Gasgoo (Shanghai, October 28)— Foreign automakers have localized their brands for taking up larger market shares in the blooming Chinese market in recent years. However, whether localization of foreign brands has led to increasing sales still remains to see.
There have been four localized models launched by DS since September in 2013. And sales of localized models were 4,052 units in 2013, which increased to 26,700 units in 2014. However, the growth rate decreased to 2.7% with sales of 27,000 units in 2015. Moreover, sales of these localized models were 8,715 units in the first half of 2016, decreasing by 36.7% year on year.
Market performance of localized models had gotten worse due to great competitions among luxury brands externally. Brand value of DS, which has been positioned as luxury brand, has been lower than that of others including BMW, Audi, due to its low brand recognition. And price war has also led to great challenge for DS. And, internally, too much changes of top managements has also led to its decreasing growth rate.
