GM Chases China Sales With Camaro Transformers

Bloomberg News, June 27, 2014

Visitors take pictures with the Bumblebee Autobot character from the Transformers movies at the Universal Studios Hollywood theme park in Hollywood. GM’s relationship with Transformers goes back to the first film in 2007, which included Bumblebee, a bright yellow Chevrolet Camaro.

As “Transformers: Age of Extinction” opens in theaters, General Motors Co. (GM) is betting on the latest installment of the alien-robot saga to help jump-start Chevrolet sales in China.

The reboot of the movie franchise, which features battling robots that convert into cars and trucks, opens in China and the U.S. today and includes vehicles such as the Chevrolet Camaro sports car and Trax small sport-utility vehicle. The fourth movie in the series gives GM, second to Volkswagen AG in sales among foreign automakers in China, a marketing tool as it introduces six Chevrolets in the country this year.

The goal “is to use it as a springboard for launching new products,” Tim Mahoney, the global chief marketing officer for the Chevrolet brand, said last week in an interview.

The brand could use a boost in China. Chevrolet last year failed to keep pace with the nation’s 16 percent growth for passenger vehicles, with sales rising 8.5 percent to 652,077. Transformers has melded the summer popcorn spectacle with U.S. car culture in a way that has resonated in China, where its middle class has been fueling the world’s largest auto market.

GM’s relationship with Transformers goes back to the first film in 2007, which included a bright yellow Chevrolet Camaro called Bumblebee. Mahoney said he’s seen the effect of the movie on the streets of China, where more than 70 percent of Camaro sports cars are purchased in the same color as the character. In the U.S., it’s just 5 percent.

“The yellow is pretty well associated with Chevy and I think a lot of it, I can’t prove it, but I suspect a lot of it has to do with the role Bumblebee played,” he said.

China Exposure

GM, based in Detroit, plans to use Chevrolet to expand into China’s smaller cities and the country’s western region. The brand’s slower growth last year came “from not having the freshest product in the highest growth segments,” Bill Russo, president of Synergistics Ltd., a Shanghai-based consulting firm, said in an e-mail.

Cristi Vazquez, a GM spokeswoman, declined to say how much GM spent to be part of the movie.

The favorable exposure in the Asian nation could be a boon for GM as the automaker plays defense in the U.S. over its handling of a recall of 2.59 million small cars with ignition issues linked to at least 13 deaths.

Ed Welburn, GM’s head of design, said he’s noticed the Transformer logo on Chevys while riding through Shanghai.

Bumblebee Yellow

“You know it didn’t come through the factory that way,” Welburn said. “People added it to their Chevrolets, and it’s a very positive relationship.”

GM is betting that the latest film, which features a cast led by Mark Wahlberg, will have a similar impact in China. The first three pictures in the franchise have generated $2.67 billion worldwide for Viacom Inc.’s Paramount Pictures, according to Box Office Mojo.

The last installment, “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” was released in 2011 and had the second-biggest opening weekend for a U.S. film in China, pulling in $56 million, and ending with total sales of $165 million.

The number of theater screens in China tripled from 2008 to 2012, reaching 13,118, according to Beijing-based EntGroup, a research firm. Box-office receipts climbed 36 percent from 2011 to 2012 to reach $2.7 billion and surged to $3.6 billion last year, data from Rentrak show.

Chinese Cast

“Transformers 4 is going to be a very important film for the relationship between Hollywood and China,” said Phil Contrino, chief analyst at BoxOffice.com. “Paramount has cast Chinese actors in the film so there is a lot of outreach to Chinese viewers to make sure that it’s not just selling a film into China.”

Welburn, the design chief, worked closely with the filmmakers and has a cameo role in the movie. A GM plant was also used as a set, according to LeeAnne Stables, president of Paramount consumer products and executive of worldwide marketing partnerships.

The relationship saw GM push to get its new Trax SUV, which went on sale in China this year, in the movie along with the Sonic small car. The Trax is an important introduction for GM in China, where the brand has fallen behind in the small SUV segment.

The automaker and its joint-venture partners reported overall sales gains of 11 percent to 3.16 million in China last year. GM sold 809,918 Buicks in China in 2013 while its Wuling truck brand delivered 1.48 million vehicles domestically.

Guangzhou Auto

GM isn’t the only automaker counting on the Transformers movie.

