Search Results for "Chinese"

As income levels continue to rise, demand may begin to shift towards vehicles and segments offering more appealing content and features, which may create opportunities for manufacturers to improve their product mix. Early-movers in the China market such as Volkswagen and General Motors have enjoyed significant profit margins by occupying mid-size sedan, full-size sedan and MPV segments without a great deal of competition. In such a market environment, strong profits could be made on products such as the VW Santana and the Buick GL8 minivan – older technologies that dominated their segments with good margins. However, today’s China market no longer offers such an easy road to profitability. Virtually every major vehicle manufacturer is now present in the China market. A recent J.D. Power & Associates study has reported that many of the cars sold in 2009 were in low-end segments that are eligible for tax incentives and that many of these cars earn the manufacturers as little as $100 each.