For a country that is so nationalistic that it doesn’t allow foreign brands to operate without partnering with a related Chinese company, China sure has embraced BMW as the automotive brand of choice. While the nation is responsible for producing pretty much everything on the face of the planet, the one industry it yet has to place a dent on is the automotive industry. That being said, its citizens have no choice but to embrace foreign brands as their brands of choice when it comes to cars.
They have a particular taste for German steel and aluminum, though, as Audi and Mercedes have already proven to be widely successful with the nation’s people.
Now, BMW has reported that it expects China to surpass the United States in automotive sales by the end of this year! We should ashamed of ourselves! No other nation should take such a designation away from us Americans! We live to surround ourselves with expensive luxuries like BMW automobiles that help us blanket the myriad other problems we all have!
I suppose that with 1.3 billion citizens and more than a hundred cities with record number of residents, it was only a matter of time until this happened. Still, many of those residents have no access to premium BMW dealerships. Imagine if they did have access; BMW’s popularity and sales would be mind-boggling. With these challenges, the company has still maintained a 16% growth annually, led by a 28% increase in the sales of the popular 5-series sedan. That being said, BMW still needs to topple Audi to be in the top spot. In 2012, for example, Audi pushed 228,000 units compared to BMW’s 170,000. BMW, however, is not one to ever play it safe so Audi should definitely watch its back.