Posts Tagged ‘chinese car sales’
Chinese airline to start in-flight car sales.
by Joseph Szczesny on Mar.12, 2013
VW and GM remain locked in a battle for dominance in the booming Chinese market.
Surging global stock markets slipped back this week as China released surprisingly weak economic data – but one sector of the vast Asian nation’s economy remains strong, Chinese car sales surging 40% for the first two months of 2013 after an unexpectedly weak performance last year.
For some carmakers, Chinese demand appears to be surging as they bring on new products, while for others, it is taking new discounts to help bolster sales.
But industry analysts continue to worry about what may happen as government regulators come under increasing pressure from both the public and a new cadre of Communist Party leaders to tighten environmental regulations in the wake of record pollution levels in the capital Beijing and other parts of the country. As TheDetroitBureau.com recently reported, stricter automotive emission rules – possibly including a press for more battery cars – are being actively considered.
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The 40% year-to-date increase in overall Chinese car sales comes despite a drop in February as the Chinese celebrated the Lunar New Year, a week-long holiday during which little or no business is transacted across China.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china auto, china auto sales, china battery cars, china car, china car sales, china electric vehicles, china pollution, chinese auto sales, chinese car sales, gm china, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota china, vw china
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Reining in sales in the name of clean air.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Mar.01, 2013
Ford CEO Alan Mulally during a recent trip to China. Ford's sales are booming but could slip if regulators curtail the Chinese market.
After a few stutters last year, China’s massive automotive market seemed to get back on track in January, sales surging 46% compared to year-earlier levels. Yet there’s growing concern that the good times won’t continue for long.
There are a number of reasons to be worried, including a still frail global economy, nagging regional issues that include an ongoing territorial dispute with Japan and declining foreign investment. Yet the biggest concern, it seems, may be China’s endemic and worsening problems with air pollution.
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That has already led Chinese regulators to call for a rapid switch to battery-powered vehicles. But with market demand lagging Beijing’s call, a growing number of observers fear the central government may soon put in place steps to curb automotive ownership.
A growing number of major cities, including capital Beijing and economic center Shanghai, have already put restrictions in place, such as monthly limits on new vehicle registrations – though such measures have generally been aimed at curbing traffic problems, rather than emissions issues.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china air pollution, china auto exports, china auto sales cuts, china battery cars, china car, china car sales, china cars air pollution, china evs, china pollution, chinese car sales, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, qoros, thedetroitbureau, warren buffett
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by Joseph Szczesny on Feb.06, 2013
The Baojun 630 has been targeting the next wave of new Chinese car buyers.
With the Chinese economy showing new signs of life after an unexpected slowdown, General Motors and its joint venture partners have set an all-time record, selling more than 300,000 vehicles in a single month for the first time during January.
If the pace is sustained over the next 11 months, GM estimates sales in China could top 3.5 million units.
During GM’s best-ever January in China, sales totaled 310,765 units, an increase of 26% from the same month in 2012 and 15.9% above the previous all-time monthly high of 268,035 units in January 2011.
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Domestic sales by Shanghai GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling, and their Buick, Chevrolet and Wuling brands all set new single-month records as well in January, GM reported.
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Tags: auto news, baojun sales, buick china, car news, china car sales, chinese car sales, general motors china, gm china, gm china sales, gm news, joe szczesny, thedetroitbureau
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Maker still has a month to go before closing books on 2012.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Dec.06, 2012
A Cadillac XLR at its Beijing debut earlier this year.
The once-explosive pace of growth in the Chinese car market has slowed down sharply this year – which means that General Motors had to wait until November to set a new sales record.
With a month left to run up the final total, GM and its various affiliates have sold 2,593,642 cars, trucks and crossovers in China, compared with 2,547,171 for all of last year. The good news for GM – and its competitors – was that November saw a renewed surge in a market that has, over the past decade, seen sales nearly double in some years.
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GM isn’t alone, however, Ford was one of a number of other makers that also reported hitting all-time sales records by the end of November and still more are expected to get there by the time December’s numbers are tallied. On the other hand, key Japanese makers could miss their once-lofty sales goals as a result of ongoing political turmoil.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china car, chinese car sales, gm china, gm china record sales, gm china sales, gm news, nissan china, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau, toyota china, vw china
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U.S. likely to outpace China for 2012.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Sep.11, 2012
The Geely Gleagle at the recent Beijing Motor Show.
It’s been the engine that helped prop up many an automaker through the industry’s recent hard times, continuing to help European manufacturers overcome their problems at home. But there are growing signs that China’s once booming auto industry is fast losing momentum – like much of the rest of that nation’s economy.
China remains the world’s largest automotive market but data released today by the China Association of Auto Manufacturers suggests it won’t even keep pace with the U.S. market this year. After an unexpected dip during the first quarter and a tepid recovery during the late spring and early summer, August automotive sales rose a meager 3.7%.
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That’s well below what most analysts had been forecasting – and the equivalent of a major downturn considering that for much of the past decade China’s car market grew at well into a double-digit pace, some years topping 70%.
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Tags: Alan Mulally, auto china, auto news, beijing motor show, car news, china autos, china car, china car sales, chinese car sales, ford china, gm china, kevin wale, mulally china, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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China’s showrooms dwarf those in the West.
by Joseph Szczesny on Aug.15, 2012
The new AMG Performance Center in Beijing.
