On top of Lynk & Co, UAAGI will also be new BAIC distributor

UAAGI to expand with fourth brand

In the last 5 years, the United Asia Automotive Group, Inc. (UAAGI) has been steadily growing itself to become a force in the Philippine automobile industry.  

The company -one that has its roots in the fast growing heavy equipment auctions in Subic- has been making waves in the domestic automobile market for over 15 years with Chinese truck specialist Foton. While many of their contemporaries focused on passenger cars, UAAGI chose to focus on commercial vehicles. And they found great success, so much so that they even set up vehicle assembly in 2016 over in Clark for their trucks, including the Toplander SUV.

In 2019, they surprised many of us in the industry by electing to bring back Chery. The brand has proven to be challenging for the distributors that preceded them, but steadily they have grown the Chery brand (specifically the Tiggo line of SUVs) in the market, going so far as to begin introducing electrified models.

This year, however, they’re doubling down with two new brands in the portfolio. They’ve already announced what will be UAAGI’s third brand: that would be Lynk & Co. This near premium automobile brand is their first partnership with Geely, and it surprised many in the industry because locally Geely is distributed by another company. We shall have to wait and see what models they will confirm for the Philippines.

The fourth brand they will launch is BAIC.

Yes, BAIC is returning, and this time it’s with UAAGI. Now that may seem like another surprise, but we would say it is probably more expected than Lynk & Co. The reason for that is because BAIC is actually the parent company of Foton.

Right now UAAGI is busy setting up operations for both Lynk & Co and the BAIC brand. For Lynk & Co, they will have a team led by former executives and marketing staff that cut their teeth with The Covenant Car Company, Inc. (TCCCI) for Chevrolet and MG (formerly). As for BAIC, insiders tell us that another former TCCCI executive will lead the way, but we’re still waiting for official confirmation.

As for the model range, our sources declined to say which ones, but based on some certifications we saw recently, it seems the BAIC BJ80 4x4 SUV will likely arrive in the Philippines. This vehicle (which does have some design similarities with the G Class) is the brand’s flagship model.

They have a lot of other 4x4 SUVs like the BJ40 Plus as well as crossovers like the strikingly styled X7, but they may need to work on some new names for export markets to avoid confusion with other models that share the same letter and number combinations.

Expect more news to come from UAAGI regarding BAIC in the near future.