German luxury marques boom in China
October 8, 2009 by Matt Brogan
The booming Chinese car market continues to be one of the few bright spots for German luxury manufacturers, which have drawn few benefits from scrapping programs in the UK, US and Europe.
Mercedes-Benz, Audi and BMW all posted year-on-year volume gains of more than 35 per cent in the China last month in stark contrast to declines felt elsewhere.
Mercedes-Benz new E-class sedan and ever-popular S-Class models helped grow the brand’s volume in China grew by 56 per cent to about 6,800 vehicles last month.
Sales of its SUV models jumped 73 per cent to 1,200 vehicles helping to boost the brand’s overall volumes in the first nine months by 41 per cent to 45,400 vehicles.
“Mercedes-Benz is the fastest-growing luxury brand in China, both in September and in the three quarters since January,” a spokeswoman for Daimler AG said.
BMW has also experienced growth in China with sales up by 35 per cent to 7,628 vehicles in the month, and by 32 per cent to 59,460 for the first nine months.
Audi gained 37 per cent last month to more than 15,000 vehicles — the first time it breached that level. That helped it crack the 100,000-mark through September, increasing volumes by a fifth so far this year.
Audi is far more heavily dependent on China for its performance than Mercedes-Benz or BMW thanks to parent Volkswagen’s strong presence in the market over the past two decades.
A few days ago, Audi and its Chinese joint venture partner began production of the Q5 SUV in Changchun, where it already builds the long-wheelbase versions of the A4 and A6 sedans.
With Reuters
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In a trip to Shanghai last year all I was driven in was Audi A6s and A8s. They had a huge portion of the market compared to BMW and MB.
Volkswagen are certainly doing well over there.
Realist, I believe most if not all the Audi sedans sold in China are made by Chinese companies in partnership with VWAG (correct me if I’m wrong). Did you notice any quality difference?
I’ve been in an A6 last time I was there but that was an older model, it seems to be pretty good quality. Also the VW’s there are seen as more reliable then Toyota’s and are well priced comparatively. Though I don’t know this firsthand, it’s what the locals tell me but I wouldn’t be surprised.
One of my previous teachers used to frequently visit Shanghai on business trips and he would always hire either an A6 or A8. When he arrived back home he used to brag about how our Audi’s were to overpriced and that the quality was brilliant if not better than what we get from the Germans downunder. he said they hav access to many more options and the cars somehow fell more solid. This was only a year ago that he went.
That’s quite interesting. Though, we can’t all honestly think that EVERYTHING that is built in China is of low quality, that would be stupid. They are clearly just as capable of manufacturing high quality products as if they were made anywhere else in the world.
pfffffffffffffttttttttttttt !!!!!!!!!!!!!
They certainly are – provided they have quality supervision they can produce world class products. BHPB and Rio Tinto’s ventures with steel fabrication shops are evidence of this.
BM, I don’t want to have to start calling you Pauline Hanson again…
Chinese Audis arent anywhere as good quality as German stuff, even the Chinese themselves say that !
Our factory in China has Hondas, 5 Chinese built and one imported,totally different quality !
The A6 and A8 I was transported in was built well, I really couldn’t tell the difference – and the A8 did have more gizmos than what I’ve seen here in Oz, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were options here.
I was in China a couple of weeks ago and there were lots of A8L’s, S600L’s, 750iL’s.
Chinese will buy German way before anything Japanese, luxury or not. Its also more exotic and has more kudos to show how much they have financially achieved. In time I would think Chinese made Audis, or any luxury car for that matter, be of a very similar standard to German made cars, especially as more robots are used in construction.
At least sales are up for the large car German brands in China as they have taken a battering in Germany. Germans are shying away from their karge car manufacturers Audi, Merc, BMW with sales down by up to 30% year on year.
Would explain why BMW cant get their FWD small 1 series into production quick enough.