By Zhang Xue
The motor show is often regarded as a "vane of auto market". The recent concluded Chengdu Motor Show 2009 has revealed such a message: the huge potential in China's southwest auto market has been attached great importance to increasingly, and the competition among manufacturers in such a market will be fiercer and fiercer.
Chengdu Motor Show is one of the most well-known auto exhibitions in China West. This year's the 12th Chengdu Motor Show, which came on schedule, is expanded further than the last show in terms of scale, and it has applied all the nine exhibition halls of Century City- New International Convention & Exhibition Centers with the exhibition area of 100,000 square meters, more than 200 participating manufacturers and 516 sets of autos for the exhibition.
Taking a round in the exhibition halls, you can find that all participating brands have been well-positioned, and the most intuitional feeling comes from all participants' efforts on the scale and disposal of exhibition counters. Such independent brands as Chery, BYD, Great Wall and Geely have occupied important locations in all exhibition halls, among which, the exhibition space area of both Chery and BYD has exceed 1,000 square meters. As one of the representatives for luxury autos, Benz has furthermore held 1,400-square-meter exhibition space this time, up 40 percent than that last year. The super large exhibition platform and the input of full auto type series are enough to be on a par with the standard of Benz taking participate in Shanghai Auto Expo and Beijing Auto Expo. Such manufacturers as Dongfeng Peogeut and Brilliance haven't the largest exhibition area, but their respective elaborate decoration in blue white and red that can embody their own brand traits has also drawn lots of attention. Compared with last year, the input of many participating brands has been increased obviously this year.
The biggest attraction point in the auto show lies in the types of participating autos. In this Chengdu Motor Show, Mercedes-Benz held the Asian debut ceremony for E-coupe, the brand new E-class 2-door coupe, and such two heavyweight coupes as Passat CC and Scirocco under Volkswagen premiered nationwide, additionally, the domestic debut of new type of Alto, the high-profile coming-into-the-market of Huatai's first independent-developed new auto Santa Fe C9, and the first launch in Western of BMW730Li and Volvo C30 2.0 has also shown the weight of Chengdu Motor Show in the eyes of all manufacturers. In accordance with statistics, there are 25 sets of autos being released for the first time in this Chengdu Motor Show, among which 1 set is in the first launch in Asia, 6 sets across China and 18 sets in China West, so it is the show that release the most new autos historically. It is easy to find out that launching important auto types in southwest market-based Chengdu Motor Shows has become a new tendency increasingly.
Besides firstly launched autos, almost all big brands have their full series of autos involved in the exhibition, and for those auto types being about to come into the market and selling well right now, all of them have been shown in conspicuous location, hoping to draw more attention from consumers through a close-up.
This Motor Show has received positive response from nearly 70 brands, which include such new faces as Volvo and Smart. Different from the former situation that most brands are exhibited by local dealers in local auto exhibition, in this year's Chengdu Motor Show, more manufacturers choose direct participation or joint participation with dealers. The reason why a huge enthusiasm was input in Chengdu Motor Show is that with the release of the potential in southwest auto market, manufacturers pay more attention to the huge market behind the motor show and are more willing to regard Chengdu Motor Show as an important stage to further open sales breakthrough and expand brand influence in southwest China. "In the first eight months of this year, the sales volume of Mercedes-Benz in China's mainland was 37,800 sets, up 50 percent year on year. And the southwest market represented by Chengdu is one of our most strategic markets." said Hao Bo, General Manager of Sales and Marketing Department, Mercedes-Benz China Ltd. Lei Xin, Vice General Manager of Dongfeng Peogeut also expressed that he hope transferring Dongfeng Peogeu's brand value and expand brand influence better by means of taking participation in Chengdu Motor Show. Tong Zhiyuan, President of Huatai Automobile Group spoke frankly that he hopes expanding the market and improving the sales quantity of products in virtue of the radiation effect of Chengdu Motor Show.
And on the other hand, the motor show has also verified the immense enthusiasm on auto consumption in southwest market. According to statistics, the audience who participates in this Chengdu Motor Show has reached 410,000 person-times. The consumers who come to the motor show for a purchase or a consultation about autos can be seen all over the exhibition halls, and in only a few days short period of motor show 4,512 sets have been sold, creating a new historical record in Chengdu Motor Shows.
The drive of preferential policies issued by the government this year has made the southwest auto market release robust consumption capability and become a new engine to drive domestic auto consumption. The host city of this motor show has always been regarded as "the third city of private autos", and at present, the auto population in Chengdu has breached 2 million sets, additionally, there are almost 1,000 sets of new autos every day to be issued with license plates. For manufacturers, the significance of southwest market is more evident, and it can be forecasted that the competition will be fiercer and fiercer here, which will add new vigor to China's auto market.
