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Cars and Drivers

The Chinese Car Market: Oh Lord, Won’t You Buy Me A Mercedes Benz

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published
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The Chinese car market, like many things in the world’s most populated country, does not cease to astonish. China has passed Japan as the No. 2 vehicle market in the world, and is now growing faster than even local experts thought it would.

This year, the market will support nine million car sales. According to Reuters, last year, the number was 7.2 million. US car sales this year should come in just above 16 million. At the rate the Chinese market is growing, it could surpass America as the world’s largest market in three years.

And so, it has become the next great battle ground for market share. Right now, GM (GM) and VW have the advantage of being the share leaders. VW now has 18% of the Chinese market. But, according to the FT, "about 85 per cent of Chinese clients are first-time buyers, which makes establishing a strong brand image an especially important factor in China." That means that powerhouse companies like Toyota (TM) still have a chance of roiling the market with strong products and clever marketing.

The battle is really just being joined. He who profits in China will profit overall.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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