Li Shufu "lets go," Gan Jiayue takes on Geely's heaviest responsibility

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Author | Zhou Zhiyu

The multi-brand era of China’s auto industry is winding down. In the past few years, carmakers who split their brands and set up independent teams and stories are now gradually pulling them back in. The strategy of “having more children to win more fights” is being replaced by “one group, one team.”

Geely has gone the furthest in this wave of consolidation.

Business registration information shows that on June 9, Zeekr Intelligent Technology Co., Ltd. underwent registration changes: Li Shufu resigned as chairman, and An Conghui stepped down as the legal representative, with Geely Automobile Group CEO Gan Jiayue taking over. Four days prior, Lynk & Co. Auto Technology Co., Ltd. completed a similar transition, with An Conghui resigning as legal representative and chairman, also succeeded by Gan Jiayue.

Within a week, the legal authority over Geely’s two major high-end brands was unified in the hands of one person.

“This is a return to ‘One Geely,’ continuing the spirit of the ‘Taizhou Declaration’.” A Geely insider responded to Wallstreetcn on June 12, stating that this change does not affect business operations.

In Geely’s narrative, this is just a routine wrap-up. But after the wrap-up, the harder part has just begun.

This transition holds no surprises. When Geely announced the privatization of Zeekr in May 2025, the new governance structure was already disclosed: An Conghui would become CEO of Geely Holding Group; Gan Jiayue would head the merged Geely Automobile Group, which includes the Geely Galaxy and Zeekr business units. After Zeekr delisted from the NYSE in December last year and again became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geely Auto, these registration changes are merely implementing the roles determined a year ago.

Li Shufu has not exited the stage. He only resigned from his position at Zeekr as an operating entity, remaining Chairman of Geely Holding Group.

But the person chosen sends a signal. Gan Jiayue joined Geely right after graduating from university in 2003, starting as a finance manager, running the finance system, serving as the general manager of the procurement company, and in 2021, became Geely’s first “post-80s” group CEO. With backgrounds in finance and supply chain, his expertise aligns perfectly with the core topic of the second half of this integration: strengthening cost control.

The vice chairman of Geely Holding Group once set the targets for synergies: saving billions in R&D, tens of billions more in procurement, and reducing both administrative and marketing expenses.

After the merger of Zeekr and Lynk & Co., the R&D, procurement, and back office of both brands are being combined. Who takes charge will determine how deep this integration can cut.

The business taken over by Gan Jiayue is Geely’s most crucial—also the one with zero margin for error—this year.

Geely Auto’s sales target for 2026 is 3.45 million units, with new energy sales set to grow 32% year-on-year. But the pressure is unevenly distributed among the brands: after the purchase tax discount was removed, the Galaxy series targeting the mass market saw new energy sales drop 9.5% year-on-year in Q1, as entry-level demand was the first to be squeezed. What propped up Geely’s Q1 gross margin of 17.5% was exports and high-end models.

In other words, Geely’s profits are increasingly dependent on the business Gan Jiayue has just taken over.

The capital market has already credited this integration in advance. Since the beginning of the year, Geely Auto’s stock is up about 9.47%, making it the only gainer among the ten listed carmakers on the Hong Kong stock exchange. From BYD to Seres, the other nine all posted declines.

But recognition comes with harsher standards for results. In Q1, Geely’s net profit attributable to shareholders dropped 27% year-on-year, missing expectations. Even after excluding exchange-rate effects, core net profit is still growing, but no company has escaped the cost pressures of the price war. Last year, Gan Jiayue promised overall improvement in group efficiency of more than 5% after integration—investors will check this figure quarterly.

The good news is that Zeekr’s momentum is strong. In May, deliveries reached 34,377 units, up 81.8% year-on-year, with four consecutive months of both MoM and YoY growth, and the high-priced 9 and 8 series accounting for nearly half. In contrast, Lynk & Co., which prioritizes scale, underperformed: May sales were 20,732 units, down 25% year-on-year, and total sales for the first five months of the year were also down 2% year-on-year.

But goals are quietly converging. At the start of 2025, Zeekr Technology Group proposed a 2026 sales goal of over 1 million units, aiming to become the “BBA of China’s new energy era”; this year, Zeekr’s annual target is 300,000 units, Lynk & Co. at 400,000, totaling 700,000.

The crowdedness of the high-end new energy market has far exceeded earlier expectations. In May, deliveries by Harmony Intelligent Mobility and NIO both surpassed Zeekr, with each vying for the same group of users spending over 300,000 yuan.

Retracting unrealistic slogans and focusing spending on what matters is the purpose of this consolidation.

A year ago, when the decision to merge Zeekr was made, Geely Auto CEO Gui Shengyue summed up the essence at a briefing: “Time waits for no one. The market will no longer give us room for error.”

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