When Volkswagen bought 20 percent (well, 19.9) of Suzuki, everybody assumed it would be one of Volkswagen’s favorite “win-win-win” deals: Volkswagen gets better access to India, where Suzuki owns half the market. Suzuki gets better access to China, where Volkswagen is the largest passenger car brand. Both will work happily together to rule the world by 2018. Now Suzuki Chairman Osamu Suzuki says at least the Indian part is not true. (Read More…)
Meanwhile in India, things look much better. No total sales are in yet, but market leader Maruti Suzuki posted a 39 percent gain in sales to 118,908 vehicles in October from 85,415 a year earlier, reports The Nikkei [sub]. This was the strongest October in Maruti Suzuki’s recorded history. (Read More…)
Executives at GM Europe were reportedly outraged when “Mr Opel” jumped ship to arch-rival VW, after the Wolfsburg boys entered an alliance with Suzuki. After all, Demant had been instrumental in developing the Opel Agila, a rebadge of the Suzuki Splash built in Hungary. Since Demant’s departure, Opel has left the Agila to the wolves, saying it would develop an all-new “premium” city car, to take on VW’s Up head-on. VW’s response: deciding that its Euro-focused Up was too expensive for the booming Indian market, and announcing to Autocar that instead it would… rebadge Suzukis. The Suzuki Alto (aka Maruti Suzuki A-Star aka Suzuki Celerio, aka Nissan Pixo) will form the basis of an entry level Indian VW, while the Suzuki Wagon R will underpin an Indian Skoda model. Because nothing builds a global brand like a good rebadge (just ask GM). Sounds like Demant should be pulling a paycheck from Suzuki as well as from VW.
Despite losing $600m, Vauxhall/Opel is planning for the future. They’re bringing the Chevrolet Volt to Europe and they expect to be back in the black by 2012. Now, it appears, they want to fill that hole in their lineup. You know? That city car sized hole? Just below the Corsa.
First of all, TTAC doesn’t exactly hate Suzuki. The SX4 and Kizashi are fun little cars that don’t generally get the cred they deserve. But Road & Track’s assertion that
Suzuki’s huge success following the introduction of the Kizashi this past year should only get better in 2011
is about as misleading as they come. Even by the most generous measure, 15,331 total brand sales over eight months does not equal “huge success.” In fact, R&T’s blatant Suzy-boosting has given Autosavant‘s Chris Haak pause to reconsider the way things work at the Buff Books. He writes
Call it naïveté, call it giving folks the benefit of the doubt, call it whatever you want to. But as a long-time buff book reader (I subscribed to Motor Trend continuously between 1987 and July 2010, or about 23 years), I never paid much mind to critics that accused media outlets of providing favorable editorial coverage for certain manufacturers and vehicles in return for advertising dollars. Is the Motor Trend Car of the Year award driven by the best car, or by the best advertiser? I’d always assumed that these magazines would take the high road and provide a fair and accurate description of the industry and its vehicles so that their readers could make informed choices when considering how to part with their hard-earned money.
