General Motors has consistently highlighted how Cadillac continues to grow exponentially in China, but it has even bigger plans for the luxury brand locally.
Cadillac President Steve Carlisle said at the Bank of America Merrill Lynch conference on Wednesday it plans to expand its network of dealers in China to 500 by 2025, according to a Wednesday Reuters report. Additionally, Cadillac China will follow the same launch cadence as North America with a new vehicle debuting every six months for the next three years.
With the XT4, XT6, and CT5 now revealed, we expect to soon see the smaller CT4 sedan, a new Escalade, a refreshed XT5, and the brand’s first electric vehicle: an unnamed SUV model. Other forthcoming vehicles are unknown. Some of the models could be specific to China as well.
Cadillac said last year it will become GM’s electric car brand to challenge premium electric cars from rivals such as Mercedes-Benz, Audi, and Tesla. Most of GM’s new electric cars from here on out will be Cadillacs. Additionally, new technology breakthroughs will debut with Cadillac first before they trickle down to Buick, GMC, and Chevrolet.
In 2018, Cadillac sales grew 17.2 percent in China. However, GM CEO Mary Barra has goals to sell one million Cadillac vehicles globally by 2026. Most of the sales will, inevitably, come from China.
For 2019, GM expects a good year for the brand. It will have the XT4 crossover on sale for a full year and deliveries of the three-row XT6 will begin this summer. The Cadillac CT5 sedan will arrive at dealers this fall.
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Source: Reuters
Comments
The expectation for massive growth for Cadillac in China is not realistic if General Motors CEO Mary Barra fails to keep Cadillac vehicles competitive with European brands; if vehicles in the Cadillac lineup do not begin to move towards being electric hybrids or become electrified, buyers in China will begin looking at European and home grown models that are electric hybrids or electric vehicles instead of Cadillac.
Did you read the article?
The headline should read also.. “GM Expects Massive Growth For Cadillac In USA Too”.. Its as if someone finally clued them in that if U build the vehicles that are selling like gangbusters U’ll get more sales. No brainer. I mean.. I was fine with the ATS, CTS, XTS, CT6, Escalade, XT5 strategy.. but it would have been better if the XT4 and XT6 were included in that strategy at the exact moment that the XT5 was introduced. Heck.. how about 2 years into the Gen 2 SRX? What makes it more crazy.. is that there is ZERO about the XT4 and XT6 that required them wait til the year 2018-19 to intro. The XT4 could have been an upgraded ‘Nox.. the XT6.. an upgraded ‘ Enclave. We can go back further as I used to say over at GMI.. why was the Saab 9-7 not a Baby Escalade? Anyway… we are here and YES CADILLAC!!! Give people more options and product your sales will grow. Imagine if U would just give us.. just a few COUPES and CONVERTIBLES! I gotta believe that U could expand CT4 and CT5, even CT6 sales with a CT3, CT6, and CT8
They do this at the risk of damaging Buick’s position in that market which is fantastic. Play the cards you have! Typical GM marketing blunder!
Good point. I know Cadillac and Buick will steal some sales from each other, but I might agree there may be two different customers for each brand with some overlap? After all, they have a very different design language. Plus, The ATP on Cadillacs will be higher than Buick commands. So, there’s that as well.
The Chinese and USA car markets differ substantially. One way I guess it will differ is that Cadillac should be popular in China and so China Cadillac sales should outdo USA sales by perhaps 2 to 3 times.
Massive growth…..except for right now. Cadillac sales in China declined about 19% in Q1 2019. The overall Chinese market dipped about 11.3% for Q1, so Cadillac was below average in getting cars over the curb.
As others have noted the market in China is much different than here. From my perspective based on recent visit to Shanghai in January, Chinese people especially the younger audience loves name brand/ luxury brand things. The same is true here in NA, but there it seems as if there they don’t care nearly as much about the quality, attention to detail or when comes to vehicles, refinement of said brand. It’s totally about the badge or label or “look”. As I have stated before, “Good enough” plays in China.
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