The Dislocation of Seat Brand Leads Low Sales & The Localization Needs to Speed Up

The media from Europe said, the far east market is bank for Volkswagen but it opposite for its Seat Brand, whose sales data of one year is much lower than other brands in one day in China. The sales data of Seat in Chinese market is 774 in first 9 months and there are Leon, Alhambra & Ibiza. The principle for Seat Brand said, the group is satisfied for this data and the brand will be priority, not sales, in the next 3 to 5 years. In fact, both brand and sales of Seat in China are not satisfied.

Under the strong marketing orientation of Volkswagen, its passenger car brands are expanding except for Seat. It keeps decreasing from 2009 and the president of Volkswagen said the priority for Seat is to get profit as soon as possible.

Seat brand was brought in China in Mar. 31th, 2012 and Enjoyneering had become the core idea of Seat, which is never mentioned after that however. Some relevant people said there are still problems for Seat to solve, including sales and brand. In 2012, the sales data is 2200 and in first half of 2013, the data is 600.

Recently, Volkswagen has began to investigate and survey for Seat brand in China. Localization has been on the schedule for Seat but brand recognition is still a big problem. The reasons for unsuccessful Seat in China: Firstly, the entry level of Seat hasn't become the mainstream for Chinese market in transformation; Second, the higher price than other import models; Third, the slow development of sales network; Fourth and the most important, the old model.