China, A Land Of Luxury
Close your eyes and think of China. I bet many of you still see seas of people with straw hats riding bicycles. J.P. Morgan and J.D. Power see a sea of luxury cars. Millions of them.
J.P. Morgan and J.D. Power predict that China’s luxury car sales will reach 530,000 units this year. Come 2015, they see sales of luxobarges more than double to 1.1 million, writes Shanghai Securities News via Gasgoo.
Year to date, the growth rates of luxury brands were more than double than the overall market. Delivery times for imported brands are getting longer and fees to get to the top of the list are getting higher.
China has become the world’s largest market for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class sedans. Daimler sold 14,040 imported S-Class units in the first eight months of this year, a jump of 306 percent from 2009. Sales of the locally built Mercedes-Benz E-Class were 26,280 units in the first eight months. In the first eight months, sales of all Mercedes-Benz cars in China grew 137 percent from a year earlier to 87,400 units. In August alone, the brand sold about 13,340 units, up 119 percent year on year.
BMW sold 106,000 units in China in the first eight months of the year, above BMW’s 2009 total sales in China.
The volume leader is Audi. From January to August 2010, sales totaled 152,800 units in China, a rise of 63.26 percent. In August alone, Audi sold 22,358 units in China.
If one could live on percentages alone, GM’s luxury brand Cadillac could party right with the Germans. Cadillac’s cumulative sales for the first eight months of the year are up 157 percent. To 10,445 units. That’s about half of what Audi sold in a month in the Middle Kingdom.
Bertel Schmitt comes back to journalism after taking a 35 year break in advertising and marketing. He ran and owned advertising agencies in Duesseldorf, Germany, and New York City. Volkswagen A.G. was Bertel's most important corporate account. Schmitt's advertising and marketing career touched many corners of the industry with a special focus on automotive products and services. Since 2004, he lives in Japan and China with his wife <a href="http://www.tomokoandbertel.com"> Tomoko </a>. Bertel Schmitt is a founding board member of the <a href="http://www.offshoresuperseries.com"> Offshore Super Series </a>, an American offshore powerboat racing organization. He is co-owner of the racing team Typhoon.
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Get on it GM!!!!
How much does Buick sell in China?
Wow, what I see is a sea of white disposable, and not so eco-friendly, trash wrappers... Unless that material is reused, or people can eat it directly, it should be banned... (Geez, I thought Logitech was the king of an amazing lot of waste material for their products, but Audi seems to have one-upped even them...)