In 2010, China produced 18.26 million cars and sold 18.06 cars, a year-on-year growth of 32.44% and 32.37%. Compared to other countries in the world, China is dominating the auto-industry in terms of both sales volume and growth rate. Due to rapidly growing urbanization, the rise in average income, the development of China’s satellite cities, and the development of suburban areas, more Chinese consumers are starting to purchase automobiles.
Domestic auto brands
Although the market is predominately controlled by large foreign car manufacturers, China also has many famous auto brands of its own.
Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd. is one of the top ten enterprises in China’s auto industry. Since it entered the auto field in 1997, Geely has been quickly developing. This growth was driven by the company’s flexible operating strategy and continuous independent innovation. Currently, it has over 14 million yuan in total assets and was listed in the top 500 Chinese firms for 6 consecutive years. On August 2, 2012, the Geely holding group officially purchased Volvo from Ford in Gotheburg, Sweden. The total capital involved in the purchase amounted to 1.8 billion dollars. Emgrand is another one of Geely’s subsidiary and targets the affordable luxury car market.
Chery Automobile was registered in 1997 in Anhui, with initial investment of 1.752 billion yuan. On December 18, 1999, Chery began producing its cars for retail. In 2001, Chery became listed, and then in 2002, it achieved sales of 50 thousand units, and became one of the top eight auto companies in China.
Dongfeng, which was established in 1969, is now one of the three biggest auto enterprises. Also, it is a national enterprise that is directly supervised and administrated by Sasac of the State Council of China. Dongfeng is headquartered in Wuhan and has five major production bases: Shiyan(十堰), Xian yang(襄阳), Wuhan(武汉), Guangzhou(广州) and Zhengzhou(郑州). Its products include commercial vehicles, passenger cars, engines, and spare automobile parts. Today, the the firm owns 73.25 billion yuan in total assets. The company also has 124 thousand employees and achieved 1.3 billion unit sales in 2008. In addition, it ranked first in heavy duty trucks, SUVs, and medium-size buses. And it ranked second in light trucks and third in saloon cars. Today, Dongfeng has 14 appending companies, jointly shareholding companies and other companies in total.
Volkswagen
Volkswagen Group China was founded in 1985. Chinese customers and investors own about 60% of Volkswagen Group China. Volkswagen Group owns the other 40%. The company is headquartered is in Shanghai and has two big production bases in Shanghai and Nanjing. Its two most popular brands in China are Volkswagen and Skoda. These two brands offer eight different models to Chinese consumers: The Passat, Baltic, Touran, Lavida, Tiguan, Octavia, Fabia and Superb. The company’s world’s first-class production and technology has allowed it to become the most popular car brand in China’s auto-industry.
Daxue Consulting China Market Research
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Picture Source: Volkswagen China
