Chinese Identify Premium with German Cars

Growing in the past few years like Prince Charming on steroids, China has become a favorite target for the luxury auto brands that hope to capture at least a small portion of the most successful communist market the world has ever known. With all the brands that mean anything flocking to China, it was only natural that, at one point, they will clash for a piece of the pie.

These days the Chinese auto customer buys almost anything that is self-propelled, so there's enough pie to go around for all the car makers that plan to get rich using Chinese money. Yet, the luxury segment of the market remains a highly competitive one, a segment clearly led by the German brands: Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW.

According to a review conducted by the IHS Automotive, for the Chinese luxury is spelled in German. Try as they might, the Americans have managed to do little so far to impress the rich. For instance, according to Freep, IHS Automotive analyst Namrita Chow said that, in China, Cadillac is considered a step down from the German trio.

Last year, the best-selling luxury brand in China was Audi, which occupied the first two positions of the charts with the A6L and A4L. BMW has the biggest numbers of models in the top ten (5-, 7- and two versions of the 3 Series), while Mercedes ranks second with three models (E-, C- and S-Klasse). Lexus's ES-Series completes the top the best-selling luxury cars list for last year. No American brand has made it to this list.