The Detroit News published an article today about how Volkswagen is going to pump billions of dollars into the U.S. market in order to increase its 3.7% market share. As the article mentions, VW was once the United States' top import car brand (that 3.7% includes Audi, too; the VW portion is actually 2% of the share). The informative article talks a lot about what the company is going to do in the next few years to pump up its presence in the States, and talks about its Japanese competition, too.
Keep in mind VW owns 20% of of Japanese automaker Suzuki, who, oh—by the way—sells cars in the U.S. (and has an even smaller market share here). However, I don't suspect VW will kick in any of this $5 billion into American Suzuki Motor Corp. (AMCS). In fact, it might even see AMCS as a competitor (think Kizashi vs. Jetta, Passat, or CC, for example). Hopefully this deal doesn't further hurt Suzuki here in the States. If all goes right, though, we should see marked increases in VW sale over the coming years.
FYI, Suzuki continues to flourish in most other markets across the world, particularly in India and Europe.
LINK
VW invests billions in U.S. comeback bid (detnews.com)
1 comment:
Seems like it would've made more sense to keep VW as it is and use the "mainstream American" cars as the larger half of the Suzuki line (while the smaller Suzukis continue to be obviously-of-Japanese-origin world cars).
Wouldn't it be funny if VW's core customers all went over to Ford?
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