and other capabilities formed in new energy era to gasoline foundation.

Currently i-HEV has covered Emgrand, Xingyue L, Xingrui and other main products, within the year will also add 3 model types, year-end i-HEV plan to hit monthly sales over 30,000 units, and enter European, Asia-Pacific, UK, Australia New Zealand and other overseas markets in 2027. In this way, China Star's role will also change. In the first half of the year, China Star sales exceeded 580,000 units, continuing to contribute stable sales and profits to Geely. For today's Geely, cash flow created by gasoline vehicles can continue to support large-scale investment in new energy, AI, globalization, etc.; after i-HEV transformation, China Star can again become an important product tool for Geely entering some overseas markets.

This strategy is actually a very realistic technical route selection, letting different energy forms serve different markets. Pure electric suits mature infrastructure markets, plug-in hybrid, extended-range cover more new energy scenarios, i-HEV adapts to areas with insufficient charging facilities, methanol can enter more special energy markets. Geely ultimately hopes to establish a system where five technical routes parallel: pure electric, plug-in hybrid, extended-range, gasoline hybrid, alcohol-hydrogen.

From this perspective, gasoline vehicles are not Geely new energy transformation's "historical burden", but are being re-constructed as a tool in the globalization era.