Recent news indicate that the collaboration between the German car maker BMW and its Chinese counterpart, Brilliance, has been extended for an additional 10 years.

This was not an expected move, as the contract between the two was set to run for 4 more years before it needed renewal.

As you might have known, any foreign manufacturer that desires to build and sell its products on the Chinese market has to enter a partnership with a local company, and for BMW, that company is Brilliance. The Chinese government also forbids outside brands to have more the 50% of the Chinese counterpart shares.

Taking all this into consideration, BMW decided that the best course of action will be to extend the collaboration contract for 10 more years, until 2028. Still, there are those that think this is not quite wise of BMW, as reports have already started coming in about Brilliance borrowing design elements from BMW for use in their own creations.

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Marcus M.

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I can’t help but think that the more or less subtle war between the three German automotive giants is the reason they all offer splendid models and services.

While you can’t really point to any one of them and say he has won it, each year can bring new victories for either.

For example, the first couple of months of this year presented themselves with Audi overtaking BMW in sales, even if by a slim margin. This is the first time in 9 years it happened and the response was pretty much what we should have expected.

BMW announced expanding their production facilities in China in order to churn out more engines so that they can catch up and reclaim their rightful place. Why did they choose China? Like it was predicted quite long ago, last year China managed to become the largest market not just for BMW, but Audi too and pretty much most other high profile manufacturers.

The effort is being backed by BMW’s Chinese partners, Brilliance, and the end results point towards a production of 400.000 units each year.

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Marcus M.

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BMW is a worldwide known brand, and its premium vehicles reached millions of people. But depending on the region, sales can come natural or the car maker has to work for them.

Until now, the biggest market for BMW was USA, but it seems that China has finally closed the gap and even overcame it.

With the recent economic boom China has experienced over the last few years, this was to be expected. This year might be the first year that BMW can count China as its biggest market, with figures showing 182.800 units sold so far, compared to the US market, where only 172.727 units rolled out of dealerships.

“Strong growth in future will come from the smaller cities, and the strong growth will also come especially from the western region. There are 100 cities with more than a million inhabitants in China with no premium car dealers at all, so this shows the huge potential we’re having in this country”. This was Karsten Engel, head of BMW China’s opinion of the future trend. So even if the final numbers are not in, as the year is only halfway through, there is little chance that the US market will bounce back.

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Marcus M.

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To those who were anxiously looking into BMW’s marketing strategies on the Asian market, things have started to move again.

After the introduction of the new BMW 3 series GT on what is considered to be the world’s largest auto market, the officials make bold future predictions.

According to BMW China Trading’s president, Xu Zhijun, they are still having positive signals from the market, while the sales for luxury units are still high, even though they are currently registering a descending trend.

By a descendant trend we mean that the margins drop down with anything in between 1 and 2 %, in a context where BMW’s sales numbers are due to the Chinese market in percent of 15 to 20!

Therefore, despite the optimistic statements we have witnessed, the Chinese buyers are orienting themselves more and more towards cheaper and more compact cars, leaving aside the highly exclusive and expensive models.

Looking forward to see how will BMW handle these tendencies, we will focus, in the meantime, on the evolution of sales on other major markets as well.

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Marcus M.

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The post BMW growing bigger and bigger on China’s market appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

BMW announced the introduction of a special edition based on the M3 Coupe. We talk about the BMW M3 Coupe Frozen Blue, a model which hits the Chinese market with a quite steep pricing tag of 1,29M Yuan or $210,000.

With a total of 40 units to be produced, the German model benefits from a special Frozen Blue exterior finish, a revised front grille with a black finish, new badges and revised side air vents.

As BMW used to do with these special models, under the bonnet sits the same 4.0-liter V8 powerplant producing 414 horses and 400Nm of torque.

Therefore, the new model brings no performance improvements, only few exterior styling tweaks.

If you are interested in the new BMW M3 Coupe Frozen Blue edition, be sure to check your local dealer in order to get more accurate availability details and pricing.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW M3 Coupe Frozen Blue arrives in China, starts from $210,000 appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

China is rapidly growing from an economic point of view, and that includes the car making industry. Aware of this fact, the big car companies try to get a piece of the cake.

But in order to make money, you have to spend some, and BMW sure is spending.

Chinese Premier Li Kequiang came for three days to Germany, and in the presence of both him and Chancellor Angela Merkel, BMW signed an agreement with its Chinese counterpart, Brilliance Auto. The agreement stipulates that some 100 million EUR will be invested into the Chinese market.

