Int. J. Chinese Culture and Management, Vol. X, No. Y, xxxx
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Geely motors: a Chinese automaker enters international markets Ilan Alon,* Marc Fetscherin and Marc Sardy
Rollins China Center & International Business Department Rollins College 1000 Holt Avenue 32789 Winter Park, FL, USA E-mail: ialon@rollins.edu E-mail: mfetscherin@rollins.edu E-mail: msardy@rollins.edu *Corresponding author
Abstract: On 22 January 2006, Shufu Li, the Director of International Marketing for Geely Motors, was rushing to the check-in counter at the Detroit Metropolitan Airport in order to travel back to Shanghai, China. He had just come from the Detroit International Auto Show where his company had presented its new car models. Geely (pronounced
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Two factories were used: one in Huzhou, the other in Quzhou, both in Zhejiang province. Among the initial products were the Haoqing, a 4-door sedan, later the LG-1 station wagon and most recently the PS4 sports car. Geely Motors was the first Chinese private enterprise to build passenger cars. In 2000 the Haoqing, equipped with a 4-cylinder Toyota engine, was introduced. Geely presented the PS4 sports car at the Shanghai Automobile Show of 2005, and started to sell them in China during 2006 (Exhibit 2 in Appendix A). By 2005 Geely Motors had four production facilities. One was a joint venture between Geely (53%) and the Quzhou Holding Co. (47%), an investment company listed in Hong Kong. Since 2003, Geely had also been working with Daewoo on a joint venture. In 2006 this venture had produced a new model of the PS4 sports car which had just been introduced at the 2006 Detroit International Auto Show. By 2006 overall production capacity for the four facilities were about 360 000 cars (Table 1).
Table 1 Geely production and capacity 127 950 86 535 71 555 360 000
Production 2005 Production 2004 Production 2003 Production capacity growth 2006
Source: Catalogue of the present Chinese motorcar production, China motor vehicle documentation centre, 2006
Geely motors: a Chinese automaker enters international markets
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The Chinese auto market
The Chinese Automotive
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Fock, H K. Y. and Woo. K.S. (1998). The China Market: Strategic Implications of Guanxi. Business Strategy Review, 9(3):
China has long been considered a nation that produces poor quality products. All Chinese products have long had “a reputation for shoddy workmanship” in the eyes of overseas consumers and the abysmal failure of the “Landwind SUV, made by Chinese automaker Jiangling Motors,” during its international “safety test that scored 0 out of 5 in passenger-cab protection” surely didn’t create an exception for their automobile products (Dess, Lumpkin, Eisner, 2010). This puts Geely automotive at an extreme disadvantage when compared to their industry competitors (such as Toyota, Chrysler, and Volkswagen etc.) in overseas markets as they will need to work hard to differentiate their brands from the detrimental brand recognition of other Chinese product-based company’s. They have not attempted to remedy this weakness directly (by advertising industry crash test comparisons, promoting the life span of their vehicle in comparison to competitors etc.); however, they have attempted to work around it by focusing on their research and development which increases product innovation and gives Geely unique and hard to imitate competitive advantages. This weakness of perceived poor quality by their overseas consumers will