Although market share of passenger vehicles are rising, they are still inferior to joint venture brands. While for commercial vehicles, 90% of market shares are taken by indigenous brands. Why? Zhao Jingguang, deputy secretary of Party committee of Beiqi Foton talked about his thinking on the phenomenon.
It was commercial vehicles that appeared the first in China, and it had dominated auto markets for a long time. And the irreversible surpassing of passenger vehicles are accounted for consumption reasons.
And there are some reasons for that.
The first is that commercial vehicles are means of consumption. Customers are purchasing commercial vehicles for making money, and most of them are not rich people, is this case they are rather sensitive to prices. Price of a domestic heavy truck is about 200,000-300,000 yuan (29,297-43,945 USD), and the price of a like Benz truck is about 700,000 to 1,200,000 yuan (102,540-175,782 USD). Customer can recover the costs in one or two years for domestic commercial vehicles.
Second, cost performance requirement of commercial vehicles. Domestic auto makers are able to meet such requirements since reliability and low price are the main options for commercial vehicles.
Third, foreign commercial vehicles, no matter joint venture or imported ones, are not suitable in China commercial vehicle markets, including price, transportation environment, fuels, consumption etc, and they didn’t invest as much as domestic indigenous brands on research.
Manufacturing craftsmanship of commercial vehicles is increasing not only in China but also in the international markets. We may find this in the export increment. We are facing golden opportunities both in China and abroad. And if there will be a world-calss auto brand, it is probably a commercial brand.