Audi, BMW, Benz offer subsidy to dealers, restructure supply chain

In reaction against the recession in the Chinese market in the first half of the year, high-end vehicle manufactures like Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz adopt many measures to revive confidence, including offering subsidy to dealers, lowering annual sales target and integrating supply chain to cut cost.

Following the steps of its parent company VW, Audi will launch a subsidy plan in the second half of the year of about 1.2 billion CNY to relieve the high pressures of supply channel and also to curb the sales slide. BMW and Toyota also released similar relief plan to compensate dealers for their serious loss in the first half of the year. In addition, Audi lowered its sales target in China from 600,000 units to 579,000 units the same of last year.

Compared with sales of Audi and BMW, Mercedes-Benz performed well in the first half of the year, selling 32,507 units in June, increasing 39% on a year-on-year basis. And Audi’s sales dropped 5.8% from a year earlier to 47,831 units and BMW’s sales decreased 1.3% on a year-on-year basis to 36,887 units.

And Benz will invest several hundred million euros to restructure its supply chains worldwide in a bid to cut the average cost of each vehicle in the supply chain by 20%. In particular, the automaker will also flexibly rebuild its factories in China and raise the management of the logistic system.