We speak with Froilan Dytianquin, newly minted Chery Auto Philippines managing director, on what’s in the cards for the brand

Interview by Kap Maceda Aguila

VELOCITY: With everything we saw in your presentation, it’s obvious that you will be hitting the ground running with Chery. What are the marching orders you received as you assumed the role of managing director? What is the vision for the company and the brand, moving forward? How is this different from the old Chery run?

FROILAN DYTIANQUIN: Chery is basically a good brand. We weren’t able to maximize its strengths when it was relaunched in 2019. My goal is to revive the brand and, coming from another Chinese brand, I guess it’s going to be easy because I can basically duplicate the success story I was part of. The strength for Chery is in the products, based on what I’ve seen in their models. This is something that we will capitalize on through our network. Right now, we’re engaged in getting more dealer investors.

So the growth of the network is one of the key priorities?

Correct, that’s one pillar, and another is basically the marketing. From what I’ve observed, there wasn’t much effort put into aggressive marketing for Chery to highlight the strengths of the brand. So what I’ll do is to capitalize on the major strengths of the brand, of the organization, of the dealership, and the customer journey. As I mentioned, one of the strengths of the brand is that it provides, I believe, one of the best support in terms of warranty. This is top-notch, such as the 10-year engine warranty. I’m sure that most of the Chery owners right now appreciate this support, in addition to the low cost of ownership. We’re providing free three years of periodic maintenance services. When you buy a Chery you don’t have to think about maintenance. We’re trying to synergize all these strengths to be able to send a message to the public. That’s also why we’ve changed the tagline of Chery: There’s more to our cars. It’s about the total ownership experience that you will enjoy when you buy a Chery.

You come from another Chinese brand. With your experience working with Chinese brands — now with Chery — what do you see in the Philippine market that makes us such an attractive prospect for Chinese brands, and more of them are coming in? The other way around, what makes Chinese brands, particularly Chery, attractive to Filipinos? What are you seeing from both market and brand standpoints?

When I was with the other brand, one thing that we had observed is the growing segment of younger buyers — the millennials, the Gen Z. This is where the Chinese brands come in. This young market is pretty much not so brand-loyal, and these buyers rely on their personal judgment. They will not rely on their parents, friends, or relatives to decide for them which car to buy. On their own they do research, go to the dealership, check out specifications, test-drive the car. One thing good for this market is all the technology that Chinese brands provide.

This market is tech-savvy.

Yes, and this is something that we want to maximize — the growing market of young buyers. This is something that Chery and other Chinese brands can capitalize on in the years to come.

What will differentiate Chery from these other Chinese brands then?

I go back to my earlier statement. We’re going to provide a different experience. Every Chinese brand will surely highlight their technology as a value proposition. At the end of the day, okay, you got all that and features that you want, the value for money, but the cost of ownership is something we want to emphasize. At the same, our direction now is to go into new energy vehicles. That’s also something we’re looking forward to. Our future product lineup will be focused on these — mild hybrids, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, or even full electrics. We’re ready for that. When we were talking to new dealer investors, we’re not just selling normal ICE (internal combustion engine) cars but we will have these new energy vehicles as well.

So you will still have pure ICE vehicles, but bring in more of the new energy vehicles?

Yes, more hybrids to complement our ICE choices.