Hyundai Says Nein To Opel
Someone is really trying to shop around Opel. Or maybe it’s just a tactic to cow German unions into submission? Two weeks ago, Volkswagen and the inevitable Chinese were floated as possible buyers. What other bogeymen could there be? Ah, yes, the Koreans!
Hyundai said yesterday that there is no interest in buying Opel, Reuters reports. In Germany, rumors of a Korean connection had received next to no traction anyway.
Hyundai’s answer: “Thank you all so much, but we can grow on our own.” Hyundai wants to lift vehicle sales in Europe by 10 percent to 400,000 units this year and to half a million by 2013.
As our May roundup of European sales shows, Hyundai currently is the #3 bestselling brand in Europe after Toyota and Nissan. Taken together with Kia however, the group commands a 4.7 percent share of the EU market, outdistancing Toyota (4.1 percent), and even edging past Daimler (4.6 percent). It surely looks Hyundai needs Opel as much as Volkswagen does …
Just to keep things interesting, GM has yet to issue a formal denial that it wants to marry-off daughter Opel.
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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GM needs Opel for design of cars. Hyundai apparently already has a good design team in place.
I really would like to know what Hyundai should do with Opel. Actually, they are fishing in exactly the same waters - the new Hyundai i40 is going to be a formidable competitor for Opel's cash cow Insignia. Hyundai have built their own production facilities in Slovakia, where they have better conditions than Opel will ever have in Germany or Belgium. Hyundai's European market share is growing, and it will continue to do so without buying Opel. Outside of Europe, Opel is a brand hardly known to anyone. So, the whole thing doesn't make sense at all.
Opel is turd as long as it costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to fire anyone.
Why bother? It's cheaper to build a brand from scratch and they're already respectable in that regard. Japanese and Korean makes are not interested in buying failing brands. They're not China who needs new tech. And the desirable brands are only German lux and they can't afford those.