Building brand awareness will be a top priority for Omoda when it officially launches in March.

The Chinese newcomer has plans to establish a significant retail presence in the UK and also expects fleet sales to be a major driver of registrations.

Leading the brand’s fleet sales strategy is Chris Clayton. Formerly contract hire and leasing manager at Hyundai, he has been appointed as Omoda’s fleet sales manager.

Speaking to Fleet News, Clayton, who has 16 years of experience in the fleet sector, said he’s “ready to hit the ground running from day one”.

Omoda will target as many fleet channels as possible, including Motability and rental.

Clayton said: “We will have a northern and southern contract hire and leasing managers that will be working regionally to build a market share with the leasing companies. But overall, the strategy is brand awareness.

“It's getting the cars out there, getting them in as with as many customers and funding partners as possible, so as many people around the UK can learn about them.”

With a lean team at launch, Clayton said Omoda will be reliant on leasing company relationships to help it progress in the SME and corporate space. The fleet team will "get out and about" with demonstrators to visit key corporate clients as well as leasing companies, brokers and public sector bodies. 

The company’s sales ambitions are not insignificant. In its first year, Omoda plans to sell 16,000 cars in the UK and Clayton expects around 50% of them will go to fleets. By 2025, sales are expected to hit 40,000 units.

Resorting to aggressive sales tactics to hit these targets is not part of the plan, according to Clayton.

He said: “The temptation is always there to just go and do massive deals. But with any kind of brand awareness you want as many people around the UK to be involved in the sales. So, doing one big deal is not going to help us there.”

Omoda is a subsidiary of China’s largest car maker Chery. It’s debut model, the Omoda 5, will go on sale in the Spring offering petrol and electric powertrain options.

“We've seen a lot of new entrants join with sole EV products and they found it harder, I'm hoping, than we will in terms of brand awareness, because there's only certain customers and certain channels that are going to take those cars,” Clayton said.

He added: “Rental partners, for example, when I mention that we’re bringing our pure petrol cars, they’re very receptive to that and I’m sure that’s the same for the others channels and areas of fleet.”

The Omoda 5 is a compact SUV, that will compete alongside the Hyundai Kona, MG ZS and Skoda Karoq. Prices will start at £24,000 for the petrol version, while the electric is expected to cost from £27,000.

A second model, the Omoda 9 will also launch this year in the larger SUV segment. By 2026, Omoda plans to have a line-up of 18 different model and fuel types. These will include models from the Jaecoo brand, which target the premium market.

Supporting the brand’s growth will be its retail network. An initial 50 sites have been confirmed, with 100 expected by the end of 2024 and 180 by 2026.

Clayton said Omoda’s dealer franchise model was one of the reasons he joined this company, stating that they are “integral to OEMs”.

The first franchise partners are Endeavour Automotive, Listers and Peter Vardy. More are expected to be announced soon, including some “major players in fleet”.