General Motors and its regional joint-venture partners sold a record 3 million vehicles in China before the end of the year. That’s big news for any automaker. Yet Volkswagen AG and its partners achieved the same milestone a week before The General. In fact, China loves VAG so much, that the automaker leads GM by some 70,000 units based on sales figures of the first 11 months of 2013.
The final numbers will arrive to us at the start of the new year. Can GM rally? Stay tuned.
Comments
I think for right now people in China are either getting vw or gm vehicles. People don’t want Japanese brands there due to the history of China and Japan. Even little kids thinks it’s an embarrassment that their parents bought a Japanese brand and just leaves the house.
Not only that Volkswagen is selling more cars, they also have higher margins because they sell more upmarket cars…
All that matters for GM is their profit margin!
@Brian
You have absolutely no idea of economics. If Volkswagen earns more money with every car they sell while selling the same number as GM or even more, they have more money to reinvest in R&D, marketing, dealer network, quality systems, better products etc…. So they are simply more competitive than GM. If VW generates a higher cashflow and a higher EBIT they are also more atractive for stakeholders and so on.
If I were Chinese, I would be embarrassed too. The Japanese killed between 4 and 10 million Chinese during WWII. These were maiming, raping, cannibalizing, absolutely gruesome stuff. They were just ravaging cities, killing people for no reason. Even though that was 70 years ago, not enough time has not past. The Chinese aren’t missing any spectacular cars from Tokyo.
Selling the most cars got GM into trouble before, being profitable Is all GM needs to worry about
Way to go Brian!
For the first time ever, I actually agree with you!