Another Chinese brand resurfaces in the Philippines

SOME 15 years in the past, a slew of Chinese language automotive manufacturers entered the Philippine market. Sadly, at the moment, the Chinese language automotive manufacturers weren’t able to problem the dominance of the Japanese, American and European manufacturers. Each high quality and repair had been nonexistent for the Beijing-sourced fashions and so, the eventual flop.

Nonetheless, Chinese language automotive firms went on and developed their manufacturers, going so far as shopping for out failing European automotive manufacturers if solely to amass the expertise, individuals and expertise of those older auto firms.

Quick ahead to right now and we see fairly plenty of profitable Chinese language fashions out of the blue difficult the extra established Japanese and western badges. Geely, Chery, MG and Foton are 4 of the top-of-mind Chinese language badges which have efficiently penetrated Filipino households by way of automotive alternative.

Two of those badges, Chery and MG, started on very stormy floor with Chery dropping out as a result of a beforehand unhealthy distribution administration earlier than regaining its title when United Asia Automotive Group Inc. took over. MG additionally had its share of misery when its first distributor started a advertising and marketing technique that was actually ignorant, however lastly gained floor when The Covenant Automotive Firm Inc. took over.

Now, one other Chinese language automotive model that was right here 15 years in the past however disappeared for no obvious cause is attempting a comeback.

Luxuriant Automotive Group is the brand new distributor of Nice Wall Motor within the Philippines. I keep in mind Nice Wall Motor as a result of we had been invited to their first foray within the Philippine market within the late 2000s.

I keep in mind it distinctly as a result of the mannequin they confirmed us then was attention-grabbing — it was the Coolbear — a squarish-shaped SUV. I believe that was when SUVs had been known as crossovers.

The opposite day, we had been invited by good buddy Tonette Lee to fulfill Luxuriant President Ruben Tan and Nice Wall President Lillian Cui to announce the resurgence of the Chinese language model within the nation.

It was a pleasant lunch meet with a couple of automotive scribe pals at Torch, Connecticut the place we had been proven the primary mannequin Nice Wall plans to introduce to Manila, the Haval, which has an attention-grabbing design with cues from each American and Japanese design developments. Nevertheless it has a fairly intriguing Chinese language take for an SUV.

Tan stated they are going to be specializing in two best-selling fashions within the Philippines, comprising SUVs and pickup vans, as their first automobile to promote within the nation.

Nice Wall is likely one of the largest, if not the largest, automotive producer/assembler in China, and already has a bigger footprint in Asia and Africa, and aggressively increasing in the USA, Australia and Europe.

With the success of the opposite Chinese language automotive manufacturers within the Philippines, I’m questioning how the Nice Wall will do in our market. We can be watching.