Last year, China’s auto market experienced negative growth for the first time in 28 years, and it seems that there is still no sign of a turnaround this year. In such a tough environment, luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and Audi barely managed to retain their current sales, with sales increasing by 2% to 3%. At the same time, BMW has ushered in more than double-digit growth. Such a strong performance is either what is swallowed up or what has been expanded. Let's talk about BMW's specific sales data in the first half of the year:
What contributed to the continued growth of BMW?
In the first half of 2019, BMW delivered a total of 350,070 new BMW and MINI vehicles in the Chinese market, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%. In terms of specific models, the new BMW 5 Series and 3 Series delivered more than 75,000 units in the first half of the year; BMW X1 and X3 delivered 48,000 units and 58,000 units respectively; the new BMW X5 sold more than 11,000 units in the first half of the year.
Not surprisingly, BMW's growth momentum in the second half of the year is still strong. What is supporting the contrarian growth of BMW sales?
The product is, of course, the most important factor.
In 2019, BMW was not only the "year of sports", but also the "year of X". At the end of last year and the first half of this year, BMW has launched several heavyweight products, such as the new generation 3 Series, the new generation X5, the innovative BMW X7, the new BMW 7 Series, and the new BMW 8 Series will also be launched in the third quarter of this year.
Compared with the same level products, these new cars have outstanding product strengths, especially in design and technology. At the same time, from these cars, we can also see that BMW has made insight into the needs and localization of Chinese users. Efforts, such as the new panoramic 3 sky long-wheelbase models, panoramic sunroofs, more comfortable seats (even standard rear-seat soft pillows), a higher level close to the welcome light blanket function and a luminous welcome pedal.
More localization is the necessary skill for luxury brands to compete in China. This skill has not been as simple as "longer wheelbase", but has become more specific and detailed. Of course, this also includes localization at the technological level, such as cooperation with China's Internet ecosystem.
Through the product, you can actually see something deeper. As we all know, product development has to go through a short period of time. Now BMW's advantages at the product level are inextricably linked to the innovative strategies they have developed earlier. In other words, if you can't smell the industry changes in advance and anticipate market trends, you can only put yourself in a relatively passive situation. As early as 2016, the BMW Group developed a development strategy for A.C.E.S, which laid the foundation for the products we have seen so far. So we can see a very clear logic line: growth comes from high-quality products, and high-quality products come from innovative strategies that have already been established.
On the other hand, in this age of change, luxury brands need to think about how to re-understand the Chinese market and what does the Chinese market means to them? In the view of Gao Le, President, and CEO of BMW Group Greater China, the Chinese market is very important. Because China has a huge global automotive consumer market, the most inclusive users of emerging technology, the most typical complex traffic scenes in the world, and many world-class high-tech companies. Therefore, on the road of developing the new four, BMW is an important experimental field. Starting from this pilot, it may be better to face the world in the future. Therefore, in the first year, he was in charge of Greater China, Gao Le put forward the idea of “based on China and radiating the world” and the more Chinese 2+4 strategy. The so-called 2+4 strategy, 2 refers to the two joint ventures in China, BMW Brilliance and the Great Wall MINI; 4 refers to the A.C.E.S strategy, which is the four development directions of automation, interconnection, electrification, and sharing. Let's talk about how BMW has integrated China's experimental field in the A.C.E.S field.