The automobile industry is saturated, and U.S. car manufacturers have never been able to compete with their European and Asian counterparts outside of North America.
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日志
GM plans to quit selling vehicles in India 彻底抛弃印度
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GM TO CUT OPERATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA, INDIA
GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its local factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd.
Reuters | about 7 hours ago
DETROIT - General Motors Co plans to quit selling vehicles in India by the end of this year and will sell operations in South Africa, the latest steps in a strategy of focusing cash and engineering effort on fewer, more profitable markets.
The Detroit automaker said on Thursday it will take a $500 million charge in the second quarter to restructure operations in India, Africa and Singapore. It will cancel most of a planned $1 billion investment to build a new line of low-cost vehicles in India.
About $200 million of the charge will be a cash expense, GM said. The moves are expected to save $100 million a year in a sector of GM’s global business that last year lost about $800 million, the company said.
GM President Dan Ammann told Reuters in an interview that the latest restructuring moves - and a series of earlier decisions to quit unprofitable markets - allow GM to focus more money, engineering effort and senior management time on expanding where the company is strong, including China and the North American pickup and SUV business, where GM has a “product onslaught coming.”
GM also has said it is investing about $600 million a year in efforts to develop autonomous vehicles and transportation services.
“What are we spending our time doing?” Ammann said. “Are we spending time pursuing opportunities … or all of our time fixing problems?”
GM, like its Detroit rival Ford Motor Co, has found it increasingly expensive to compete in emerging markets outside of China. GM sold just 49,000 vehicles in India and South Africa combined last year.
Chief Executive Mary Barra travelled to New Delhi in 2015 to announce a plan to invest $1 billion there to build a new line of Chevrolet models developed as part of a Global Emerging Market vehicle programme - GEM for short. Since then, auto sales overall in India have slumped, and GM has failed to gain traction against incumbents such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
Now, GM plans to stop selling Chevrolet brand vehicles by the end of the year and will produce vehicles only for export at its remaining factory in Talegaon. The company currently employs about 2,500 workers there.
GM said it would continue work at its design and engineering centre near Bangalore.
PULLING BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA
The $5 billion GEM programme, which GM is developing with its Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp, remains on track to account for about 2 million vehicles a year in global sales volume, mainly in Latin America, Mexico and China, Ammann said.
“The market opportunity for GEM has continued to grow,” he said.
In a separate move, GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its South African factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd, along with the 30% stake the US automaker owns in a truck venture with Isuzu Motors. Isuzu agreed in February to buy out GM’s 57.7% stake in a joint venture in Kenya.
GM also will cut an undisclosed number of staff at its GM International Operations headquarters in Singapore. About 200 people work in that operation, the company said.
Since Barra took over GM in 2014, the one-time largest automaker in the world has taken aggressive steps to narrow its focus to China, the highly-profitable North American light truck and sport utility market, Latin America, vehicle financing and transportation services that ultimately could use autonomous vehicles.
Despite the restructuring moves, including Barra’s decision in March to sell loss-making European operations to French rival Peugeot SA, GM’s share price has been stuck in a range close around $33 where it went public in 2010 following a government-funded bankruptcy. GM shares closed on Wednesday at $32.42.
Barra and GM’s directors are under pressure from David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which wants GM to split its common stock into two classes, one that pays dividends and a second that would be valued to reflect the company’s potential growth. Greenlight also has put forward a slate of three new directors. GM’s management and incumbent board have rejected Greenlight’s proposals. The hedge fund holds 54.8 million GM shares, or about 3.5% of the total.
彻底抛弃印度市场，通用押宝中国巴西
【编译 观察者网/张珩】“1年卖的还不如美国3天卖的多”。今天（5月18日），印度再度出现一起“爆炸性”新闻，美国通用汽车（General Motors）打算彻底撤离印度市场。
据华尔街日报最新消息，通用透露，在公司CEO玛丽·博拉（Mary Barra）的战略下，通用将会停止在印度的汽车销售，把未来投资转向更加有利可图的市场，比如中国和巴西。
通用CEO玛丽·博拉
但是，通用只是停止在印度的销售，并不会关闭在印度的生产线。但是这也意味着，通用将从这个世界第二人口大国撤出，同时把自己在新兴市场的投资全部押在中国和巴西身上。
印度的汽车市场一向非常脆弱，所有成功的汽车制造商在价格控制上都必须非常“吝啬”，这导致了印度即使每年都新增加百万数目级别的买车人，公司的利润却很难大规模增加。
除了通用以外，其他的大型汽车制造商也抱怨过印度的市场。在今年3月的时候，福特汽车首席财务官香克斯（Bob Shanks）说，印度竞争激烈的市场和难以提高的定价导致公司“非常困难”，福特必须“进行改变”。
福特汽车首席财务官香克斯
当然，印度也不是唯一的“倒霉蛋”，南非比印度还要倒霉。通用不仅撤离了南非市场，同时还关闭了生产线，把设备卖给了五十铃汽车（Isuzu Motors）。而在2015年，俄罗斯也惨遭通用“抛弃”。这样一来，在“金砖五国”中，通用只剩下了中国和巴西。
