Buick – Asia’s Favorite Automobile
Many have a hard time believing General Motors is deciding to keep Buick around over Pontiac, but if you look across the globe this decision makes perfect sense. Buick is one of the most successful import cars in China. Do the Chinese like big cars, or does this feed into an America fetish (they love baseball too!)
In a recent article by CNN Money, it was pointed out that GM cars, specifically Buick vehicles, are selling like hot cakes still overseas, throughout Asia…mostly in China. This isn’t news to anyone who follows GM with a close eye – Buick has been GM’s Asian brand for years. Only about a quarter of GM’s vehicle sales worldwide were made in the U.S. during the first part of 2009. Where GM is losing money hand over fist on US soil, the company actually made a profit in China, the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, and Latin America.
Experts believe it’s important that GM keeps overseas operations linked with North American units as it goes through restructuring . GM is hopeful their current efforts will also leave them as competitive at home as it has been abroad. “Their success overseas demonstrates that they have the capability of succeeding here,” said Tom Libby, president of the Society of Automotive Analysts. “The stuff they’re being forced to do now, it’s stuff that should have been done a long time ago.”
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