Sales plummeted 40%, the world's fourth-largest car company, and the Chinese love and hate it

As the world's fourth-largest car company, Porsche's largest single market is China, and China's wealthy people have made Porsche.

However, Porsche's sales in China have plummeted by 40 percent. In fact, the Chinese love and hate Porsche.

1. The world's fourth-largest car company?

In 1931, Ferdinand Porsche, known as a rare genius and great designer, founded Porsche in Stuttgart, Germany.

With a long history of nearly 100 years, as an ultra-luxury car brand, Porsche is as famous as Aston Martin, Bugatti Veyron, Rolls-Royce, Maserati, etc., and its 911, Panamera, Cayenne and other models are famous all over the world.

For more than 100 years, Porsche has been intertwined with the grievances and hatreds of the two families, Porsche and Piëch. In terms of equity, Porsche and the Volkswagen Group have cross-shareholdings, and the relationship is complicated.

In September last year, Porsche was finally listed, which continued to impact the capital market pattern of global car companies. On the day of its listing, Porsche's market value reached 75.43 billion euros, making it the world's fifth-largest car company.

After that, in less than 10 days, Porsche surpassed Volkswagen and became the world's fourth largest car company, second only to Tesla, Toyota, and BYD.

Since then, Porsche's share price has continued to soar, and its market value once surpassed BYD. However, with the soaring sales of BYD, Porsche's market value has been overtaken by BYD.

Today, Porsche's market capitalization continues to maintain the fourth place in the world, and it is firmly in the fourth largest car company in the world.

2. Sales in China plummeted by 40%?

In 2001, Porsche entered the Chinese market, attracting the rich Chinese to rush to buy. After 15 years of hard work, Porsche sold 58,009 units in China in 2015, and China replaced the United States as its largest single market in the world.

Until 2022, China has been Porsche's largest single market in the world for eight consecutive years. Data shows that Chinese contribute more than 30% of Porsche's global sales.

In 2022, Porsche sold more than 93,000 units in China, compared to less than 80,000 in North America and 63,000 in Europe. This year, Porsche's revenue in China was 11.7 billion euros, equivalent to more than 91 billion yuan, making a lot of money.

However, this year, Porsche's sales in China were only 16,900 units, a 40% year-on-year plunge, which is quite surprising.

If we look at it extensively, we will see that there is an inflection point for Porsche in China. In the first three quarters of this year, Porsche sold 242722 cars worldwide, up 10 percent year-on-year.

However, the Chinese market, which has always been strong in the past, sold only 60,748 units, down 12% year-on-year, making it the only single market in the world where Porsche saw a decline. In addition, Porsche's title as the world's largest single market, which has lasted for eight years, has also been lost to North America.

3. Do the Chinese love and hate it?

Porsche blames the region's continued economic situation for the decline in sales in China.

But the truth is obviously not so simple, the root cause may be that Porsche is too arrogant in the Chinese market, frequent "riot operations", constantly reducing consumers' favorability of its brand, so the Chinese from love to hate.

First of all, in 2022, there was a "reduced gate", and Porsche replaced the marked electric steering column with a manual steering column. In the handling of the incident, Porsche treated Chinese and American car owners differently, which chilled Chinese consumers, and even People's Daily Online couldn't stand it, and issued an article denouncing Porsche for "fooling things and having no shame".

Secondly, at the beginning of this year, Porsche's official website launched a Panamera model of 124,000 yuan, with a down payment as low as 30,000 yuan and a deposit of only 911 yuan. Netizens frantically placed orders, and 598 orders were generated on the same day.

However, Porsche "reversed" afterwards, saying that the decimal point of the price was wrong, and it should be 1.24 million yuan, and there was only one vehicle in stock, and Porsche only recognized the first order, and judged the later order as invalid.

The incident caused a stir, and netizens were furious, believing that Porsche did not have the spirit of contract, and made its own mistakes but made consumers pay.

Finally, as an ultra-luxury brand, the quality of Porsche's products is not flattering.

According to the official website of the State Administration for Market Regulation, Porsche recalled its vehicles four times in March, June, August and October this year due to quality problems, totaling more than 53,700 vehicles, due to problems such as poor sealing of the auxiliary electronic pump of the air conditioning and heating system, production process errors, and insufficient sealant between the high-voltage battery frame and the battery cover.

The quality of the products is not up to par, the brand image is damaged, and Porsche is gradually being abandoned by the rich in China.