Guangzhou Automobile Group Co., whose Trumpchi GA5 sedan is driven by actress Li Bingbing in the film, plans to export the Chinese brand to the U.S. as early as next year.

“Our sponsorship of Transformers 4 will help more overseas dealers and consumers know about our cars and over the long run it will greatly contribute to our branding,” Wu Song, head of the Trumpchi brand, said in a phone interview yesterday. “We want to start exporting to the U.S. as quickly as possible and I am confident that they will find our Trumpchi cars competitive.”

China has become the first country to reach more than 20 million new vehicle sales in one year with deliveries rising 14 percent to 21.98 million in 2013. Sales may exceed 24 million in 2014, the state-backed China Association of Automobile Manufacturers has said.

Last year’s sales of passenger vehicles, excluding buses and commercial trucks, climbed to 17.93 million -- or 15 percent more than the U.S. auto industry -- and may increase 9 percent to 11 percent this year, the association said.

As GM works to build Chevy in China, the latest movie arrives with not only cast members from China but also some filming done in Hong Kong as Hollywood also tries to capture a growing market.

Back in Detroit, Welburn, the design chief, said he believes the Camaro’s success in the movie is simple.

“The Camaro is kind of an everyday hero, and it plays that part in the movie.”

To contact the reporters on this story: John Irwin in Southfield, Michigan at jirwin25@bloomberg.net; Anousha Sakoui in London at asakoui@bloomberg.net; Tim Higgins in Detroit at thiggins21@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Jamie Butters at jbutters@bloomberg.net Chua Kong Ho

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-06-26/gm-chases-china-sales-with-camaros-turning-robot-in-transformers.html

GM’s China Bet Mimics Toyota’s Bet on U.S. Last Century

Bloomberg Business Week, April 29, 2013

GM’s announcement at the Shanghai auto show this month that it is spending $11 billion by 2016 

on new plants, products and people in China demonstrates a change in priorities. 

By Keith Naughton

General Motors Co. (GM), the largest carmaker in the U.S., is shifting its center of gravity to China, where it sells more cars and now invests more money.

GM’s announcement at the Shanghai auto show this month that it is spending $11 billion by 2016 on new plants, products and people in China demonstrates a change in priorities. Since its 2009 bankruptcy, GM has announced $8.5 billion of investment in the U.S., where it has a more modest assembly-plant footprint.

GM’s focus on China parallels the strategy Toyota Motor Corp. (7201) employed in the last century, when the Japanese automaker poured investment in the U.S. market, where it saw its greatest growth potential. Now, Detroit-based GM is taking the lead in the world’s largest auto market by building four new assembly plants in China to boost its factory capacity to 5 million vehicles annually, twice what it sold in the U.S. last year.

“This is what the Japanese did in the ’70s when the U.S. became their most important market,” said Rebecca Lindland, an automotive consultant with Rebel Three Media & Consultants in Cos Cob, Connecticut. “What GM is doing is really smart because it’s proactively investing in a market that, for the foreseeable future, is going to be the world’s largest.”

GM rose to a 52-week high of $30.71 last week. It rose 0.3 percent to $30.58 at 9:52 a.m. New York time. It gained 5.8 percent this year through April 26 compared with an 11 percent increase in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index. The company will announce quarterly results May 2.

‘Center Stage’

GM already is the No. 1 automaker in China, with 15.1 percent of the market in the first quarter on growing sales of Buick and Chevrolet models and a thriving commercial-vehicle joint venture. It’s rolling out 17 models there this year, including a renewed push to sell its Cadillac luxury line to the increasingly affluent Chinese. And it’s expanding its Chinese dealer network to 5,100, from 3,800.

“China has become the center stage in the battle for dominance of the 21st century global auto industry and GM is investing to secure its leadership position,” said Bill Russo, president of auto consultant Synergistics Ltd. in Shanghai. “GM is investing to ensure that they can differentiate themselves from the crowd by having a full product shelf and a dealer network.”

China is central to Chief Executive Officer Dan Akerson’s plan to diversify GM’s sources of profits around the planet. While North America remains GM’s biggest profit center, China has emerged as the leader in other key measures -- sales, output and investment. Analysts say it’s just a matter of time before China becomes GM’s biggest profit center.

