Chinese luxury automobile market expected to exceed the US

In its report Luxury Car Brands in China 2014, Hurun Report expects the Chinese luxury automobile market to surpass the US to become the world’s largest by 2016 at the earliest, the Beijing Business Today reported today.

According to statistics, a total of 1.7 million luxury automobiles were sold in the US in 2013; that number is expected to reach 2.3 million by 2020. Meanwhile, despite the fact that sales growth rates in China have not met lofty expectations, they is still an insatiable demand for luxury automobiles among the country’s consumers. Statistics show that 1.11 imported luxury passenger automobiles have been registered in the country in 2013, over four times the amount registered just four years before in 2009. Even though increasingly strict emission standards, higher taxes and other policies come into effect this year, the Chinese luxury automobile market is expected to achieve growth of between 10 percent and 15 percent.

Hurun CEO and Researcher Rupert Hoogewerf explained that the market share of imported luxury automobiles are demonstrating an upward trend, adding that that trend is especially prominent in first-tier cities. Statistics show that, as incomes continue to grow, the number of Chinese multimillionaires will total 1.09 million people by 2014. This population exhibits extremely strong spending power that will help push forward the demand for luxury automobiles, which is something that is especially attractive for automobile manufacturers.

Mr. Hoogewerf’s analysis seems to be backed by the actual performance of luxury automobile manufacturers in the country. Ever since they entered the Chinese market in the 1990s, Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have posted very strong sales results. BMW and Audi’s sales in the country last year each exceeded 400,000 vehicles, accounting for over half of all luxury automobile sales in the country. Year-on-year growth rates for the three manufacturers remain above the 15 percent mark.

Secondary luxury automobile manufacturers, such as Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover, Cadillac and Lexus, are also posting very strong sales performances. China is already the largest single market for Jaguar Land Rover, while Cadillac has reported sales growth of over 60 percent over the third quarter of the year.

Mr. Hoogewerf believes that for luxury automobile manufacturers to maintain steady sales growth rates, they will need to conduct major localized production and marketing strategies for the Chinese market in order to control costs and expand the scope of their sales. On this point, manufacturers have announced ambitious sales goals for domestically produced automobiles. Mercedes-Benz, for example, has announced a Chinese sales target of 300,000 vehicles for 2015, with two-thirds of those sales being of domestically manufactured vehicles. With the notable exception of Lexus, the vast majority of luxury automobile brands have already begun or will soon begin domestic production programs.