Super-car growth peak has just begun

The central bank tightened its monetary policy, Beijing stopped blocking, and stopped the tax incentives for small cars. Under the changes in a series of macro and micro policies at the end of 2010, people began to become cautious about the 2011 auto market forecast. A recent Roland Berger report pointed out that this year's increase will fall from more than 30% to 15%, and 10% and 8% in 2012 and 2015, respectively. However, for ultra-luxury vehicles such as Bentley and Rolls-Royce, the lack of supply is the only obstacle to their double sales again.

High growth just started

At the Guangzhou Auto Show at the end of 2010, the Bentley booth had only two sample cars, but it had a value of 5.48 million Mu Shang, 3.78 million Continental Flying Spur, 3.98 million SpeedChina Speed ​​Edition and 5.08 million Continental Supercars, and only seven days. It sold 18 units.

"We have an annual 100% increase in sales." Bingley China's director and general manager Zheng Wei said that in 2010, Bentley handled more than 800 vehicles in China throughout the year. Although the Chinese market is still ranked third in the world, but with the British Sales are relatively close, and there is still a big gap with the UK in 2009. “Conservatively, Bentley sales will increase by at least 50% in 2011.”

Maserati grew by 60% in 2010, in addition to the delivery of more than 400 vehicles, there are also more than 200 orders due to lack of supply can not be delivered. In 2010, the growth rate of the entire luxury automobile market in China was 60%, but Masaogi Masao, sales director of Maserati, believes that these are far more than just the supply of goods. He predicted that in 2011, the growth rate of China's ultra-luxury vehicles will remain at around 50%. Rolls-Royce delivered 500 new cars to China (including Hong Kong) in the first eleven months of 2010. In the whole year of 2009, only 100 units were sold. According to Bloomberg News, Rolls-Royce plans to sell 800 units in China in 2011 and increase sales by 8 times in two years.

The ambitions of ultra-luxury car dealers come from China's ubiquitous "building a rich pipeline" and wave after wave of "making riches."

"China has economic growth of at least 8% every year. There will certainly be many industries and many leading companies that can earn a lot of money. There are also many new companies listed," Zheng Zheng said. "China is still at a peak in making money. In the period, our high growth has only just begun."

According to figures released by the Hurun Research Institute, the number of billionaires in China in 2010 increased to 1,363 and the number of billionaires reached 97. The average wealth of China’s top 1,000 wealthiest people has increased by 64% from two years ago. The Credit Suisse Institute released the 2010 “Global Wealth Report” report pointing out that there are 80,000 ultra-high-net-worth individuals (with a wealth of more than 50 million U.S. dollars) and 24 million other high net worth individuals (between 1 million U.S. dollars and 50 million U.S. dollars in wealth per capita). In the US dollar, China accounts for more than 800,000.

In the face of more than 800,000 potential purchases, Bentley entered China in 3,000 in 2002 and Rolls-Royce had no more than 800.

Circle Marketing

In such an ultra-luxury car market that is in short supply, the competition is not sufficient. “All brands have a lot of room for growth.” Zheng Hao also believes that China’s customer base is a very unique customer base. “In Europe and America, many wealthy people understand the car, just as the Chinese know the same about tea, and you don’t need to explain it. The marketing concept is how to cultivate a good salesperson and be able to enter the rich circle. They meet and pull their interest in Bentley, but in China, I estimate that at least 60% of the rich have no knowledge of Bentley, or have heard of this brand and know that it is expensive and others do not know. So in China In sales, we are very focused on promoting Bentley's history, crafts, and heritage."

Zheng Hao said that finding a target customer in China is a challenge. At the beginning, it was even a little lost, but after years of exploration, they found several effective ways.

“The Chinese auto show is just like the auto supermarket where the wealthy and ordinary people like to stroll.” Zheng Zheng said that few foreign customers would take the initiative to attend the exhibition hall to buy a car, but China is too large to search for super cars. Potential customers like needles in the haystack, while Chinese customers are relatively low-key, and Bentley has no dealers in many places, so the auto show is very important.

The Chinese rich circles also have their own characteristics. “Every city has different tycoons. Maybe there are more than a dozen circles in the rich city of Guangzhou, but everyone’s circle is not.” More importantly, there are still many new rich circles every year. “The new rich circle And the old Regal Circle will create a barrier to the spread of personal word of mouth.” And Bentley’s more than 70% of buyers come from the circle of friends. Bentley's approach is to carry out a lot of dinners, pre-show activities, use existing car owners to invite friends. In the early 2010 auto show, Bentley held a test drive event in a high-end villa resort in Guangzhou, where the average transaction price of villas was more than 36 million yuan each.

Zheng Hao believes that the high growth of China's ultra-luxury vehicles will continue in the coming years. "Is it not 100% annual growth? I dare not say that high growth of at least 20%-30% is entirely possible."

Since there is little chance for ultra-luxury vehicle production to increase in the short term, “For brands like us, if the production capacity cannot be improved, the next step is to increase the price just like typical luxury goods! But this is not related to inflation, it is in short supply. The problem.” In the face of Bentley sales in 2011 will increase the target of at least 50%, Zheng Hao looks relaxed.