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-   The Indian Car Scene (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/)

-   -   More Chinese car brands to enter the Indian automotive scene, despite the slowdown (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/indian-car-scene/215588-more-chinese-car-brands-enter-indian-automotive-scene-despite-slowdown-2.html)

As long as a major part of the value addition happens in India, it is good for the economy. The problem with gadgets is the lack of value addition- most high end gadgets are shipped with the box and packaging and no jobs are created in the process. For automobiles, our tax structure ensures that no one can sell a foreign-made CBU at an economy segment car price and undercut domestic producers. If a foreign company sources products from India, it is good for the SME sector which largely supplies auto components.

I think this will be good with electric vehicle scene as they will push for innovation and drive the prices of electrics down. Good time ahead for consumers and panic call for half hearted existing manufacturers.

As GTO said, out of all the big markets of the world India's is the easiest market for the Chinese companies to crack rather than other big markets. Chinese have cash, ambition, their market is reaching saturation level, they need to go global for further growth and our's is the easy market for them compared to US,UK, and Europe etc.

Interestingly our market slowly started to mature and saturate, though there is still a huge number of no-car families which the companies see as potential, our roads in urban areas are strained with congestion and cannot take more traffic than it is now. Only growth scope is from rural areas. Rural reach is must for further growth.

Another growth scope in urban areas is value growth rather than volume growth, 10 lakh to 20 lakh price bracket is the most happening price bracket now.

I am in awe of how market dynamics changes over the years. If this was a poll in 2007, majority of the responses would have been a big bold NO. come 2019, we all are praising what the Chinese are capable of and it is going to be good for the market.

I am super happy to read this and accept the fact that, Chinese automakers are now a force that are giving sleepless nights to Japs, Koreans and American Auto giants.

Let the games begin!

Could you please elaborate why?please:

The bad thing about the entry of Chinese brands is that they will eat into the share of and potentially uproot Ford, Volkswagen/Skoda, Honda, Toyota, Tata from Indian market. These are the brands that make relatively safer cars. They have to price their cars realistically hereafter. City for 18 lakhs, EcoSport for 15 lakhs?? Come on...

Chinese companies are not known for ethics and may probably cut corners in safety aspect of cars. (Lot of assumptions here, I agree.)

The good thing is that they will make our market more competitive- good for customers. Awaiting price corrections.

Our people will fall for the gimmicks and ultimately, the top 5 Indian car companies in another 10 years will be Maruti-Suzuki, Hyundai and another 3 Chinese/South Korean companies.

Our cars will be cheaper but less safe.

More globalization of Indian Automotive Scene is welcome!
(But at the cost of our own local players, we shall accept to a good extent that we have a large pool of talented people to serve the global companies to grow!)

One can easily understand why India is fast becoming a market for global products rather than locally grown, organically strong player. Lots of people in this forum might be heralding MSIL, honestly, trust me, New Delhi is just a execution center for Suzuki powertain. Japs have reputation for not taking "No" for an answer. Indians do have a reputation is not attempting to prove Japs are wrong or any Westerners for that matter.

There it goes, a great example, how India can be a great market that almost always mimics US. Consumers are not to blame, but the pale attitude of Indian companies and their organization structures which never trusts the quality of doing things and almost always does engineering on customer vehicles for field validation. The constant niggles in first gen models will gradually disappear as they learn from field. Sadly, the next gen will have different set of issues, after all learning is continuous :Frustrati:

I have been seeing that in our industry failures are not at all welcome. Failures at an early state of any product development project offers unbelievable insights, unfortunately, this gets largely ignored and always blamed on the suppliers or simply "Not because of me", someone else. Blame game! The real purpose or intention is never the center stage of any problem solving unfortunately. This is my pain in working with many customers for over a decade.

Chinese, on the other hand, known for not being sharp (at least in Auto Engineering), they hire talented Indians & other foreign nationals, suck their brain and improve something in their products. There have been countless offers & actual employment of Indians in Chinese Automotive Industry for the past 6 ~ 7 years.

Anyway, everything today that you see in shops are from China. Now in Automotive as well. China, found a mini America, India!
Long live Indian Automotive Market!!

Pretty much because how the car is. Looks, features, finish, power & quality. The standards on these points in the EU, North America have really reached extreme heights compared to what we live with.

And Hector was just an example. The same analogy actually applies to almost all Asian made cars on sale here. At least those that are made here, excluding CKD ones like the Tucson for instance.

It doesn't mean the Hector is bad. Its absolutely fine for what our people want & has got most things spot on! Just that elsewhere in the world, people expect something different with different priorities in their vehicles that's all. Generally they also pay quite a bit more for those cars than what we do here on average. So its fine.

