BMW to Expand in China; Export Possible

Reuters had an interesting piece recently on BMW in the ever expanding Chinese market. Worth noting is that BMW did not rule out producing cars for export from China all together but for the time being the expansion would be used to fill the demand within the country.

BEIJING (Reuters) – The world’s biggest luxury carmaker, BMW (BMWG.DE: Quote, Profile, Research), is playing the green card in the Chinese market by offering hybrid variants of its muscle cars and sports utility vehicles on top of some models specially produced for China, its new head of sales and marketing said.

“Efficient dynamics is very important for BMW and this year we will sell between 700,000 and 800,000 vehicles around the world and coming here to China I think it is a very appropriate product for this market,” Ian Robertson, told Reuters in an interview.

“The Active Hybrid X6 you see behind me is just one of these steps,” he said, adding the development of such technologies was the way to the future. BMW launched an X6 sports activity coupe in Beijing.

In China, he said, BMW was doing “exceptionally well’ with sales growth of 47 percent last year to some 50,000 vehicles and growth of another 48 percent in the first quarter.

“We can be confident that as the year progresses we will see at least double-digit growth during the rest of the year,” he said.

BMW will expand its dealerships by 30 percent and boost its production capacity by 40 percent.

“China is already the eighth largest market in the world for the group, the sixth largest market for the BMW brand, and for Rolls-Royce is it the third largest market in the world,” Robertson said.

Asked to comment on a remark by Daimler AG (DAIGn.DE: Quote, Profile, Research) boss Dieter Zetsche, who said he wanted to overtake BMW in China, Roberson said; “I would expect Mr Zetsche to say something like that but we intend to stay ahead in China.”

BMW makes cars in China in a joint venture with Brilliance. Robertson said he did not rule out that the company could export from China in the future, but not now.

“We have to expand our operations here very rapidly to maintain our position so we need all our production capacity for China rather than exporting from here,” he said.

Robertson joined the BMW board in March. He was previously head of Rolls-Royce.

“I have already been with this group for many years and what I will do is generally in line with was already done, but over time you can see some changes, yes,” he said.