When Volkswagen bought a 19.9 percent share in Suzuki, everybody in the know knew that a much bigger trade was going down. A trade of subcontinents. Suzuki owns nearly half of the market in India, where Volkswagen is a relative nobody. Suzuki is dabbling in China, where Volkswagen rules the roost. (Read More…)
Suzuki is to India what Volkswagen was to China. Earliest foreign entry into a huge an untapped car market. Like Volkswagen in China, Suzuki built a dominant position in India early on. Suzuki owns half of the Indian market. Unlike Volkswagen, two-thirds of Suzuki’s operating profit is estimated to come from India. Volkswagen lost their commanding share of China (and made it up with volume) when the market exploded, attracted competition, and overwhelmed VW’s capacities. A mistake Suzuki seeks to avoid. (Read More…)
Sometimes, strength is a weakness. Especially in currencies. The still surging Yen makes Japanese Exports expensive and unprofitable. Despite a lot of talk from their elected officials that the Yen is too high, manufacturers are thinking it will go higher. This could significantly alter the export-heavy Japanese industrial landscape. Case in point. Suzuki and a plot of land. (Read More…)
When Opel needed a a low-cost subcompact for the European market, it did what all good car companies do: rebadged a Suzuki. And thus, the Opel Agila was born. For the latest version of the Agila, which debuted in 2008, Opel opted to let Suzuki build the car itself at its Hungarian plant (alongside the Suzuki SX4 and Fiat Seidici). It also tasked its Managing Director, a man known around the office as “Mr Opel,” with developing the new micro-MPV in partnership with Suzuki. For his trouble, Mr Opel (aka Hans Demant) was then shunted aside by GM, and ended up being poached by VW to head up “international project coordination.” Quite by coincidence (or not), VW’s biggest international project is in building new low-cost small cars with… Suzuki. Automotive News [sub]’s Paul McVeigh notes that
Neither GM or Opel has commented publicly on Demant’s defection to archrivals VW. But executives are said to be very angry in private.
But then, GM could hardly have expected Demant to stick around after having been shuffled off to “intellectual property protection” after nearly 40 years of service to Opel at some of the highest levels. The fact that he’d just been demoted at a time when Opel’s owners in the RenCen were enjoying record-low popularity in Germany made the move all the more likely. And because it’s happened at a time that Opel is struggling for its life makes the move just as damaging to GM as it is a windfall for VW.
Suzuki has a little bit of a problem keeping up with the demand in the frisky Indian market. If you can’t deliver, you lose market share. Suzuki’s share of the Indian market already slipped below their usual 50 percent. And guess who’s giving Suzuki headaches? Tata. (Read More…)
Suzuki is hustling to avoid needing more help from partner Volkswagen. For instance in India, a market VW covets. Suzuki used to own more than half on the Indian market. In the recent months, that share slipped a bit. Not because customers in India don’t like Suzuki. Suzuki can’t keep up with the demand. Customers have to wait for months to get delivery of popular car models such as the Swift hatchback and the Swift Dzire sedan, reports The Nikkei [sub]. Suzuki is finally doing something about it. (Read More…)
Psssst! Want to buy Japanese car makers below book value? Now is the time. Spooked by the strong Japanese Yen, stocks of export-heavy Japanese automakers such as Toyota and Suzuki can be had for less than the assets on the books. (Read More…)
Running a multi-national car company the size of, say, General Motors, Ford or Toyota means having lean, efficient operations. In the SUV/light trucks segment, turning a profit is easy. Because of the inherent profitability of these products, your operations don’t need to be that efficient to turn a decent profit. Where you really need to concentrate on profits is the other end of the scale. The small car market. This is where raiding the parts bin, nicking a platform from another division and moving production to a low cost country are taken as read when producing a plan for your next small car. But what if you’re trying to break into a market where small cars need to be firmly in the “four figures” price bracket? Well, this is the problem that Volkswagen is having in India. Like China, every car maker wants a piece of this Asian Tiger Elephant, but Volkswagen just simply doesn’t have the presence there to make their cars profitably. Or do they? (Read More…)
Where would we be without our breakfast cereal, fresh from the Chinese rumor mill? Two days ago, we wrote that Suzuki, Volkswagen, and SAIC are rumored to be working on a three-way tie-up. “Not so,” says SAIC according to Gasgoo. They denied a rumor that was spread by the competition at Suzuki’s Chinese partner Changan Auto. (Read More…)
We’ve always suspected that there’s something bigger driving the (well..) tie-up between Volkswagen and Suzuki than little cars: Big markets. Volkswagen holds the keys to China, where they rule the roost, whatever numbers GM may conjure-up. Suzuki is nobody in China. Suzuki holds the keys to India. Volkswagen is nobody in India. It’s the perfect marriage. Even more perfect with some Chinese help …. (Read More…)
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