对于通用这种战略，公司总裁丹∙阿曼（Dan Ammann）在采访中说：“在最重要的市场才会集中我们最强大的实力，我们将会深入并且赢得那些市场的胜利。”虽然目前通用大部分利润都来源与美国和中国，但是阿曼依然表示公司会继续在“资源有限的世界市场”中全力拼杀。
目前，通用这家拥有109年历史的老牌企业主要集中在美国、中国和南美这三个市场。尤其是中国，通用2016年来在印度、南非、中东和其他几个亚洲国家遭遇到了总共8.38亿美元的损失。若不是中国市场的增长帮助公司保持盈利，通用的数据将会非常难看。公司预计，从印度和南非的撤出战略将帮助减少每年1亿美元的亏损压力。
通用早在1918年就进入了印度市场，但是因为印度在1954年试图促进国产汽车工业，加大了对美国汽车的关税，这导致通用和其他美国汽车公司在1958年离开了印度，直到1995年才返回。
但是在随后的时间内，通用过的非常“挣扎”，2016年，通用只卖出了29000辆汽车，市场占有量小于1%，比美国3天卖的都要少。在通用表现糟糕的时候，印度市场今年前四个月的总销量高达140万辆，比去年同期高了9%。
全球汽车大厂在印度的销量，通用今年同比下降42%
目前，印度市场的主导公司是日本的铃木汽车（Maruti Suzuki），占据了40%的市场。全球几个大公司销量都不佳，甚至落后于印度本土公司。
在撤离印度之后，通用在印度还剩马哈拉施特拉邦（Maharashtra）组装厂，去年生产了53000量汽车，另外，通用在印度班加罗尔（Bangalore）的设计中心也将持续运营。
被通用寄予厚望的中国市场，表现又如何呢？
据“网上车市”报道，通用汽车2016年全球经营业绩优秀，税前利润为125亿美元（约合860亿人民币），同比增长15.9%创历史新高。通用官方表示，业绩的增长重要原因之一是中国市场的持续增长。通用汽车2016年在华零售销量再创新高至387万辆，同比增长7.1%。凯迪拉克还首次在华突破了10万辆。
所以在中国市场表现优秀的情况下，销量不佳的印度的确有点像鸡肋了。
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GM TO CUT OPERATIONS IN SOUTH AFRICA, INDIA
GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its local factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd.
DETROIT - General Motors Co plans to quit selling vehicles in India by the end of this year and will sell operations in South Africa, the latest steps in a strategy of focusing cash and engineering effort on fewer, more profitable markets.
The Detroit automaker said on Thursday it will take a $500 million charge in the second quarter to restructure operations in India, Africa and Singapore. It will cancel most of a planned $1 billion investment to build a new line of low-cost vehicles in India.
About $200 million of the charge will be a cash expense, GM said. The moves are expected to save $100 million a year in a sector of GM’s global business that last year lost about $800 million, the company said.
GM President Dan Ammann told Reuters in an interview that the latest restructuring moves - and a series of earlier decisions to quit unprofitable markets - allow GM to focus more money, engineering effort and senior management time on expanding where the company is strong, including China and the North American pickup and SUV business, where GM has a “product onslaught coming.”
GM also has said it is investing about $600 million a year in efforts to develop autonomous vehicles and transportation services.
“What are we spending our time doing?” Ammann said. “Are we spending time pursuing opportunities … or all of our time fixing problems?”
GM, like its Detroit rival Ford Motor Co, has found it increasingly expensive to compete in emerging markets outside of China. GM sold just 49,000 vehicles in India and South Africa combined last year.
Chief Executive Mary Barra travelled to New Delhi in 2015 to announce a plan to invest $1 billion there to build a new line of Chevrolet models developed as part of a Global Emerging Market vehicle programme - GEM for short. Since then, auto sales overall in India have slumped, and GM has failed to gain traction against incumbents such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd.
Now, GM plans to stop selling Chevrolet brand vehicles by the end of the year and will produce vehicles only for export at its remaining factory in Talegaon. The company currently employs about 2,500 workers there.
GM said it would continue work at its design and engineering centre near Bangalore.
PULLING BACK IN SOUTH AFRICA
The $5 billion GEM programme, which GM is developing with its Chinese partner Shanghai Automotive Industries Corp, remains on track to account for about 2 million vehicles a year in global sales volume, mainly in Latin America, Mexico and China, Ammann said.
“The market opportunity for GEM has continued to grow,” he said.
In a separate move, GM plans to stop building Chevrolet vehicles in South Africa and sell its South African factory to Japan’s Isuzu Motors Ltd, along with the 30% stake the US automaker owns in a truck venture with Isuzu Motors. Isuzu agreed in February to buy out GM’s 57.7% stake in a joint venture in Kenya.
GM also will cut an undisclosed number of staff at its GM International Operations headquarters in Singapore. About 200 people work in that operation, the company said.
Since Barra took over GM in 2014, the one-time largest automaker in the world has taken aggressive steps to narrow its focus to China, the highly-profitable North American light truck and sport utility market, Latin America, vehicle financing and transportation services that ultimately could use autonomous vehicles.
Despite the restructuring moves, including Barra’s decision in March to sell loss-making European operations to French rival Peugeot SA, GM’s share price has been stuck in a range close around $33 where it went public in 2010 following a government-funded bankruptcy. GM shares closed on Wednesday at $32.42.
Barra and GM’s directors are under pressure from David Einhorn’s Greenlight Capital, which wants GM to split its common stock into two classes, one that pays dividends and a second that would be valued to reflect the company’s potential growth. Greenlight also has put forward a slate of three new directors. GM’s management and incumbent board have rejected Greenlight’s proposals. The hedge fund holds 54.8 million GM shares, or about 3.5% of the total.
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