PSA Peugeot Citroën is unveiling a new name and a new strategy that will see the launch of 35 new models by 2021.
Under the ?Push to Pass? strategy Europe?s second-largest car manufacturer, now named ?PSA Groupe? will release 26 new cars and nine commercial vehicles including a one-tonne pickup truck, helping to achieve a planned tripling of profits to six per cent of sales.
PSA Group CEO Tavares ? planning bold growth.
Revealed at an annual results conference headed by PSA CEO Carlos Tavares, the plans are bolder than the previous ?Back in the Race? strategy which PSA unveiled in 2014. This followed the group’s rescue from the difficulties resulting from annual losses that in 2012 were as much as £3 billion.
The French government and the Chinese group Dongfeng Motor each took a 14 per cent stake in PSA from the previously controlling Peugeot family, and Tavares was installed as CEO shortly after. At the time that the Back in the Race strategy was unveiled the planned profit margin was two per cent ? last year the company achieved a five per cent margin and profits of £950 million, the first since 2010.
What form the new models might take is not clear but they are thought to include a family of SUVs across all the PSA brands, Peugeot, Citroën and DS. Citroën will also pursue a strategy of more distinctive vehicles typified by the recent launch of the Cactus (pictured above).
The growth of DS as a separate entity is seen as a long-term project.
The growth of DS ...