Giants of the global automotive industry have also taken note of Chinese firms’ great potential and growing expertise in car-making. (Photo : Getty Images)
Global car firms expressed their great faith in the Chinese market and the potential of Chinese carmakers as the 87th Geneva International Auto Show opened its doors to the public on March 9.
“We still see growing demand and more and more people in China becoming more wealthy and who are willing to spend money on premium cars, and this segment is still growing,” BMW spokesperson Kai Lichte told the Xinhua News Agency on Wednesday, March 8.
“A little more than one quarter of all sales are in China, it’s the biggest market, bigger than the U.S. and Germany,” Lichte added.
Jurgen Stackmann, the marketing manager of Volkswagen, also expressed the same sentiments. Fifty percent of Volkswagen’s sales are in China.
“The power of the Chinese people is enormous, there is no other place so vibrant, so full of energy, so full of entrepreneurship globally,” Stackmann said in an interview with Xinhua.
Giants of the global automotive industry have also taken note of Chinese firms’ great potential and growing expertise in car-making. This is most evident in the recent buyout of Ford Motor Co.’s Volvo Cars, acquired by Chinese carmaker Geely Holdings Group Co. Ltd. The purchase cost $1.8 billion.
“I think it has been a very successful acquisition. If you look at it for Volvo, I think we would not have been where we are today without the support and the ownership of Geely,” Hakan Samuelsson, CEO of Volvo Cars, said.
For Samuelsson, the buyout was a “win-win” situation in which Volvo now has access to the Chinese market while Geely now has ownership over technologies. This paves the way for Geely, a Hangzhou-based company, to upgrade and create products.
China’s growing presence in the manufacturing sector have also been noticed, with representatives from industry leaders saying the label “made in China” is now synonymous with quality.