This money will go into building a new manufacturing plant as well as an economic research center. This represents the next step in the relationship between BMW and Brilliance, a partnership that started back in 2003. Since then, the German car maker has made huge strides into the Chinese market and soon that might be the main market for BMW.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post China will see 100 million EUR investment from BMW appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

After South Korea made BMW’s life easier by passing certain laws to help reduce the price of European vehicles, another law in Asia might do the opposite.

China is set to implement a new law that will increase the taxes of luxury cars.

Said law will affect cars that wear a price tag of over 1.7 million yuan or 275.000 USD. All premium car makers stand to suffer losses because of this law, especially the German giants like BMW, Audi or Mercedes-Benz.

It’s a special concern for BMW as China at the moment is the biggest market in the world, having surpassed USA. The new law will make the affected vehicles, who already bear a high price tag, 20% more expensive. The silver lining in this matter might be the fact that the analysts estimated the affected vehicles are produced in lower numbers, 5000 units each year for this segment.

While the Chinese market as a whole won’t be that affected by this new law, BMW and other car makers are still hoping it won’t be implemented.

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Marcus M.

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The post China might be taxing luxury cars appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

Today, if you are a car maker and you don’t sell your products in China, than you are missing out on some serious business.

China’s car market has become the largest in the world, grabbing a lot of attention from most automotive giants.

Being one of those giants, BMW has taken notice, and their reaction includes dumping large amounts of money for studying the trends of the Chinese market. And for good reason, as if we have learned something about asians and cars, it’s that they do have weird tastes, so the normal trends don’t really apply.

One of the more obvious requests from drivers in China involves more legroom for the rear seats. This shows that the driver has respect for the family or friends back there. This also explains why the 3, 5 and 7 series special long wheelbase versions have done so well on the Chinese market.

Another huge trend in China at the moment involves tele-dining. This basically means that via an audio-video messenger (like skype) you can have a meal with you friend from far away. This also means that you have to go to certain food chains that support this feature.

But how does this translate to the car making industry? I don’t know, but that’s what BMW is paying to find out.

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Marcus M.

http://www.bmwcoop.com

The post BMW has set out to study China appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.

The Germans from BMW plan to increase the global production and sell more than 2 million units a year by 2020. In order to make this happen, the Bavarians will expand the production outside of Germany, in countries such as the U.S. and China. These statements were made by BMW Production Chief, Frank-Peter Arndt, in an interview for Automotive News Europe.

According to BMW, about 70% of the vehicles sold in 2002 by the company were produced in Germany. Eight years later, the figure dropped to 62% and this decreasing trend will continue as BMW claims that today, only 58% of the models are produced in Germany.

Moreover, thanks to the new plans for China and the U.S., this numbers will shift further toward 50-50 in the coming years. BMW wants to expand its production in China, a market which is growing continuously and is actually the largest in the world.

Even so, Germany will remain the main country where BMW will produce their models. “That’s why we invest another 2 billion Euros in 2011-2012 to keep improving these plants. The next investment package for 2013-2014 will be decided soon,” adds the company.

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Marcus M.

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We’ve recently talked about BMW’s all-time sales record reported for the first six months of 2011. The last month was also the most profitable ever with 165,855 units sold, an increase of almost 16% comparing to the same period of the last year. The Asian market returned an increase of 47,3% in the first half of 2011 followed by the U.S. with 18,7% and Europe with 12,3%. Even these figures are nothing but great, BMW Group claims that the following six months should continue this increasing trend.

BMW’s Sales Chief Ian Robertson claimed that the second half of 2011 should bring a new increase in sales for the Chinese market, however not that significant as the increase of the first six months, which was somewhere around 60%.

In the second half of the year we will not have such a fast growth rate (in China) as in the first half because of the high year-earlier level of comparison, but will still have growth. As long as there’s a high level of unemployment and problems on the housing market have not been solved, these record levels will remain out of reach,” added Robertson.

Moreover, BMW hopes that China will surpass the German market and even the U.S. as it is now the third biggest market for BMW, closely behind the other two mentioned above. It is true that China is a relatively new market but we can’t ignore the tremendous increase of the last years. If this is not going to happen very soon, at least the Germans can hope to get better sales comparing to its rivals, the first place being occupied now by Audi, while the third place by the other German rival, Mercedes-Benz.

Receiving constant sales increase from China comes quite handy considering that the U.S. market is currently in downfall reporting vehicles sales of around 13 million each year, a decrease of around 4 million units. The new BMW 5 Series proved to be the best selling model but models specially designed for this market such as the long wheelbase version of the 5 Series or BMW’s New Energy Vehicle should really make the difference.

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Marcus M.

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The post Second half of the year to bring new sales growth in China appeared first on BMWCoop | BMW Blog, BMW News, BMW Reviews.