Despite the slowdown in the growth of luxury cars in China, the confidence of luxury car companies in sales expansion in China has not diminished. On December 5th, GM's luxury brand Cadillac officially released a new LOGO and future brand strategy plan. The plan shows that in the future, Cadillac will expand its product line and launch a total of 11 models including cars, sports cars and SUVs. In fact, since the beginning of this year, major luxury brands, especially second-tier luxury brands, have rushed to release new strategies while constantly intensifying their market focus on China. The industry believes that with more luxury brands to complete domestic and channel construction plans, the luxury car market in 2015 will open a new round of competition.
The second-line brand is growing rapidly. In fact, compared with the slowdown of the top three Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz in the long-term luxury car market, the second-tier luxury car market is growing more rapidly.
According to reports, China is currently the world's second largest market for the Cadillac brand, second only to the United States. In the first 11 months of this year, Cadillac sales in China reached 64,359 units, an increase of 50.7%. Cadillac said that it will launch nine new models in the Chinese market in the next five years. And by 2018, 95% of the Cadillac models sold in China will be locally produced. In addition, Cadillac will take the lead in applying 4G LTE technology to a domestically-sold model in China next year.
Look at Jaguar Land Rover, this year in the Chinese market is about to harvest a beautiful annual sales of 120,000. This not only means that Jaguar Land Rover China broke the threshold of 100,000 vehicles per year for the first time, but also consolidated its fourth-largest sales in China's luxury car market; Volvo's performance in China is equally bright, and the cumulative sales in the first 10 months of this year exceeded 65,827. The vehicle increased by 35.8% year-on-year. Volvo expects to sell more than 80,000 vehicles in the Chinese market this year, and China has become Volvo's largest market in the world.
In the face of the rapid growth of China's luxury car market, the contribution rate of global sales to the second-tier luxury brands in the Chinese market has also increased. Jaguar Land Rover has increased from 21.3% in the same period last year to 26.3%, up 5 percentage points year-on-year. GM is more aware of the importance of the Chinese market. As early as 2010, China has become the world's largest single market for GM. In 2013, 3% of GM's sales came from China. General Motors President Dan Oman said that in 2014-2018, GM plans to invest a total of 14 billion US dollars in China, during which 60 new or redesigned models will be introduced. "The importance of the Chinese market cannot be overemphasized." Dan Oman said.
“Customized China” products are worthy of attention. In the context of the comprehensive exploration of the luxury car market, mid-size cars have become the new “blue sea” in the luxury car market competition. This segment is still strong when the growth rate of the luxury car market slows down this year. Data from the National Passenger Car Joint Conference show that the two segments of the SUV and mid-size cars have driven the growth of the luxury car market this year.
Analysts believe that the mid-size car has become the representative of the rejuvenation of the luxury car market, and the luxury mid-size car that takes into account the sporty performance and elegant appearance has become the new favorite of potential consumers in China. The product introduction plan of each second-tier luxury brand can also find their efforts in the product introduction competition in the Chinese market.
According to reports, Cadillac will launch more products to support the young consumers, this strategy is called "the establishment of the Cadillac brand and the millennial luxury car consumer relevance." John De Nie said that in the small luxury sedan market, Cadillac will launch a new model to win young consumers. In the current small, compact SUV field, Cadillac will also achieve vehicle coverage.
Lexus has introduced two new products this year, and NX as a medium-sized SUV will be the main force for Lexus' future sales in the Chinese market. Infiniti is launching the Q50 in China to pave the way for localization, and hopes to compete with the Audi A4L, BMW 3 Series and Mercedes-Benz C-class German brands for the entry-level market. Volvo said that the main driver of its growth in the next four years will come from technology updates, product updates and new product launches. It is reported that following the new XC90, Volvo will launch a new luxury sedan, and plans to produce in China's factories, and will export to other parts of the world.
Deep localization to seize market share Some analysts believe that second-tier luxury cars have missed domestic opportunities in the past few years, making them lack flexible measures in the face of market changes. The statistics of the Geshi Automobile Research Institute show that in the first three quarters of this year, the top ten luxury brands in the Chinese market sold a total of 1.291 million, of which Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz were the top five, accounting for 73.9%. It can be seen that the gap between the sales of the second-line luxury brands and the first-line brands is still obvious.
In this regard, the second-tier luxury brands have announced domestic plans in recent years, in China to fight against the German top three, grab more market share. After Infiniti announced its domestic plan last year, the first domestically produced Q50L entry-level luxury sedan has been rolled out at the Xiangyang plant. By 2016, Infiniti hopes to account for 10% of the luxury car market. Like Infiniti, the first car to be made in 2015 is Jaguar Land Rover. In October this year, its first domestic model Aurora officially went offline, and the future Land Rover brand also hopes to occupy 10% of China's luxury SUV market share.
Previously, Geely launched Volvo S60L after the acquisition of Volvo. According to the plan, Volvo's market share in China will be doubled from now on around 2020, and the expected target is also 10%. The Cadillac brand, which has high hopes for the Chinese market, launched the domestic ATS-L long-axis version in the second half of this year. Recently, a new brand strategy was released and the new model plan for the future was revealed.
A number of authorities predict that by 2016, China will surpass the United States to become the world's largest luxury car market. The industry believes that deep localization will become an important strategy for luxury car brands to compete for global commanding heights. 2015 will be the time for this plan to be implemented. Whether the second-tier luxury car will occupy more market share in the domestic luxury car market will even affect its global market structure.