It looks like Great Wall motors are heading off to Romania:
GREAT Wall Motor Co, a Chinese maker of sport-utility vehicles and trucks, is looking to sell cars this year in Romania as a prelude to selling in other European countries, the Financial Times said yesterday.
The Baoding-based company hopes to sell 1,000 of its Hover SUV this year in the Eastern European country, the newspaper said. Its Romanian importer, Alexandrion Group, also has the rights to sell in Hungary, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Moldova, the FT said.
Hmmm…
They would LIKE to sell 1,000 vehicles during the first year of sale in Romania. Unfortunately, they barely sold 56 units between January - May, 2007. Maybe they’ll sell 1,000 units in the next five years…
Also, Geely Romania is struggling to sell Geely cars in Romania. They sold in the first five months of 2007 about 35 cars. They also have a 1,000 cars “sales target” for 2007. And there’s no way they can pull it off…
Umax, any reason why?
Romanian economy sounds pretty good, its on the verge of EU membership, so what are people buying instead?
Well, Chinese cars and their manufacturers are virtually unknown to Europeans. China is rather known for manufacturing everything else but cars. So the market reacts cautiously. Also, the Chinese brands positioning on the Romanian market is perhaps wrong. The importers are trying to impose these cars as direct competitors to Hyundai or Fiat (pricing Chinese cars at the same level). But these two brands are well-known in Europe, they gained their market share and customers, they presented their strengths and weaknesses.
But nobody knows nothing about Chinese cars. Are they quality vehicles? Are they just crap? Are they performing on par with Korean cars or European cars? I think the pricing strategy is rather wrong.