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发帖数: 1557 | 1 http://www.businessinsider.com/made-by-china-is-what-chinese-co
Akio Toyoda has China on his mind.
On Tuesday, the day he announced record earnings, the Toyota Motors
president warned of a sharp slowdown in the world's biggest market, echoing
concerns already aired by BMW.
But another development in China may spell even more trouble for global
carmakers: a $21,700 Land Rover look-alike manufactured domestically.
An SUV bearing an uncanny resemblance to the Evoque model is to hit the
market at one-third the price of the original, and it's already racking up
thousands of preorders.
Jaguar Land Rover's Ralf Speth has railed at the rise of China's "copy-and-
paste" car industry. But complaining is all the chief executive and his
peers can do as China continues churning out ever more clones of cars,
electronics, appliances, and clothes originally designed in other countries.
The prevailing opinion in boardrooms from New York to Frankfurt to Tokyo has
long been that China, which is minting new millionaires at the fastest rate
in history and creating a massive middle class, will be easy prey for
established brands with expertise in hawking goods to higher-income
consumers. The richer mainlanders get, multinational companies presumed, the
more they will want Burberry in the closet, Rolex on the wrist, and Lexus
parked outside.
What these chiefs did not anticipate is mainland consumers' penchant for
labels saying "Made by China" (if not "Made in China"). As analyst Thomas
Gatley of GaveKal Dragonomics argues in a new report, multinationals may
already be losing Chinese consumers they thought were theirs for the taking.
Thomas GatleySouth China Morning PostThomas Gatley.
"There are now signs that local Chinese companies are capturing much of the
gains from this new stage of consumer spending — a worrying development for
multinationals counting on China growth," Gatley finds.
The vehicle market is emblematic of the trend. Many of China's nouveau riche
aspire to own an SUV, which should be great news for the Toyotas, Daimlers,
and Fords of the world.
But in the early phases of China's SUV boom, the companies that flourished
were foreign manufacturers with local joint ventures.
Sales for those companies jumped more than 70% in 2013 alone.
Shanghai Volkswagen's Tiguan, for example, remains the second-best-selling
SUV on the mainland. Domestic companies are beginning to catch up. In the
first half of this year, sales of Chinese-branded SUVs rose about 30% versus
12% for foreign names.
One can debate why mainland consumers are flocking to names like Great Wall
Motors, JAC Motors, Changan Automobile Group, and Landwind (maker of the
Land Rover lookalike). Value? Familiarity? Nationalist instincts? There's
probably no single answer — just as with the many Americans who only buy
American-made cars.
fake range roverAPAn SUV looking much like the Land Rover Evoque is on sale
in China at one-third the price of the original.
"What's even more surprising, is that the domestic brands seem to have
gained market share without cutting their margins to the bone in a ruinous
zero-sum game," Gatley says. If corporate China has indeed cracked the code
of offering the right mix of style, quality, and price, multinational
executives like Akio Toyoda are in for a bumpy decade.
Are there other sectors at such a tipping point? Recent sales figures from
Japan's Shisedo and Anglo-Dutch Unilever bear out the findings of a July 1
Bain report that "local brands gained share over foreign competitors for the
third year in a row."
China manufacturingREUTERS/China DailyA worker welds inside a factory in
Chongqing municipality, June 25, 2013.
Chief executives at multinational giants are quite skilled as hyping the
China-potential scenario to shareholders: 1.3 billion people who want to
live like Americans are getting richer and savvier by the day. But if local
Chinese companies repeat the success of domestic SUV makers in other
industries, international chief executives will have some serious explaining
to do. They will also have to quickly remodel their business strategies.
The rapid inroads made in China by domestic smartphone makers like Xiaomi,
for example, suggest danger ahead for international brands. There's a very
real risk that the emergence of Chinese consumers will be more of a local
story than a global one. Overseas companies that take them for granted do so
at their own peril.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/made-by-china-is-what-chinese-consumers-want-now-2015-8#ixzz3iLmAVGEv |
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