To Stay on Top, VW Must Step Out of Its Comfort Zone
23 March 2009
In late February, Volkswagen Group China CEO Winfried Vahland spelled out for a huge media crowd his company's goals for the next decade.
After selling about one million cars in China last year, VW aims to double that by 2018. And Vahland believes his toughest competitor will be Toyota.
Can VW stay ahead of Toyota and double sales in nine years? Yes, it can. But only if VW makes some hard decisions about its products and partners in China.
First, a little background. In 2008, VW sold 983,436 China-produced cars under the Volkswagen, Audi and Skoda brands. But just two aging models, the Santana and Jetta, accounted for 41 percent of the three brands' combined sales last year. The original version of the Santana first went on sale in 1983, while the first Jetta went on sale in 1991.
Moreover, the VW brand lost market share in China last year. Sales of the VW brand rose 6 percent, below the market average of 7 percent.
Meanwhile, Toyota is catching up, although VW still has a healthy lead. Toyota's sales in China of China-made cars surged 19 percent to 543,106 units last year.
To build sales momentum, Vahland said VW will launch new models each year, bring in new technology, and double the number of its dealerships in China by 2018.
Source : internet
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