On March 22, Maserati's new SUV, the Grecale, was officially unveiled and rushed to the hot list, which is known as Maserati's cheapest SUV model, which is intended to benchmark the Porsche Macan, and also reduce the brand access threshold to an unprecedented low.
As a well-known ultra-luxury brand, Maserati was initially known as a racing car and sports car, and its windy shape and turbulent Trident logo attracted countless people to covet it. Now with the emergence of Maserati Grecale, the price of online rumors may drop to half a million. According to the theory, buying this car is "spending a small amount of money to do big things" for consumers, Maserati's wave of operations should be full of money, and the company executives will wake up laughing in the middle of the night counting money in their dreams, but will things really develop as expected? Xiaobian boldly speculates here that perhaps Maserati's wishful thinking is going to be wrong.
In fact, Grecale is not Maserati's first SUV model, as early as 2017, Maserati launched a medium-sized SUV called Levante, some netizens jokingly called this car "to ten thousand units", hinting at Maserati's ambition to "make a lot of money". Levante sales when it was first produced were really good, and it can even be said that it reached the peak of the Maserati brand, but the good times were not long, and by 2018, Maserati's sales in China suddenly fell sharply, and suddenly fell by 70%, and after that, the Maserati brand was even more sluggish in the Chinese market, and its sales declined in addition to decline.
Unable to get the share of the Chinese market, Maserati's global performance is also unbearable to look at, its global sales from 35,300 vehicles in 2018 to 19,300 vehicles in 2019 to 17,000 vehicles in 2020, it is not too much to say that it is a "landslide".
What is even more ironic is that in 2021, Masha's sales finally rose, and global sales increased to 24,269 units, but such results can only be regarded as a slight "recovery" for Maserati, whose sales have fallen for several years, and the official said that it has "achieved remarkable results". In this regard, porsche next door said that there is no need to be embarrassed.
Not only that, so far, most of Maserati's sales are supported by its low-positioned SUV model Levante, and the capitalists who do not want to make money are not qualified capitalists, and Harald Wester, CEO of Maserati, who once vowed to never produce SUVs, said that engaging in SUVs will hurt the brand's genes. Later, Harald Wester left, Levante was born, and now Maserati's second SUV model, the Gregale, is also on the market.
Why is Maserati less and less popular with the Chinese people? If you're going to say it's because of its high price, you'd be wrong, and look at Porsche's "record" in 2021: global sales reached 301,915 units, an 11% increase compared to 2020 sales, including 95,671 in the Chinese market. There is no doubt that there are not a few rich people in China, and Maserati has mixed up to the current dismal business situation, Xiaobian privately believes that there are three reasons:
First, the brand positioning is unclear. Open the Maserati official website, the interface shows only four models, of which only one sports car and sales are about zero, the product volume is all in its sedan and SUV products. Its products have not been innovated for many years, and it is difficult to wait for a listing, and the launch is an SUV model. Obviously famous for racing cars and sports cars, but there are not a few sports cars on the product line, and Martha's operation is really confusing.
Second, the product sincerity is insufficient. Maserati positioning ultra-luxury brand, but always be complained about the interior is old, poor quality control, "look at 1 million from a distance, walk into a look at 500,000, sit in the car 300,000" is people's general ridicule of it, and its electronic system frequent small problems although not "fatal", but also inevitably make people feel diaphragm, ultra-luxurious positioning, but there is no ultra-luxurious workmanship to match, is there only the car logo "ultra-luxurious"?
Third, the brand power is not as good as before. If Martha's "ultra-luxury" part is only left with car logos, then this part of the limelight has also been snatched up by micro-businessmen. For a while, "Hiti Maserati" has become the usual operation of micro-businessmen, regardless of whether micro-businessmen are real or fake, Maserati dealers actively provide photo channels and prices, which also makes Martha's brand power greatly reduced, after all, real car owners are not willing to be put on the hat of "micro-business".
Write at the end
Maserati from the storm to the dismal operation, in the ultra-luxury brand all the way to the bottom, and now rely on low prices to "grab food" with the Porsche next door, but Maserati Grecale is the benchmark of Porsche's crown Macan, which delivered a total of 88,362 vehicles in 2021. We understand the outstanding battle achievements next door to Martha's red eyes, but in the case of few product lines, crotches in the exterior interior, and serious discounts on their own brand power, they also have to "compete on the same stage" with other people's sales crowns, I don't know how likely is it that Martha will successfully grab this job?