“A couple of years back, it was important to drive from A to B. Today it is important how you drive from A to B, so there’s a weekend car, there’s a family car, there’s a business car.”
The global economic crisis may have dampened enthusiasm for luxury cars in the West, but in China car sales, especially luxury models, have remained impressively strong. Mercedes-Benz, one of the leaders in the Chinese luxury car market, saw its business grow by 50% in the first eight months of 2009. The company introduced six new models to the market, in addition to new variants of popular designs like their S-Class luxury car.
Leading the company’s China sales and marketing efforts is Bjorn Hauber. Below are some comments from an interview.
“The target audience for Mercedes-Benz is constantly extending. At the start of 2009 we introduced the first B-Class – our first car below RMB 300,000. We did that for various reasons, one being to attract a totally new clientele; young people , those that are just about to get married and moving out (of their family homes) for the first time. These are people we have not yet had within our customer area before, and now with the B-Class we’re able to attract these young people.
The same is true for the Smart brand, which is a separate brand.
If we are talking in general, then the target group for Mercedes-Benz is entrepreneurs and senior executives in the companies – those who understand the value of Mercedes-Benz and are able to afford one of our cars.”
“The average of our customers is 40. We have a very young customer base in China, which also partly explains why we have so many first-time buyers.”
“Chinese buyers are very different from those in other parts of the world. First of all, everybody pays cash, so the product needs to be available when somebody walks into the dealership. Brand plays an important role, but its also a bit fragile because this market is so young.
Brand building is important because the Chinese customers are not yet so familiar with our reputation and with the value that the brand stands for so they don’t yet have the same loyalty as they would in the more developed markets.”
“If you look at the way cars are equipped here in China, you will find the equipment standard is very high. Chinese customers are very demanding when it comes to car equipment; they want to have everything inside the car. A good example for us is the S-Class; we offer it in nine different versions compared to the US where the product portfolio is a lot thinner.
The Chinese are very demanding; they tend to go for a fully-equipped car. There are still a high number of chauffeur-driven cars in China, so the rear seat area is much more important than in Europe where, of course, you are more often driving the car yourself.”
“If you look at the Chinese customers they develop their needs very fast, and the way they use their cars. A couple of years back it was important to drive from A to B. Today it’s more important how you drive from A to B, so there’s a weekend car; there’s a family car; there’s a business car. They develop their scope, and that’s why we also continuously increase our product portfolio because this need has developed strongly over the past couple of years.”
China International Business – Nov 2009
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February 20th, 2010 at 6:11 pm
Well, there’ll be sore surprises in store for all importers soon: There will be much more hardship soon with a looming Chinese collapse bigger than the Soviet Union’s.