“It wouldn’t be difficult to see this flip sometime between now and 2020 for sure,” Jeff Schuster, an analyst with LMC Automotive, said of China’s potential to become GM’s profit leader.

‘Big Bet?’

GM’s factory build-up will give it 17 assembly plants in China, said Bob Socia, GM’s top executive in the country, exceeding the 12 it has in the U.S. GM’s dealer count in China will also surpass the 4,343 showrooms it has in its home market. GM has been selling more vehicles in China since 2010.

While China’s economic growth slowed to 7.7 percent in the first quarter, automakers still see it as an attractive market.

Asked why GM is making such a large bet on China, Socia scoffed at the idea of a gamble.
“Big bet?” he said. “We’re confident about playing here in China. We’re here for the long term and you’ve got to lead and be strong in your commitment. We’re very bullish.”

Even more bullish than others. While LMC forecasts the market reaching 32 million vehicles by 2020, GM predicts it will grow to 35 million by 2022. That’s up from 19.4 million last year. China in 2009 surpassed the U.S. market, where dealers sold 14.5 million cars and light trucks last year, the most since 2007. The U.S. record is 17.4 million in 2000.

China Is Key to Volkswagen's Global Goal of Being No. 1 Automaker

Advertising Age, November 26, 2012

Most Buyers Outside China's Biggest Cities Will Be First-Time Car Owners

As Volkswagen plots a course toward its goal of becoming the world's biggest automaker by 2018, it's increasingly clear that the path to global dominance runs through places such as Western China's Lanzhou.

The capital of the landlocked Gansu province, which borders the Gobi Desert, is home to 11 dealerships for VW and its sibling brands, Audi and Skoda. With a population of 3.6 million and gross domestic product per capita of $4,100, Lanzhou is the type of smaller city away from China's prosperous east coast that VW is targeting in its next phase of expansion.

"Volkswagen's early entry into China meant that our outlets focused on bigger, developed cities," said Soh Weiming, the carmaker's exec VP in China. "Now, we have to expand beyond them."

Less-developed Chinese cities are VW's "bread and butter," Mr. Soh said last week in an interview at the Guangzhou auto show.

Increasing sales in such far-flung places is the primary challenge facing Jochem Heizmann, who took over as VW's China country head on Sept. 1.

The appointment of Mr. Heizmann, a former trucks chief and head of production planning at the company, underlines the importance of China in VW's plans to overtake General Motors and Toyota Motor Corp. It is also the first time that VW's executive overseeing China has been on the company's group management board, a move that VW says streamlines its daily business there.

At stake is a market that IHS Automotive and Macquarie Securities project will eclipse the combined sales of the United States, Germany and Japan in three years.

VW Group's Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda brands account for a fifth of China's passenger vehicle deliveries, well ahead of General Motors, at 9.9% with its Buick and Chevrolet brands, according to researcher LMC Automotive.

VW intends to consolidate its lead with aggressive investment that outpaces the expansion plans of its rivals. The German company expects that to help it win over the next wave of Chinese car buyers, made up of mostly first-timers who have little brand allegiance.

"Chinese consumers are notoriously disloyal," said Bill Russo, president of Synergistics Ltd., a market researcher in Beijing. "Volkswagen's challenge is continuing to build customer relationship management, and be geographically in the high-growth regions."

China's smaller cities will account for 60% of new car deliveries by the end of the decade, up from 40% in the past 10 years, McKinsey & Co. predicts. Car sales in so-called third- and fourth-tier cities will grow 10% annually until 2020, vs. 4% in Shanghai and Beijing, McKinsey said.

The country, already the world's largest auto market, will grow in importance as a debt crisis dampens vehicle sales in Europe.

"Globally, growth will be a bit slow," Mr. Heizmann told reporters on Nov. 21. "China is different," he said. "In China, every business, every brand is selling especially well."

VW's joint ventures with SAIC Motor Corp. and China FAW Group Corp. operate or have announced plans for 11 factories in China, with a targeted capacity of 4 million vehicles a year by 2018. The automaker, which also owns Seat, Bentley and Lamborghini, will have to persuade consumers such as 23-year-old flight attendant Shiny Yao to buy from and stay with the group.

"There are so many choices," said Yao, a Shanghai resident who bought a Honda Civic last month. "If I switch cars, I know I'll not buy another Honda. I'll definitely try something new."

