Changan names Zhao Fei chairman as September overseas sales rise 6.4% to 94,195

Changan Automobile (SZSE: 000625) has elected president Zhao Fei as its chairman after Zhu Huarong resigned as chairman, director and legal representative on October 16, 2026. Zhu stays on as Party secretary and chairman of the parent, China Changan Automobile Group, where he will steer planning for the group's auto businesses. The same board meeting named Ye Pei president, promoted Yang Dayong to senior executive vice president and moved Deng Chenghao up to executive vice president.

The appointments were approved at the third meeting of Changan's 10th board, and Zhao's term as chairman runs to the end of that board's term. Zhao gives up the president's post and will act as board secretary until one is appointed, while Zhu leaves every role at the listed company and its controlled subsidiaries. The change comes a month after the board's first meeting on September 17, 2026, re-elected Zhu as chairman and appointed Zhao as president.

Changan's filing said the change lets China Changan act as a specialist auto group that sets strategy, allocates resources, drives synergy, controls risk and strengthens incentives. For the listed company, it said the goal is to optimize its market-based mechanisms and focus on global operations. Zhu said the strategy and core businesses of both companies "will not change overall" after the adjustment.

Zhu tied the move to the group's first year. When China Changan was set up, he said, several executives held posts at both the group and the listed company to support the transition, and now those concurrent roles need to be reduced so the listed company has more independent decision-making power. He added that Changan's president now comes from inside the company and is no longer a member of the group's leadership team, which he said allows purer market-based operation. China Changan was established on July 29, 2025 as a centrally owned group, carved out of the auto business of China South Industries Group.

The numbers behind the global mandate are already large. Changan's September flash report put sales at 215,427 vehicles, counting joint ventures and associates, of which 94,195 were sold overseas. In August, Changan sold 196,788 vehicles, 88,507 of them overseas. Overseas sales rose 6.4% month on month, slower than the 9.5% rise in total sales, so the overseas share slipped to 43.7% from 45.0%.

From a year earlier, the picture is weaker. September sales fell 19.11%, and January to September sales came to 1,692,666 vehicles, down 18.07%. New energy vehicles were the exception, with September NEV sales of 119,779, up 15.64%, or 55.6% of the month's total. The remaining non-overseas volume, which includes joint-venture brands, came to 121,232 vehicles in September, up 12.0% from 108,281 in August.

Changan's stand at Mondial de l'Auto 2026, where the Deepal S07 PHEV and right-hand-drive S05 PHEV were shown for European buyers (Changan)

Overseas markets also carry better margins. In the first half of 2026, Changan reported revenue of 65.634 billion CNY (c. $9.76 billion) and net profit attributable to shareholders of 817 million CNY (c. $121.5 million), down 64.32%. It swung to a net foreign-exchange loss of about 230 million CNY (c. $34.2 million) from a gain of about 1.356 billion CNY (c. $201.7 million) a year earlier. Overseas revenue reached 21.94 billion CNY (c. $3.26 billion), or 33.43% of the total, with an overseas gross margin of 20.13% against 11.67% in China.

Zhu set out the capacity plan alongside the reshuffle. Changan's overseas capacity stands at 450,000 vehicles and is expected to reach about 900,000 by the end of 2026 and 1.2 million by 2030. In Europe, the company plans a local base with 180,000 units of capacity by 2028 and 350,000 by 2030. Zhao, who gave the Europe figures at the Paris Motor Show, said talks with partners were under way and that the company expected to announce the cooperation within 2026.

The Europe plan builds on a sales push already under way. Changan's Paris release says the NEVO Q05, from the brand sold in China as Qiyuan, will go on sale in Europe in the first quarter of 2027. The company expects nearly 400 sales and service outlets across 15 European countries by the end of 2026 and 650 by 2027, and already has eight European subsidiaries with more than 800 employees. In that release, Zhao spoke as general manager of Changan Group, the parent company.

NEVO Q05 and Q06 at Changan's Paris media event on October 12, 2026; the Q05 is the first NEVO model developed for global markets (Changan)

The group's 2030 targets set the bar for the new team. Under the strategy China Changan launched in Chongqing on April 21, 2026, it aims for 1.5 million overseas sales, 2.4 million NEV sales and revenue of 600 billion CNY (c. $89.26 billion) by 2030. Xinhua reported that the plan also pairs Avatr and Deepal in a premium brand group of more than 1.5 million vehicles, with over 40% of that volume sold overseas.

The new management comes from inside Changan. Ye Pei, born in 1975, has run Nanjing Changan and led strategy planning and passenger-car marketing, according to his company biography. Yang Dayong, born in 1974, formerly headed Changan New Energy and served as an executive vice president at Changan Ford. Deng Chenghao, born in 1986, holds a doctorate and is Party secretary and chairman of Deepal, the brand he previously ran as general manager.

Zhao, also born in 1974, served as Changan Ford's Party secretary and executive vice president and later chaired Chenzhi Group, the former China Changan. In remarks reported by Chinese media, Changan executives said the domestic market had entered a shake-out marked by irrational competition in some businesses, while overseas markets still offered room to grow. They said Changan would stop refining products at home before exporting them and instead build global products defined around worldwide demand.

Changan's own filings frame the task. Overseas sales of 94,195 in September came in a month when total sales fell 19.11% from a year earlier, and the group's 2030 target calls for 1.5 million overseas sales a year. The open question is whether a listed company with fewer group-level overlaps can bring European plants and outlets online fast enough to offset a home market Changan's own executives describe as a shake-out.

Conversion rate: 1 USD = 6.7220 CNY as of October 16, 2026.