Volkswagen Cutting Prices in China to be Competitive
Reuters has recently reported that Europe’s largest automaker has drop prices of its flagship model at its Shanghai venture by up to 7 percent. Volkswagen is hoping that the cut in price will help boost its sales in China.
Shanghai Volkswagen has cut prices of the Passat Lingyu which was rolled out in November of 2005 by almost 16,200 yuan or $2,143 according to Volkswagen’s car manufacturing venture with Shanghai Automotive Co.
Despite the fact that China’s auto market is growing steadily, automakers have been resorting to lowering of prices particularly on some of their older models just to lure buyers.
Last March, Wolfsburg-based automaker, Volkswagen has lowered the prices of some of their locally made cars by almost 11 percent including those of Santana and Polo models.
Aside from Volkswagen, General Motors has also cut prices by almost 10 percent on its Chevrolet Lova and Aveo economy models last January.
Volkswagen has reported that for the first half of this year, it has been able to sell 431,369 vehicles in China and in Hong Kong. The said sales figure marks a 24.6 percent increase from the same period a year earlier.
For this year, Volkswagen is hoping to increase its sales by one-fifth and maintain a 17 percent share of the world’s second-largest auto market that is according to a senior executive of the company.
