Ford CEO Mark Fields Sees A Day That Lincoln Sells More Cars In China Than In U.S. Motrolix | May 20, 2015
Ford CEO Mark Fields envisions a day that the automaker’s luxury division, Lincoln, sells more cars in China than in the United States.
“If you look at the facts, today the luxury segment is the largest in China, so that gives you a good indication,” Fields said recently. “The Lincoln brand is held in high regard (in China) and when you add to that a very thoughtful approach on how we’re developing our distribution network… we see growth.”
To note, General Motors’ Buick brand sold a whopping 919,582 vehicles in China in 2014. By comparison, Buick sold 228,963 vehicles in the U.S. while Lincoln delivered 94,474 units during the same time frame.
Lincoln launched in China in the first half of 2015. The brand’s president, Kumar Galhotra, thinks the timing of the launch is “just about perfect”.
“We’re learning from all our competitors who have been there awhile,” said Galhotra. “We’ve been learning from customers who have been interacting with those dealerships.”
One of the things Lincoln learned is that Chinese car buyers do not like the “new car smell”, which is often attractive to American customers. The brand is now shipping vehicles from the U.S. to China with absorbent canisters that remove the smell by the time the vehicles arrive in China.
I think it's safe to assume that this will happen fairly quickly, although not likely this year since they are only selling two cars in China. Once MKX and Continental are there, then China should easily overtake. That business might be enough to to prop up and fund Lincoln's struggling US business.
Since China will become Lincoln's primary customer, and probably by a significant margin similar to Buick, they may want to relocate development and manufacturing to the region (which Ford did with the Taurus among many other cars). It'll be interesting to see if Lincoln starts launching products exclusive to China.
Maybe 1/2 Cadillac sales in China are a good benchmark for Lincoln's first year with just 13 dealerships so far with at least 30 due by end of year:
'Cadillac sales in China came in at a record 73,500 units, up a whopping 47.0 percent from 2013.
The XTS was the most popular model, growing 59 percent to 31,960 units. In addition, sales of the SRX reached 27,484 units, and sales of the ATS and ATS-L totaled 13,276 units.'
That's on average 3,000 units monthly or about 36k for the year and an excellent start for Lincoln China.
Lincoln is already taking pre-orders for the 2016 MKX in China starting at $77k. I expect early US inventory to be low while boatloads of US produced MKX models head to China.
... 'Cadillac sales in China came in at a record 73,500 units, up a whopping 47.0 percent from 2013.
The XTS was the most popular model, growing 59 percent to 31,960 units. In addition, sales of the SRX reached 27,484 units, and sales of the ATS and ATS-L totaled 13,276 units.'...
'Cadillac sales in China came in at a record 73,500 units, up a whopping 47.0 percent from 2013.
The XTS was the most popular model, growing 59 percent to 31,960 units. In addition, sales of the SRX reached 27,484 units, and sales of the ATS and ATS-L totaled 13,276 units.'
Unbelievable, and yet they have no plans to replace the XTS when it reaches EOL. The lack of sales success of the newest Cadillac sedans is surprising to me, but not nearly as surprising as Cadillac's double down attitude in regards to it.
I'm beginning to think that the auto makers are more concern about sales in China than the U.S. If the U.S. ever gets China in a tif, China may kick the U.S citizens out and run the plants themselfs. I'm more interested in what happening in the U.S. and opening plants here for more jobs. Jobs in the cities to help cut down jobless rate.
I'm beginning to think that the auto makers are more concern about sales in China than the U.S. If the U.S. ever gets China in a tif, China may kick the U.S citizens out and run the plants themselfs. I'm more interested in what happening in the U.S. and opening plants here for more jobs. Jobs in the cities to help cut down jobless rate.
China is equally dependent upon international purchases of their product. Should China ever take such a drastic measure they stand to lose far more than the rest! China's economy would collapse overnight if they nationalized foreign business.
Unbelievable, and yet they have no plans to replace the XTS when it reaches EOL. The lack of sales success of the newest Cadillac sedans is surprising to me, but not nearly as surprising as Cadillac's double down attitude in regards to it.
I think their replacement will be the CT6. But with such a large market in China, don't see why they would kill off their best selling model in hopes another model will sell as well in the next year. They should keep the XTS in production for China only, and expand with CT6.
I think their replacement will be the CT6. But with such a large market in China, don't see why they would kill off their best selling model in hopes another model will sell as well in the next year. They should keep the XTS in production for China only, and expand with CT6.
XTS isn't going away with the CT6 launch, they just won't be doing a similar FWD based replacement when it's platform reaches EOL. I can't help but think the CT6 is going to be much more expensive than the XTS and thus far Cadillac buyers haven't shown the willingness to pay that premium.
I was aware Buick sold well over in China, but wasn't aware Lincoln's China sales was looking to surpass sales in the USA. Yikes.
Cort www.oldcarsstronghearts.com
1979 & 1989 Caprice Classics | pigValve, paceMaker, cowValve
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