Chinese buyers not big fans of American luxury cars

Chinese-market Long-wheelbase BMW 5 Series – Click above for high-res image gallery

 

The automotive market in China is expanding, and it’s doing so quickly. Chinese car shoppers helped the industry grow 33 percent in 2010. Luxury automakers enjoyed even more prosperity with a 75-percent increase in sales. So what brand catches the eye of a Chinese consumer looking to put some luxurious wheels in his driveway? Not American ones, apparently.

Germany has a strong hold on the Chinese luxury market. Nine of the top ten luxury vehicles sold in 2010 to a Chinese buyer were German. Lexus somehow snuck on the list, but there is nary an American automaker in sight. In fact, Cadillac, which saw a 139 percent sales increase last year, sold 17,000 vehicles there in 2010. Audi, by comparison, sold 115,353 A6L sedans alone.

Now, that 115k+ performance is quite ahead of the rest of the pack. However, even the 10th-best-selling luxury model in China’s 2010 buying market (BMW 3 Series) sold over 12,000 units. Audi also saw success with its A4, which placed second in sales by moving 58,466 examples.