An invitation to travel by Charles Baudelaire, The little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry… Olivier François draws on French literature to describe his future strategy for DS.
The brand’s CEO spoke publicly this Monday for the first time as head of this premium French brand of the Stellantis group, born from a split with Citroën 10 years ago, on June 1, 2014. This Monday he officially presented the Antoine de Saint 2024 -Exupéry Collection – a special series on three of the four models in the range, DS3, DS4 and DS7 – Olivier François outlines in passing the contours of what must evolve in DS to obtain sales benefits (see box below), between the new models and the spirit of the brand.
Only 56,000 cars sold worldwide in 2023
If DS sales remained stable last year compared to 2022 (just over 56,000 copies sold worldwide), the results remain disappointing: the brand has barely progressed since 2019. And in the first quarter in Europe, They fell 13%, to 11,063. new registered cars. “My need is not to produce volumes,” defends Olivier François. His niche: the margins. And the obligation to become credible as a premium brand to maintain high prices.
Embodying “premium French automobiles”
Appointed on July 1, 2023, in addition to his roles as CEO of Fiat and global marketing director of Stellantis, Olivier François has identified several areas of work for DS to embody “premium French automobiles”.
“In the short term, the first thing we must do is customer satisfaction,” explains Olivier François. “We cannot claim to be premium without deep respect for the customer.”
And to mention all those small details of sales, maintenance, after-sales such as easily available parts or a clean car that high-end customers expect.
Olivier François goes a step further by evoking the customer experience, such as a voice assistant that works properly or an even “more iconic” style.
“With the arrival of Chinese manufacturers, we have to make things even more unique,” the latter continues.
“The Chinese cannot make Saint-Exupéry,” Olivier François told AFP. “They will have less difficulty competing with traditional brands than with brands with a very strong personality,” according to him.
How to create this strong personality in DS? “A small dose of retro design wouldn’t hurt,” he summarizes, explaining that he asked Thierry Métroz’s design teams to evoke more codes from the 1955 DS, “immediately recognizable.” Like Fiat’s 500, of which he is also general director. “If you like the design, we must maintain technological relevance,” he adds. Relevance that he will have to embody a brand new flagship model at the end of the year (nothing says that it will be at the Paris Motor Show in October).
100% electric, new standard bearer at the end of the year
DS confirms its willingness to present only 100% electric models. This will be the case of the new porte-étendard, based on the STLA medium plateform of Stellantis: this model between the berline and the crossover doit revendiquer the 700 kilometers of autonomy (ce que le Peugeot 3008 sur la même plateforme n’a pas réussi to do). This model will clearly erase the DS9 sedan, which embodies the failure of DS’s China-oriented strategy launched in the mid-2010s.
For the rest of the range, if the best-selling DS7 SUV had a replacement, probably within the same stylistic canons, the small model in the range could evolve.
“We will always have the B segment, but maybe we have to review the size, maybe make this car more compact, more feminine,” explains Olivier François.
The next important commercial moment for DS will be the market launch in June of the 100% electric version of the DS4, a model that should generate volumes in Europe (see box). Or in the only market (apart from Japan) for the premium brand.
Source: BFM TV
