By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff Fuyao Glass, one of the world’s largest makers of glass used in automobiles, gained 3% on Friday at the Shanghai Stock Exchange after the company said net profit in the first three months of the year climbed by 11% to 391.9 million yuan, or $63 million. The company didn’t provide a sales figure. Fuyao’s customers include Ford, GM and BMW. Auto sales in China, the world’s largest market for motor vehicles, rose by 17% in the first three months of 2013 from a year earlier. One of the world’s largest auto shares, Auto Shanghai, opened on Sunday in Shanghai. Cho ranked No. 1,250 on the 2013 Forbes Billionaires list with wealth of $1.15 billion. He is a mainland native who formally resides in Hong Kong. — With Charity Xiong — Follow me on Twitter @rflannerychina
Tag Archives: Auto Shanghai
Auto Shanghai: China's Biggest Auto Show This Year Kicks Off
By Russell Flannery, Forbes Staff
Auto Shanghai, one of the world’s auto shows this year, kicked off in Shanghai on Sunday with hopes among more than 2,000 exhibitors for faster increases in sales this year in the world’s largest auto market.
Chinese automakers struggle against global rivals
These should be good times for Chinese automakers as they prepare to show off their latest models at the Shanghai auto show.
Their home market is the world’s biggest and growing. But independent automakers such as Chery and Geely are being squeezed by bigger, richer global rivals including General Motors and Nissan that have moved into turf the Chinese makers considered their own: low-priced models for local tastes. Domestic brands account for less than half of their own market.
“At a time when the Chinese were getting ready to move upscale, they have come under siege in their area of traditional strength,” said Michael Dunne, president of Dunne & Co., a research firm. “They didn’t see that coming and it hurt.”
Fighting back, Chery, Geely and local rivals Great Wall and BYD are scaling down ambitious expansion plans and focusing on improving quality. Some hired managers or designers with experience at Mercedes Benz and other foreign producers. Others aim at specialties such as SUVs, minivans for export to other developing countries and electric buses.
This week, Chery Inc. announced a corporate overhaul after sales plummeted 10 percent last year. The company said it will shrink its range of 20 models to 11 or 12.
BYD Co., in which American investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Corp. owns a 10 percent stake, plans to display a new SUV and its Si Rui sedan at Auto Shanghai 2013, which opens Sunday.
The company, China‘s leading maker of electric cars, blamed intense competition for a 94 percent plunge in profit last year and says the midsize Si Rui should help to drive a rebound.
Great Wall Motors Co. plans to debut two SUVs, a pickup and a sedan among 23 models on display. Last year, the company was China‘s top-selling independent automaker on the strength of its popular SUVs, which are exported to 80 countries.
China‘s failure to follow its neighbors Japan and South Korea in creating at least one global auto brand — even after this country passed the United States in 2009 as the biggest auto market — has frustrated communist leaders.
They see auto making as a national priority — the “industry of industries” that supports higher-paid jobs in fields from manufacturing to electronics to chemicals. They have spent
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