VW plans to recruit more dealers, increase the number of locally made models for its Skoda brand and introduce plug-in hybrid vehicles for sale in the "near future," according to a company statement.

Sales for Skoda, the Czech carmaker that VW took over after the collapse of communism, rose 7% to 181,900 units in China in the first nine months of this year. The country became Skoda's biggest market in 2010, three years after it started local production.

Volkswagen's China sales will reach almost 2.7 million vehicles this year, or 30% of its global total, Norddeutsche Landesbank predicts. The automaker sold 2.3 million vehicles in China in 2011. "For 60 years, the most important market for VW was Germany; they sold around 1 million cars there," said Norddeutsche Landesbank analyst Frank Schwope. "Four or five years back, China overtook the German market. Now VW is still going to sell 1 million cars in Germany, but 2.7 million cars in China."

Click here to read the article at Advertising Age

For VW, the Path to Global Dominance Leads Through China

Bloomberg News, November 25, 2012

Jochem Heizmann, president and chief executive officer of Volkswagen Group China. Photographer: Chris Rank/Bloomberg

As Volkswagen AG (VOW) plots a course toward its goal of becoming the world’s biggest automaker by 2018, it’s increasingly clear that the path to global dominance runs through places like Lanzhou, in western China.

The capital of landlocked Gansu province, which borders the Gobi Desert, is home to a total of 11 dealerships for VW and its sister brands, Audi and Skoda. With a population of 3.6 million, and GDP per capita of about $4,100, Lanzhou is the type of smaller city away from China’s prosperous east coast that VW is targeting in its next phase of expansion.

“Volkswagen’s early entry into China meant that our outlets focused on bigger, developed cities,” said Soh Weiming, the carmaker’s China Executive Vice President. “Now, we have to expand beyond them.”

Less-developed Chinese cities are VW’s “bread and butter,” Soh said in an interview at the Guangzhou Autoshow on Nov. 21.

Increasing sales in such far-flung places is the primary challenge facing Jochem Heizmann, who took over as VW’s China country head on Sept. 1.

The appointment of Heizmann, a former trucks chief and head of production planning at the company, underlines the importance of China in VW’s plans to overtake General Motors Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. (7203) It is also the first time that VW’s executive overseeing China has been on the company’s group management board, a move VW says increases flexibility and streamlines its daily business there.

Disloyal Customers

At stake is a market that IHS Automotive and Macquarie Securities project will eclipse the combined sales of the U.S., Germany and Japan in three years. VW’s Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda brands account for a fifth of China’s passenger vehicle deliveries, well ahead of General Motors Co. (GM), at 9.9 percent with its Buick and Chevrolet nameplates, according to researcher LMC Automotive. Hyundai Motor Co. stands at No. 3 with 9.7 percent, LMC said.

VW intends to consolidate its lead with aggressive investment that outpaces that planned by rivals. VW’s China ventures have pledged to spend 9.8 billion euros ($12.6 billion) in China through 2015, while GM says it will invest as much as $7 billion in the five years to 2015.

The German company expects that spending differential to help it win over the next wave of Chinese car buyers, made up of mostly first-timers who have little brand allegiance.

“Chinese consumers are notoriously disloyal,” said Bill Russo, president of Synergistics Ltd., a market researcher in Beijing. “Volkswagen’s challenge is continuing to build customer relationship management, and be geographically in the high-growth regions.”

Fourth-Tier

China’s smaller cities will account for 60 percent of new car deliveries by the end of the decade, up from 40 percent in the past 10 years, McKinsey & Co. predicts. Car sales in so- called third- and fourth-tier cities will grow about 10 percent annually until 2020, versus 4 percent a year in Shanghai and Beijing, McKinsey said.

The country, already the world’s largest auto market, is set to grow in importance, as a drawn out debt crisis weighs on vehicle sales in Europe.

“Globally, growth will be a bit slow,” Heizmann told reporters on Nov. 21. “China is different,” he said. “In China, every business, every brand is selling especially well.”

Trained as an engineer with a doctorate from Karlsruhe University in Germany, Heizmann is no stranger to the country.

Shanghai Professor

The 60-year-old oversaw factory expansion in China almost two decades ago when he was in charge of planning and commissioning new passenger-car plants at VW. From 2001 to 2007, Heizmann oversaw global production for Audi (NSU), which now counts China as its biggest market. In 2004, he was made a guest professor at Shanghai’s Tongji University, which has a research partnership with Audi.

