Speeches: Jan Vandooren, Marketing and Sales Manager, Shanghai Sunwin Bus Corporation, China
International Bus & Coach
Forum
Profitable Bus
& Coach Operations in or with China |
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Shanghai, PRC, 16 March
2005
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Speeches
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2nd Interactive
Session
Jan Vandooren, Marketing and Sales Manager, Shanghai Sunwin Bus
Corporation, China |
How to improve the competitiveness of
European products in China?
Since more then a decade Volvo Bus is
active in China to market their bus products through their 2 joint venture:
SilverBus (Xian, coaches) and SilverBus (Shanghai, city buses). The presence of
European brands had largely contributed to improve the overall bus and coach
environment in China.
In comparison with Chinese brands, the
Volvo brand offers much more competitive advantages such as: higher lifetime,
higher availability and reliability, lower fuel consumption, lower maintenance
costs. Based on a 3 years experience the lifetime cost of the Volvo bus is
dramatically lower then a Chinese brand whereby the annual net income of a bus
operator increased by 40%.
This experience changed the mentality
of the operators. A bus purchase is considered as an investment rather than an
initial upfront cost. To back up the promised quality, the offering of a
competitive maintenance contract is very much appreciated.
Challenges to face for European
manufacturers in China are: to increase the actual legal lifetime of the bus (8
years), offer tailor-made products, keep up a high pace of product development
and reduce cost price.
Within a time span of 5 years, the
actual polarization between the Chinese and European brands will be dramatically
reduced. The Chinese brands will further upgrade and improve the reliability of
their products whereby the European brands has to reduce the cost price by
localizing the main components.
This development will give China a
strong platform for export.
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