The typical Chinese car dealership sells approximately 980 vehicles annually, substantially more than dealers in Europe and North America as China’s government actively promotes the creation of large dealer groups, according to a new report released Tuesday.
“The sales network in China is at a crossroads,” said Hamilton Gayden, managing director, Urban Science China, during a conference call from his office in Shanghai.
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“Until this point, automotive manufacturers have been largely concerned with getting enough operators established to manage their sales. Today, with the sales pace calming, manufacturers are rethinking their retail footprints and being much more strategic, shifting from a network built simply on relationships to – for the first time – a true network plan driven by data,” Gayden said.
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Tags: auto news, auto retail, car news, china auto retailers, china auto sales, china car dealers, china mega-dealers, chinese car dealers, chinese car sales, joe szczesny, mega-dealers, thedetroitbureau
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Dealers faced with a glut of vehicles slash prices.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jun.13, 2012
A Mercedes-Benz E300 on display at the recent Beijing Motor Show.
It’s the Chinese take on the old good-news/bad-news phenomenon: Chinese car sales rebounded sharply in May after a worrying slowdown earlier in the year. But to help build momentum, dealers have been slashing prices which could translate into lost profits for market leaders like General Motors and Volkswagen.
The sharpest price cuts in several years raise fears that the Chinese car market is weakening – along with the rest of the economy – and could go into a slump if manufacturers decide to hold the line rather than accelerate the current pace of discounting.
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Chinese car sales surged 16% in May compared to year-earlier volume, a welcomed turnaround from the first quarter of 2012 when the market showed an unexpected and unfamiliar decline. But even so, sales for the first five months of the year were up only a modest 1.7%. Based on patterns throughout most of the past decade that might have been expected to be more like a 20, 30, even 40% gain.
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Tags: auto news, car news, china car prices, china car sales may 2012, china car slump, china ford, china gm, china vw, chinese auto sales, chinese car prices, chinese car sales, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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But there are signs pace of growth in world’s largest car market is slowing.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Jul.05, 2011
The Chevrolet Captiva is one of GM's newest offerings in the Chinese market.
General Motors set another record in the booming Chinese market, selling 1.27 million vehicles there during the first half of 2011.
That’s good news for the Detroit maker, which last year became the first to sell more than 2 million vehicles in China during a single year. But GM’s 5.3% sales increase for the first half of 2011 marks a significant slowdown from much of the past decade, when annual sales jumps regularly measured well into the double-digits.
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Analysts warn of new restrictions on vehicle ownership in traffic-snarled cities like Beijing, as well as the Chinese government’s decision to end subsidies for minivans – and increasing fuel prices.
On the positive side, the boom in automotive demand that has largely been limited to the Pacific Coast of China is now beginning to spread into the nation’s less economically advanced interior.
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Tags: auto news, autos china, buick china, car news, china car, chinese car sales, general motors china, gm china, gm news, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Government still hopes for a shake-out of domestic brands.
by Joseph Szczesny on May.02, 2011
Geely - its IG Concept shown here - is considered one of the likely winners in a shake-out of Chinese domestic automakers.
The long-awaited consolidation of the Chinese auto industry is on hold.
While foreign brands, like Buick, Volkswagen and Toyota, may get much of the attention, there are hundreds of smaller, domestic automakers vying for attention and the dollars of China’s new automotive buying class.
Government leaders – along with those foreign makers and industry analysts — have been hoping to see a shake-out of some of the least viable of those home-grown brands. But like the bumblebee, the structurally unwieldy and inefficient Chinese auto industry continues to fly.
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The fact is the boom in car sales over the last three years has bolstered the cash flow of smaller, weaker companies that have blossomed over the years and which continue to sell cars and trucks in sufficient numbers to continue to operate, according to western executives familiar with the rapid growth of the Chinese market. None of the smaller companies have more than 2% to 3% of the market but with Chinese sales topping 18 million last year, and expected to surge past 20 million in 2011, the volume is sufficient to stay in business.
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Tags: China car market, Geely, SAIC, auto news, buick china, car news, china car sales, china cars, chinese car sales, gm china, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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Maker struggling to catch up to key competitors, GM and VW.
by Paul A. Eisenstein on Apr.18, 2011
Ford showed the Start Concept at Beijing, last year.
Chinese car buyers will get their first good look at the new Ford Focus, this week, at the biennial Shanghai Motor Show. The compact model is a critical part of the maker’s global OneFord strategy – but could be even more crucial if Ford hopes to finally gain some traction in the world’s largest and fastest-growing automotive market.
The Detroit maker, which has been building momentum in the U.S., Europe and some of the other key emerging markets, continues to struggle in China, where its share lags not only market leaders like General Motors and Volkswagen, but even relative newcomers such as Hyundai.
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But with a planned marketing blitz that includes the Focus and a wide range of additional products, Ford executives insist they can make up for lost time.
“Together with our partners, we are leveraging the strength of the One Ford plan and our global platforms to bring 15 new vehicles to China by 2015, reinforcing our commitment to offer a full portfolio of vehicles for our Chinese customers,” said Joe Hinrichs, president, Ford Asia Pacific and Africa.
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Tags: Chinese Auto Market, Ford Focus, auto news, car news, china car, china car sales, chinese car sales, focus china, ford china, ford focus china, ford news, gm china, joe hinrichs, paul a. eisenstein, paul eisenstein, thedetroitbureau
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