GM CEO Mary Barra Visits China to meets Shanghai Party Chief. This is General Motors CEO Mary Barra’s first visit to China since the pandemic, where the US auto giant is losing ground.
Detroit automakers is struggling with a sales slump in China, the world’s largest auto market, due to its slow pace in introducing new electric vehicle (EV) models and also due to competition from giant electric rivals Tesla Inc. and BYD Co.
Since the pandemic, GM’s deliveries in the country dropped from 3.09 million vehicles in 2019 to 2.3 million last year. The world’s largest automotive market China is becoming increasingly challenging for U.S. brands, especially General Motors. The company’s market share in the country, including its joint ventures, has plummeted from roughly 15% in 2015 to 9.8% last year.
Barra met with Shanghai’s leader on Wednesday, who encouraged GM to step up investments and research and development in the city, the municipal government said in a statement.
China is GMs top sales market for more than a decade and one of two main profit engines for the Detroit automaker.
Barra said that China remains a key market for GM and she looked forward to developing more clean and intelligent cars with its local partners, according to the statement.
GM said in November it would roll out more than 15 new EVs in China and build EV production capacity to more than 1 million units by 2025. Though the competition is increasingly becoming a problem for GM, has acknowledged such issues with its Chinese business.
While many U.S. brands aren’t performing well in China, GM’s decline is especially notable. GM’s operations in the country are much larger than those of its crosstown rival Ford Motor,
Electric vehicles could be a new opportunity for GM to grow globally, but experts say it would be a struggle and an uphill battle compared with recovering in China in the years to come.
The reason for Detroit automakers’ decline and the major challenge it is facing in China has been slow start to production of EV and competition from Chinese automakers.
A bright spot for GM in China has been its Wuling Hongguang Mini, made by a joint venture, which is the bestselling EV in the market. Since going on sale in mid 2020, the economy car has sold more than 1 million units.
GM reports its earnings from China as equity income because the country mandates joint ventures for non-Chinese automakers. GM has 10 joint ventures, two wholly owned foreign enterprises and more than 58,000 employees in China. Its brands include Cadillac, Buick, Chevrolet, Wuling and Baojun.
Dunne, president of GM’s Indonesia operations from 2013 till 2015, said, “the decline of GM and other nondomestic automakers comes alongside China’s market growth slowing, Chinese automakers becoming increasingly more competitive and the shift to all electric vehicles, which has been massively subsidized by government agencies.”
Chinese brands have grown market share by 21% since 2015 to roughly half of all passenger vehicles sold in China last year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. Meanwhile, the sales of American brands in the U.S. during that time have been level at about 45%.
“I think the No. 1 reason for GM’s decline is this tilt toward Chinese nationalism,” Dunne said. “That takes the form of China has declared that it wants to be the global dominator in electric vehicles and it’s doing everything in his power to cultivate national champions like BYD.”
