Automakers are taking the fast lane to an exciting tomorrow. Notably, in China, the world’s largest auto market where “China speed” has been highlighted numerous times, most global carmakers are dashing with all their might to keep abreast of the fast-changing industry.
Among those doers, BMW Group has designed a set of elaborate strategies to follow China's new technology trends in every way and further consolidate its presence there.
Before elucidating the concrete measures, let's see how BMW Group performed in China this year. The sales volume can tell most things.
As of September, 2019, Chinese auto market has faced year-on-year sales drop for 15 consecutive months, but the German auto giant still performed against the general cooling trend with its Jan.-Sept. China deliveries jumping 14.4% from a year ago. It is worth mentioning that the group (including Mini brand) hasn't posted negative growth so far this year.
Due to the robust sales growth and huge market potential, BMW is attaching the greatest-ever importance to China. To further expand market shares, the automaker has prepared for China a long list of new models. For instance, the “X” family has two significant members enter Chinese market—the new BMW X1 and the China-built innovative BMW X2 went on sale together on October 11.
The rising sales performance is the best fruit from BMW's customer-centric services, which generate long-lasting brand attraction to users. The leading advisory service provider J.D. Power conducted a survey about China's new-vehicle intender. The study includes a brand influence score (BIS) which measures familiarity and favorability of automotive brands among intended new-vehicle buyers in China. In 2019, BMW achieved a BIS of 685 (on a 1,000-point scale), ranked highest on the list.
However, the product and brand acceptance is never an eternally unchanged thing. Facing the technology revolution sweeping across China, BMW must spare no effort to push ahead with its all-around strategic transformation.
BMW is also at the forefront of L3 and L4 technology development. The BMW Vision iNEXT, the automaker's first true autonomous vehicle scheduled for launch in 2021, will then legally provide users with L3 autonomous driving features and be technically supportive of the L4 applications.
The group said it would test fleets of the Vison iNEXT with L4 self-driving features in major markets like China after the volume production of the long-waited model starts.
Furthermore, BMW has set up three R&D hubs in Beijing, Shanghai and Shenyang to shore up its ambitious China-specific strategy.
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