VW’s joint ventures with SAIC Motor Corp. (600104) and China FAW Group Corp. operate or have announced plans for 11 factories in China, with a targeted capacity of 4 million vehicles a year by 2018. The carmaker is also considering a new 300,000-unit plant in Changsha in southern Hunan province, a person familiar with company’s plans said this month.

VW, based in Wolfsburg, Germany, is currently negotiating an extension to its tie-up with FAW, with which it runs a joint venture making the Jetta sedan and the Audi A6L, a luxury model that was stretched to boost its appeal to Chinese buyers.

Skoda Sales

The automaker, which also owns Seat, Bentley and Lamborghini, will have to persuade consumers like 23-year-old flight attendant Shiny Yao to buy from and stay with the group.

“There are so many choices,” said Yao, a Shanghai resident who bought a Honda Civic last month. “If I switch cars, I know I’ll not buy another Honda. I’ll definitely try something new.”

VW plans to recruit more dealers, increase the number of locally made models for its Skoda brand, and introduce plug-in hybrid vehicles for sale in the “near future,” according to a company statement.

Sales for Skoda, the Czech carmaker that VW took over after the collapse of communism, rose 6.8 percent to 181,900 units China in the first nine months of this year, company data show. The country became Skoda’s biggest market in 2010, three years after it started local production.

Customer Complaints

Heizmann will also have to work to hold on to existing customers unhappy over faults this year with a direct-shift gearbox system that affected some cars, said Jochen Siebert, Shanghai-based managing director at JSC Automotive Consulting, an industry researcher.

The new China chief “still has to give more reassurance to customers that there isn’t a problem with the engine,” Siebert said. “There have been a lot of problems and they need to find a way to better react.”

The automaker agreed to extend the warranty for the automatic transmission technology to 10 years from the standard two years after customers complained and the quality regulator in March demanded a plan to rectify the problem. Drivers complained of noise, vibrations and, in a few cases, a failure to start in humid weather, the company said in May.

Volkswagen’s China sales will reach almost 2.7 million vehicles this year, or about 30 percent of its global total, Norddeutsche Landesbank predicts. The automaker says it sold 2.26 million vehicles in China in 2011.

“For 60 years, the most important market for VW was Germany; they sold around 1 million cars there,” said Norddeutsche Landesbank analyst Frank Schwope. “Four or five years back, China overtook the German market. Now VW is still going to sell 1 million cars in Germany, but 2.7 million cars in China.”

Click here to read this article at Bloomberg News

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Liza Lin in Shanghai at llin15@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chua Kong Ho at kchua6@bloomberg.net

China’s Dash for Growth Slowed by Costs, Capacity Issues

Ward's Auto, November 2011


Former Chrysler China executive Bill Russo says the domestic auto makers’ biggest challenge by 2015 will be overcapacity. “Lower utilization at local marques will drive their manufacturing costs upwards.”

SHANGHAI – After experiencing rapid development in the past decade, China’s auto industry now faces tough challenges: overcapacity, rising material costs and slumping sales.

That’s the consensus among experts attending the ninth annual automotive industry forum held here by the China Europe International Business School.

Annual production and sales growth in China likely will drop 5%-10% this year and next, with some estimates as low as 5%, from previous highs of 25%, says Dong Yang, vice president- China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

CAAM says industry sales reached RMB4.35 trillion ($684.4 billion) in 2010. But 2011 is proving to be difficult, with rising inflation and an appreciating yuan.

This is particularly the case for FAW Group, the third-largest auto maker in China, which has just revealed a third-quarter loss of RMB49 million ($7.7 million). FAW says its business was seriously affected by “tight monetary policy, inflation and the end of the government’s (vehicle-replacement) incentives program.”

Financing remains tight as Chinese banks are reluctant to lend, given the central bank has raised the 1-year deposit rate and lending rate by 25 points to 3.5% and 6.6%, respectively.

China’s consumer price index, which has been running high this year, rose 6.1% year-on-year in September. The Chinese government predicted the CPI would climb 5.5% this year from 2010.