With established players getting too greedy, this was bound to happen. Those crying out loud against the Chinese: don't buy from Ali Express. I've seen well to do families going to China for fittings for their new home. Our Govt is pretty interested in earning tax income and nothing else, they are squeezing entrepreneurs in the form a shock every 6 months. The industries are tottering, growth rate is plunging, we seem to have a weekly diversionary tactics of either a SC ruling or Election/Govt formation in some state and ground reality is totally forgotten. News is either a gang rape or how Ranbir & Deepika celebrate their anniversary. So in the melee Chinese want a slice of the pie too: so be it. Most of our mobile towers are Huawei so hang up that cell phone.

Will these Chinese brands also try to disguise their Chinese lineage by cultivating an alternate identity just for India?

Absolutely they have to do this, like MG. Aam Janta things MG is British brand, totally unaware of that they are buying Chinese car. Would you buy same car if it was named Baojun 530. I bet nobody would have thought of buying it.

Chinese brand will not work in India. I am sure Chinese Autos are aware of this fact. I think old defunct brand will be in demand for some time. MGs use case is standard template for everybody.

It is difficult to feel sympathetic for Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Ford who (some like Ford has already waved the white flag) if and when they lose marketshare to the Chinese. These are huge companies who, if they wanted to, could have tried harder. But all of them took a cautious approach to India, tried to scale incrementally, slow to move with the market and lack of innovation in thinking. They are not the only ones, there are scores of MNCs who have entered and exited India over the last three decades because they could not understand the market.

This is in sharp contrast to companies like say Amazon or Alibaba or Jio who realized the only way to be successful in India is to go big from day 1 and sit through years and years of losses just to gain market share. I think these Chinese companies are coming that mindset, like Xiaomi. They are going to try and win marketshare and mindspace of Indians with an aggressive launch pipeline and prices.

The two companies which I am worried about is Mahindra and Tata. It is not like they have no money, but these guys need to spend their money wisely, think hard about product strategy and price their products without constantly worrying about the profit margins. Over the years the Indian auto has seen some unofficial floor-prices set across segments and most try to match it, instead of breaking it by going cheaper.

That said, I do think Maruti and Hyundai will be affected, they know how to fight.

They are getting better at it. MG is one example, in another segment, it is OnePlus.

I think Haval as standalone brand might work.

More the competition, better for the market. All these years, Japs/Koreans/Americans and Germans have served us mostly inferior/old products. These Chinese giants will surely shake most of them. MG is a clear example that a Chinese company can offer a good product at a reasonable cost. Regarding safety and quality, I think with new vehicle norms coming up next year, manufacturers have to abide by those. Only thing which I'm concerned now is reliability and after-sales service which we'll get to know in next 2-3 years with Hector.

I think the Chinese entering the market really stirs up competition in the lower and mid end. Samsung had bad mid-range phones and were forced to innovate after Xiaomi and OnePlus started selling phones in India.

As long as the product works well and is VFM, Indians will buy it. Chinese car companies are just getting their feet wet- I'm sure we'll see our EV market dominated by them.
Just like tha Japanese and the Koreans, I think Chinese brands will succeed in the US one day. Needs more legwork, time, and maturity in EV technology.
More competition is good for the Indian Customer.
Toyota has bought Suzuki. Ford, Honda, VW, Nissan, Renault etc are history in the Indian market unless they do something dramatic.

While competition is a great thing for any market, what really bothers me is the mentality of the car buying public.

In India, buyers do not care about the fundamentals of a car, but what they really want is maximum features at the lowest possible price. An SUV like design combined with good fuel efficiency would ensure that it flies out of the showrooms. But if the market is flooded with cars like these, then I am afraid, good quality manufacturers who offer fundamentally great cars would no longer be able to compete with the prices and features, and as a result will find the market unsustainable and eventually exit.

While Maruti and Hyundai will never get affected, players like honda, Toyota, VW, renault etc. Are already fringe players. can't imagine what will become of them.


Somebody I know recently bought a MG Hector, top spec model. The said person has started playing a game with me: He asks me if my mercedes has a certain feature or not ( eg: reverse camera). If I say no, then he gets immense pleasure and an inflated ego that his new SUV has features that even a merc does not have. But we Bhpians can see what normal people cannot: we all know that the hector has sloppy dynamics and not so great quality. But the normal buyer just doesn't care about these things.

That's the difference between a mature market and an immature one.

Ps. I do not mean to offend anyone, just personal views. I also appreciate every car for it's positives but just used this incident as an example.