Ford Mounts Attack On China
Ford has big plans for the Chinese market. It wants to double its share to 6 percent of the Chinese passenger vehicle market over the next three years, Asia chief Dave Schoch told Reuters reporter Bernie Woodall in Shanghai.
If the goals are reached, Ford would sell around a million units in the world’s largest auto market. Ford is a latecomer to China, but racked up an impressive 3 percent share last year, mostly driven by the best-selling Ford Focus.
Schoch promised a “turbocharged” 2013 for China, which will see launches of the Kuga SUV, the EcoSport compact SUV, the Explorer large SUV, and the Mondeo mid-size sedan.
The Reuters story gives Volkswagen a 19.5 percent share of the Chinese market, followed by GM at 10 percent. This is something GM doesn’t want to hear. Counting more than a million Wuling delivery vans as theirs, GM claims to be the top dog in China – in total auto sales, commercial included.
By the end of the decade, Ford wants to generate 40 percent of its annual sales in China, which is likely pass the United States as Ford’s largest market by 2020, CNBC says. China already is the largest market both of Gm and Volkswagen.
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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i don't know how dynamic ford plans to be in China, but the bane of its existence here in brazil is their slowness. The focus side here is still the last generation, the liga is not available, the new fiesta is priced out of its league, the old fiesta is so long in the tooth that it sells only with special conditions, the ka doesn't have enough production capacity and hasn't for years. As a result, renault and hyundai are poised to take fourth place from them. Anyways the cars are pretty good and i think they stand a good chance.
Clearly they do need to pay a bit more attention to South America; my guess is that they are capacity limited there and import tariffs are prohibitive. If they're not building new plants in Brazil now (or maybe a lower cost/lower inflation country with a FTA w/Brazil) then they should be. In China they now have local production capacity on their volume models--all save the Explorer, which I believe will still be imported from US and therefore sell in very limited #'s. Kuga is off to a good start with over 10k sales in China in it's 2nd month--already neck and neck with the Rav4. Focus clearly has done extremely well. I think it's a good bet that the new Fiesta, Mondeo and Ecosport will also be received well, so Ford in China will indeed have a massive year.
How is the 'Ford' name received in China, considering its American industrialist roots?