Volvo axes flagship XC90’s price to boost sales, missing five-year target in China

Gasgoo.com (Shanghai Jan 8) - In order to boost sales of flagship XC90 models, Volvo had to reduce sharply its price of no less than 800,000 RMB by around 80,000 RMB, the first strategic move after missing the target of leading the luxury car market in China which had been set in the first five-year period after acquisition by Geely.

The official price reduction for the new XC90 T6 whole series reached 79,200 RMB while T5 models would be sold at 688,000 RMB, 100,000 RMB lower than T6 models, which started to sell in July at 798,000 RMB for starting price. It was reported that the number of new XC90 registered for license plates was less than 1,000 units from time-to-market July to November in 2015.

Following fast year-on-year growth of 45.6% and 32.8% respectively in 2013 and 2014, Volvo managed in the gloomy 2015 to maintain the sales amounting to that of a year earlier via promoting sales by cutting price on several models.

Earlier in 2011, the automaker announced a five-year plan that it would increase yearly sales to 200,000 units by 2015, accounting for 20% in the luxury car market in China while in fact it hardly reached half of that goal last year selling less than 100,000 vehicles in China.