Ford Revs Up To Knock Toyota Out Of The Race In China

Toyota, the world’s largest automaker by sales volume, announced their 2013 sales in China this week, having sold 927 500 vehicles with its joint venture companies, which is a 9.2% increase. Honda also drew a record number of buyers to their brand and saw sales jump to 756 882 units, a whopping 26% increase. Both automakers recovered from the anti-Japanese boycotts that both companies suffered after consumers shunned Japanese products over the bitter and rhetoric-based territorial dispute between the two countries. In just about every other corner of the globe, this news would have been met with much fanfare, but in the topsy turvy world that is China, the fastest growing and largest market for passenger vehicles, Toyota actually dropped a place to become the sixth foreign automaker in sales volume ranking, the fifth place having been usurped by Ford. Ford’s sales in the year just ended saw a tremendous jump of 49% to close out the year with 935 813 vehicles sold, with sales of 94 838 units in December alone. In a somewhat understated comment, John Lawler, Chairman and CEO of Ford Motor China, said “2013 has proved to be a milestone year for Ford’s accelerated growth in China as we delivered on our plan to bring to China, seven of Ford’s next-generation global vehicles.”

Whilst much has been made of the territorial dispute between Japan and China having dented the sales for Honda and Toyota, we may need to look at the sales for Nissan, who is fourth in the ranking and did not seem to have suffered in the same way. So perhaps Ford’s success is in the freshness of their products, something new in a market that is always looking for the next best thing. GM and VW are still top dogs for foreign brands in the Chinese market with both companies reporting sales of more than three million units each and Hyundai a surprising third with about one million sales. When you look at the table for sales in 2012, this does bring home the rapid increase in sales for the territory: Rank Brand Deliveries in 2012 1 Volkswagen 2 050 193 2 Wuling 1 212 277 3 Hyundai 855 996 4 Nissan 751 509 5 Changan (Chana) 748 279 6 Toyota 745 565 7 Chevrolet 704 857 8 Buick 700 007 9 Honda 587 415 10 Chery 556 993 11 Great Wall 487 370 12 Kia 480 566 13 BYD 456 056 14 Ford 418 501 15 Dongfeng 418 226 16 Audi 328 700 17 Suzuki 253 471 18 Skoda 230 003 19 Citroen 223 801 20 Peugeot 216 227 21 JAC 200 812 22 Geely Gleagle 178 630 23 Haima 172 767 24 Lifan 171 777 25 Mazda 171 771 26 BMW 162 620 27 Geely Emgrand 160 517 28 Geely Englon 152 297 29 Brilliance 152 245 30 Xiali 144 462 31 FAW 131 490 32 Roewe 127 501 33 Zotye 121 250 34 Mercedes-Benz 98 429 35 Soueast 79 083 36 Besturn 72 768 37 MG 72 516 38 Baojun 68 092 39 BAIC 55 996 40 Youngman Lotus 49 360 41 Hafei 45 942 42 Venucia 41 805 43 Hawtai 34 071 44 GAC 33 023 45 Luxgen 31 105 46 Changhe 30 031 47 Cadillac 30 010 48 Mitsubishi 27 477 49 Everus 24 576 50 JMC 22 667 51 Changfeng 20 210 52 Jinbei 16 814 53 Ciimo 14 089 54 Huanghai 13 292 55 Gonow 11 940 56 Fiat 11 288 57 Beijing 8 847 58 Volvo 7 453 59 Foton 6 187 60 Oley 6 154 61 Yema 5 116 62 Zhongxing 4 660 63 Meiya 966 64 Chrysler 50 image: thecityfix.com