One by one, automakers announce that China either is or will be their largest market in the world. First and foremost, there’s GM. The General officially sells more cars in China than back home (some nitpicking caveats remain.) Volkswagen’s Audi said its China sales are expected to exceed German sales next year. If you want to sell luxury cars, you need to ship them to China. China already is the world’s largest market for the Mercedes-Benz S-Class , and China might soon outclass the Germans in all Mercedes classes. Nobody buys more Porsche Cayennes than the Chinese. With all these records by other makers, BMW can’t possibly remain on the sidelines.
“In the next five to 10 years, China will be the biggest market for all brands and become a big area of competition,” said Christoph Stark, president and CEO of BMW Group Region China. What, that’s all? In the next 5 to 10 years?
According to Xinhua, Stark made the remarks in the capital of Tibet (wisely without mentioning other sensitive issues,) where BMW organized a brand experience event for its 7 Series.
China passed the UK in June to become BMW’s third-largest market (after Germany and the U.S.) But wait, here’s a record: China is already the world’s largest market for the BMW 7 Series.
BMW sold nearly 122,000 cars on the Chinese mainland in the first nine months this year, almost doubling the figure in the same period last year.
A few years ago, would you have believed that most luxury makers (and all of GM) would be dead, if there wouldn’t be the Chinese market where they supposedly all wear straw hats and ride bicycles?
Lets thank Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton and Bush Jr. for transferring American wealth and American jobs to Asia. When I was living in China in 2003, NO ONE short of the rich and taxi companies could afford a car. Now they are able to put 10,000 on the road daily.
If Donald Trump runs for President, I’m voting for him because he understands what I’m talking about.
Make that 46,000 daily.
And you don’t want The Donald as a President. He once was a client of ours. He paid 80% of the bills and said “sue me for the rest.”
Trump is a well known ‘re-neg’ on bills of all types. He has literally given up his ownership stake in in all Trump properties in order to service a debt he has no capacity to repay.
Just Google ‘Trump loses’ or go to the Wiki page. I wouldn’t want anyone who has filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy three times in the last 15 years (the first two during America’s real estate boom) to be anywhere near my money. Even without that, the guy lives a good deal of his financial life in courtrooms.
As for China, with the way things are going we may as well consider our own days as an empire numbered. That may not be a bad thing… our current balances are too debtful to be sustained and the entitlement mentality at all levels of society needs a reality check.
Trump is a prick (and you can quote me on that)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_trump#2008_financial_crisis
As Bill Maher put it (referring to his casinos), “If your business is to take peoples’ money, give them nothing in return and still can’t turn a profit; then, you should be the one who’s fired!” (Paraphrased)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,494146,00.html
As for China, with the way things are going we may as well consider our own days as an empire numbered.
The writing is on the wall. THEY ARE NUMBERED