From "China Changan" to "World Changan": New Central State-Owned Enterprise Structure Ascending and Global Ambition

“Treating experience as knowledge, yet refusing to apply that knowledge to new uses.” This from the Arabian Fables Collection explains the thinking of “walking the old path” and “lying flat” with precision. In the automotive industry, there are still many people holding this mindset so far. In contrast, Changan Automobile is different.

On October 30, Changan Automobile released its third-quarter report. If one only uses an old yardstick to measure, it is easy to miss the real signal of this financial report: Third Quarter revenue was 36.249 billion yuan, a sequential increase of 10.1%; revenue per vehicle was 101,000 yuan, a sequential increase of 5,000 yuan, and a year-over-year increase of 13,000 yuan; overseas sales volume reached 270,000 units, a year-over-year growth of 64.3%, setting a quarterly historical high; in the new energy product structure, the proportion of high-value products is approaching 70%.

The numbers are not loud, but the direction is clear: the quality of growth is shifting gears.

Short-term profit fluctuations are held back by three factors: exchange rate losses, raw material price hikes, and overseas upfront investment, and these three things exactly correspond to three tables being laid out—globalization, supply chain depth, and the transition of technical assets from the investment phase to the commercialization phase. To understand Changan, one needs to move their gaze from the profit line to the structure line.

Changan Tianshu Nav's "50%", which deserves more thought than any sales figure

In the current domestic existing market environment, there are still many people obsessed with sales figures. Perhaps sales figures are a reference to reflect one's own status, but they are certainly not the only parameter for long-term development.

At the 2026 World Intelligent Connected Vehicle Conference in October, Changan set up a Tianshu Nav mass production car experience zone at the venue. Instead of just displaying display cars, they handed the Qiyuan Q06 directly to attendees to drive on real roads. After several international guests and industry experts tried it, one detail was repeatedly mentioned: this one-piece end-to-end intelligent driving system fully self-developed by a central enterprise is already running in the hands of users, it is not a future promise.

Even more indicative of the problem is the terminal data: the selection rate of the Changan Qiyuan Q06 Ultra version is close to 50%. On a mainstream-priced new energy SUV, nearly half of users are willing to pay extra for intelligent driving assistance, and the meaning of this event far exceeds "features are popular". It means technical assets are beginning to be recognized by a real pricing system.

Zhu Huarong, in a keynote speech in Chongqing in October, placed this matter in a larger coordinate: the automobile is shifting from a transportation tool to an "embodied intelligent terminal", since 2026 the penetration rate of domestic leading intelligent driving assistance has reached 34.2%, "when safety shifts from high-end options to basic configurations, the competitive coordinates shift accordingly". The mass production landing and OTA push of Tianshu Nav are the specific scale of this shift on Changan. Once technology crosses from "usable" to "needed", the compound interest of scaled reuse will begin to operate.

Paris and Rayong: Going Global is Being Written Differently

If intelligent technology is saving money for the future, globalization is already generating cash flow for the present. With a growth rate of 64.3% in overseas sales volume in the third quarter, placed against the background of domestic existing market adjustment, it is not an ordinary growth curve, but a structural hedge line.

At the Paris International Auto Show in October, Changan displayed the full spectrum of three digital intelligence new energy brands—Changan Qiyuan, Deepal, and Avatr—bringing the Qiyuan brand into Europe. Deepal S05 and S07 have already received European NCAP five-star safety ratings, European users enjoy a 7-year or 160,000-kilometer whole vehicle warranty, and spare parts in major cities are delivered within 1 day. Putting these moves together outlines not "selling cars to overseas", but "moving the system to overseas".

Even earlier foreshadowing was buried in Rayong, Thailand: Changan's first overseas new energy vehicle base Phase 1 has an annual capacity of 100,000 units. After the Deepal S05 and Qiyuan Q05 rolled off the line, they were shipped to 18 Right-Hand Drive countries, 10 core suppliers landed, and over 40 Thai local parts enterprises entered the supply chain circle, with the proportion of local employees already reaching 70%. When Zhu Huarong gave an exclusive interview to China Securities Journal in October, he spoke very directly: "The era of wanting to make a short-term profit and then withdraw has passed, we must truly take root in the local market." The focus he drew for globalization was equally unambiguous—"It is difficult to find a track with greater opportunities than the overseas market at present, Changan's incremental opportunities are overseas".

This explains exactly why overseas business is worth being viewed in a "structure" rather than an "increment" framework. The gross margin of overseas business is close to 20%, about 5 percentage points higher than domestic. When the domestic price war continues to squeeze the profit margin, an overseas business with a higher average price per vehicle and thicker system barriers is the ballast stone to cross the cycle. According to the "1445" strategy plan, the overseas sales volume target for 2030 is 1.5 million units, and the path is written very clearly: from product going global to industry going global, from domestic production to global layout, from independent brands to global brand building.

The path Changan chose is to cover the 100,000 to 700,000 yuan price band with Avatr, Deepal, and Changan Qiyuan brands, to turn intelligent technology from a noun on the configuration list into a verb users are willing to pay for with Tianshu Nav, and to use coordinates like Rayong, Paris, and Brazil to upgrade "going global" from a trade action to an industrial presence. The revenue sequential increase, overseas growth rate, revenue per vehicle, high-value proportion, and intelligent technology selection rate in the third-quarter report are just a few milestones that have just lit up on this road.

From "China Changan" to "World Changan", the gap in between is not a sales figure, but an entire set of structures. Matters of structure going up are always harder and more worth watching than selling a certain number of cars in a month!

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Author: Liu Jiangang