Shanghai, July 7 (Gasgoo.com) A high-ranking official from Suzuki Motors (China) Investment Co., Ltd. revealed to the media that Suzuki is holding talks with several local companies about setting up a new joint venture in China.
Though it has been present in the Chinese market for 17 years, compared with Honda, Toyota and Nissan, Suzuki's total sales in China were just 250,000 units in 2009, which compels the company to set up a new joint venture when its existing joint ventures: Changan Suzuki and Changhe Suzuki, are becoming one company.
The poor sales, coupled with the product, dealers' selling ability and brand image of its two joint ventures all put it at a disadvantageous position compared with competitors. Therefore, setting up a new joint venture is easier for Suzuki to break the bottleneck on sales than to improve Changan Suzuki and Changhe Suzuki's performance.
The senior official from Suzuki said that in order to improve the sales volume of a new mid-size model of Suzuki: Kizashi (Kaizexi) has already been put on sale. He added that they will try to make Changan Suzuki and Changhe Suzuki running as one company to justify the negotiation of the new JV.
Suzuki Motors' reason for setting up a new JV sounds plausible, but an insider from Changan Auto told the reporter that they are unhappy about this and they have no plan to merge Changan Suzuki and Changhe Suzuki.
