Photo/Zhang Jian (NBD)

Zeng Lintang, assistant to the chairman of LEAPMOTOR, reportedly left the company in December 2023, just seven months after joining. LEAPMOTOR's president, Wu Baojun, also left the company in January 2024.

LEAPMOTOR told NBD that Zeng Lintang left for personal reasons. NBD learned that Zeng Lintang's resignation may be related to his age.

Zeng Lintang joined LEAPMOTOR in May 2023 as an assistant to Zhu Jiangming, the company's founder, chairman and CEO. He served as an advisor, providing LEAPMOTOR with professional advice.

Zeng Lintang is a veteran of the traditional automotive industry. He spent 14 years at Ford and 9 years at Crown Motors, the Hong Kong distributor of Toyota and Lexus. He was then invited by Akio Toyoda to join Toyota China as a director, helping Lexus establish its business in the Chinese market.

During his three years in charge of Toyota's sales, Zeng Lintang helped the company increase its market share in Hong Kong from 22% to nearly 50%. He also oversaw rapid growth for Lexus in China, with sales climbing from 5,000 units in 2005 to over 50,000 units in 2010.

In addition to his sales experience, Zeng Lintang is also credited with being the first to propose the concept of "dealer satisfaction first" in the automotive marketing field. This concept was highly popular with dealers in the era dominated by the 4S store authorization model for automotive distribution.

LEAPMOTOR's sales strategy differs from that of other new energy vehicle companies such as Li Auto.

LEAPMOTOR adopts a "franchise-based, direct-sales supplemented" channel strategy. According to its financial report, in 2022, LEAPMOTOR had a total of 582 stores nationwide, of which 86% were dealer-owned. These dealers contributed about 90% of Leapmotor's car sales.

However, the dealer-based sales model also poses risks for LEAPMOTOR. In April 2023, a LEAPMOTOR dealer in Jinan, Shandong Province, publicly accused the company of falsifying sales data. LEAPMOTOR responded by issuing an official statement denying the allegations and announcing that it had initiated legal proceedings against the dealer.

After that, in May 2023, Zeng Lintang joined LEAPMOTOR. His main responsibilities were to provide LEAPMOTOR with suggestions and opinions on strategic layout, brand marketing and operation, and product research and development, and to assist it in exploring overseas markets, further improving the company's daily operation efficiency, improving service level, and enhancing brand awareness.

It is worth mentioning that after Zeng Lintang joined, LEAPMOTOR achieved immediate results in terms of sales growth. From May 2023, LEAPMOTOR's sales showed a growth trend, and by December 2023, LEAPMOTOR's monthly sales had reached nearly 19,000 units.
 
Regarding changes in the channel, Zhu Jiangming once told NBDthat in 2023, LEAPMOTOR did not increase the number of stores much, but only made optimizations. In 2024, LEAPMOTOR will continue to optimize its dealer network, maintain around 500 stores, and the increase will be more in areas that were not previously reached.

LEAPMOTOR plans to further accelerate the implementation of its 1+N channel model in 2024. The 1+N model refers to a sales and delivery network that consists of one central hub (the sales and delivery center) and multiple satellite locations (such as shopping malls and city showrooms). Leapmotor will focus on expanding its presence in auto malls and continuing to penetrate lower-tier cities. It plans to add 85 new stores in blank cities. At the same time, it will shorten the store construction cycle from 83 days to 60 days.

The channel adjustments are driven by LEAPMOTOR's desire to further increase its sales. According to official data, LEAPMOTOR delivered over 144,000 new vehicles in 2023, a year-on-year increase of 29%.

However, it failed to meet its annual sales target of 200,000 units. "Our sales in 2023 still fell short of expectations. The main reason is that we didn't do a good job in the first quarter. We had almost no sales in the first quarter," Zhu Jiangming told reporters in an interview.

Zhu Jiangming believes that 2024 will be a very challenging year for all automakers. "Sales are our top priority, and this is closely related to product competitiveness, cost, price, service, quality and other factors. This year, in addition to the C10, LEAPMOTOR will also release the C16 at the Beijing Auto Show. 2025 will be a big year for LEAPMOTOR's products, and we plan to launch 5-6 new models."
 
According to previous reports, LEAPMOTOR's sales target for 2024 is 300,000-400,000 units, representing an increase of 108%-178%.