What short-term succour exists for the Chinese auto makers comes with a green tinge: Local governments in six major cities – Changchun, Beijing, Shanghai, Hangzhou, Hefei and Shenzhen – now are offering subsidies up to RMB60,000 ($9,440) for consumers buying electric vehicles, sending a clear message that clean-energy cars should be the industry’s next big thing.

First in line, Shenzhen-based BYD launched China’s first all-electric passenger car, the e6 in October. The car is priced at RMB369,800 ($58,179) before local subsidies.

Foreign auto makers stress at the conference here plans to push into China’s EV market.Nissan Chief Operating Officer Toshiyuki Shiga notes his company’s electric Leaf, which is priced at about RMB208,356 ($32,780) in the U.S., recently received sales approval from the Chinese government.

EVs will not be the only alternative-propulsion vehicles in China in the next decade, says Zhang Jinhua, vice secretary general of the Society of Automotive of Engineers of China. Others, including hydrogen fuel-cell cars and hybrid vehicles, will generate significant sales by 2020.

“While electric cars are zero emission, hybrid cars are less-demanding on the infrastructure, and fuel-cell (vehicles) can be used for a long-distance drive,” he says. “They all have their own advantages.”

General Motors with joint-venture partner SAIC recently introduced a Buick LaCrosse with eAssist, which the auto maker says could lower average fuel consumption 20%.

Priced at RMB265,000 ($41,692), it also is the first model targeting the Chinese middle class that sells for less than RMB300,000 ($47,198). GM-SAIC plans to add capacity to build 410,000 vehicles a year in order to produce 1.9 million units annually by 2015.

FAW is adding capacity to produce 960,000 units annually by 2015, while Volvo-owner Geely plans to add capacity to manufacture 1 million vehicles, in order to reach 1.68 million units annually by 2015. Great Wall and Chang’an will add 1.3 million and 900,000 units of capacity, respectively, in the same timeframe.

The risk here of course, especially given falling demand and rising material costs, is overcapacity, especially for those auto makers that fail to improve marketing and research-and- development skills.

These are the key challenges facing Chinese auto makers in the coming years, says Bill Russo, Senior Advisor with the Booz & Company global-strategy firm’s automotive practice in Beijing.

Russo, a former Chrysler China executive, tells WardsAuto the market’s future will be decided by which auto makers get sales-and-service networks in place in the emerging second-tier cities.

This is where the bulk of new sales are expected to emerge as Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou restrict car sales to cut down on traffic congestion.

Russo predicts annual sales will hit 20 million vehicles by 2015, but he sees international brands’ local joint ventures retaining their dominance. The domestics’ biggest challenge will be overcapacity, he says. “Lower utilization at local marques will drive their manufacturing costs upwards.”

Exports offer one way out for brands saddled with excess capacity, and certain OEMs, such as Great Wall, have been aggressively expanding overseas sales. But there are issues to overcome. Marketing abilities remain a particular challenge for local brands both in export and domestic sales. Developing reliable parts and service networks are other weaknesses.

These issues partly could be addressed by foreign acquisitions, experts here say. Hangzhou-based Geely, for example, plans to sell 200,000 Volvos in China by 2015. And Tangshan-based Pang Da Automobile Trading and Jinhua-based auto maker Youngman are jointly paying €100 million ($138 million) to buy Sweden’s Saab. The deal is waiting for regulatory approval.

But Dong, of CAAM, warns going abroad is risky and requires a lot of research and negotiations. “You have to show the foreign government what kind of benefits you are going to bring them and comply with local regulations,” he says.

Auto makers in China believe increasing competitiveness will see profitability squeezed further, compelling them to expand their portfolios while also refreshing existing models.

Hua Ming, who runs a Volkswagen dealership in Beijing’s business district, has seen a 20% drop in sales so far this year, which he blames on the city’s new limits on car ownership. To compensate, he has opened a dealership in Shijiazhuang, the capital of neighbouring Hebei province.

Hua says Chinese auto makers have a chance to capture market share if they’re faster in expanding sales-and-service operations to lower-tier cities, where average per-capita income stands at half the Beijing urban average of RMB120,768 ($19,000).

“But all brands have to understand rural preferences for more durability and less fancy electronics and features,” he says.

– with Mark Godfrey in Beijing

Click here to read the original article at Wards Auto

Presentation: General Motors in China

Analyst Presentation, June 21, 2011

General Motors in China

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