Serving as China's largest privately-owned car manufacturer, Geely launched the brands of Gleagle, Emgrand and Englon on the basis of promoting cars that were innovated and developed domestically, or "self-owned."After its takeover of Volvo, Geely's strategy of a multi-brand layout appeared to be more complete.

The launch of Englon last November formally marked Geely's entrance into the world of multi-brand ownership.

The three brands under Geely have a divisional organization system, as well as operating systems that are totally independent. The integration of the three brands' network channels has been finished, with an impressive 95 percent renewal rate on dealers.

Liu Jinliang, the most experienced vice president of Geely, was present during Geely's tough embryonic period, but also saw the growth of Geely auto. In 2010, braced by the three new brands, Geely achieved its yearly sales target of 412,000 cars, an increase of 25.8% year-on-year.

The self-owned brand auto company's execution of a multi-brand strategy was seen as a challenge to the "brand ceiling" difficulty. For years, many firms saw it as difficult to remove the "low price and low quality" image,and viewed themselves as competitive only below a threshold of 100,000 yuan per unit. Breaking through the confines of brand assumptions has been a formidable challenge for self-owned auto companies.

Along with the exploration of joint-venture brands in the low-end market, Geely has also explored other avenues of maximizing its presence in the auto world . Its multi-brand strategy expresses the desire of improving brand image, developing the high-end market, and comprehensively covering the market with a diversity of brands.

Experts have stated that, "one business group, multi-brand, sharing platform" can economize development costs, muscle rivals out of the market, and also dilute market risk.

Early in 2007, Geely commenced activities to develop a new vehicle-logo, as a part of unfolding its brand transition. Geely began its transition to global brands by actions including cooperation between SMA and Englon and a series of products under Emgrand.

Beginning with its first day, Geely committed itself to making the most affordable car for ordinary people."Relying on the strategy of "low price, lower-end," it seized the market quickly. However, the lower-end image became a bottleneck in the firm's process of development.

Zhao Fuquan, a famous mechanical expert in auto development, planned a platform development strategy for Geely after he joined the company, after which Geely began its strategic transition.

"Geely as a brand has become out of date. Henceforth, it will only serve as the name of the company, but not as the names of our products,"Zhao said.

In effect, Geely's strategic transition represents a profound self-revolution of self-owned brands' enterprises. According to Zhao's plan, up to 2015 Geely plans to construct 15 production platforms under its 5 technology platforms, and to expand to 42 car models in its endeavour to reach an annual sales goal of 2,000,000 units.