Daimler Wants To Put A Man In Charge Of Flagging China Sales
Mention China to Daimler managers, and with a pained look, they will quickly change the subject. China is the superpower when it comes to conspicuous consumption, and even more conspicuous choices of cars, and horrors, Mercedes is lagging far behind Audi and BMW, brands that previously had been looked upon with disdain by Daimler managers. Daimler won’t take it anymore, and wants to put a board member in charge of its lagging China business, says Der Spiegel. It will be a demanding job.
In China, Audi and BMW booked double-digit gains in October, Mercedes sales however were 3.9 percent below October 2011. Daimler managers were quick to blame a very strong October in the prior year, but with only 5.5 percent up for the year, Mercedes looks quite anemic. In the world’s largest auto market, Audi sold more than twice the number of units than Mercedes.
Daimler managers cite the fact that their China-produced and their imported cars are sold through separate organizations. Their German colleagues chuckle about the common complaint. Volkswagen cars are even sold through three separate dealer channels in China, two for FAW-VW and SVW each, one for imported Volkswagen.
By putting a board member in charge of China, Daimler follows Volkswagen’s example. In June, Volkswagen installed Jochem Heizmann as a board-level Emperor of China.
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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Does FAW make branded Audis? Would that be part of the sales total or are all those Audis imported?
i guess they can install 4 cyl into a 6.3 perhaps mercs need to do more promotions with movies, see how much JB did for AM 50yrs ago? was Bimmer in the last bond movie? growing in HK. merc was the car, so as RR, Jags, daimler from old blighty. back in 72 as tricky dick nixon was going to visit Middle kingdom, one morn i saw a convoy of 5-6 merc 600 grosser drove north. those were intended for the red flag back ups, incase they suffer from nova disease. for a while mercs just can't beat the japanese air cond, as a lot of import suffer from small rad and cause her to boil! maybe audi & bmw have better marketing methods to do better in MK. mercs should be pretty popular with yakuzas, it used to be jags then fell out of favour.
I hope Daimler's new Chinese friends treat Daimler with the same courtesy, respect, and financial stewardship that Daimler treated Chrysler's resources.
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-10-25/mercedes-needs-to-rethink-china