Chinese cars end up sidetracked in emerging markets
George McKibbens is a Guangzhou-based writer and educator, who teaches history at South China Normal University and writes for Guangzhou News Express.
A funny thing happened on the way to China’s drive to build a world-beating auto industry: It got sidetracked.
Instead of Chinese cars finding a ready market among its newly affluent people, and then establishing itself in developed markets where Japan and South Korean car makers have already blazed a trail, China’s auto-sector may be stuck in a blind alley.
Since 2009, a majority of the world’s cars have been assembled and purchased in China. Foreign brands such as Buick have profited the most from China’s auto boom.
And foreign brands are quick to use local talent to promote their brands. Daimler co-financed a film starring Ge You, who played an older man in the throes of a midlife crisis taking solace in his Mercedes Benz.
And Daimler hired mainland actress Fan Bingbing to advertise a Mercedes SLK. It’s hard to imagine Fan Bingbing stooping to endorse a JVC or a Geely, both Chinese-made, but lacking the cachet of the German luxury car giant.
It’s equally hard to imagine Chinese entertainment figures rocking up to a premiere in a Cherry QQ, or getting behind the wheel of a Haval H3, or a Geely Micro Panda.