While GM is struggling in many parts of the world, in Colombia it is having its very best year ever even though its sales actually slid in May.
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Here, the Chevrolet brand has a market share close to 40%, (that means two of every five cars sold is a Chevrolet), its sales have grown 27.5% in 2005, and market share has increased 26.1%.
GM also leads the passenger car, bus and truck segments, its Opel-designed Corsa model leads the sales charts and the GM-Daewoo-designed Optra has overtaken the Renault Mégane, long the traditional leader in its segment.
Jaime Ardila, GM’s vice-president for Latin America, said in a recent interview that “the corporation is going to invest $20 million in the Colombians plant [in order to] grow our sales via plant specialisation”. This decision will be finalised in 2008 when a free trade agreement between México and Colombia ends import tariffs.
Despite all this, GM’s May sales fell 7.1% in a market down 4%. Renault was second and is hoping its new Logan will recover some of the market recently taken by Chevrolet. Third was Hyundai, with 12.0%, and Mazda is fourth (6.7%) with Toyota (5.7%) close behind.
The May new model launch was quieter than of late – Hyundai’s Tucson and Porsche’s Boxster.
On the other hand, the importer of Indian Tata cars shut down due to low sales due to poor product quality.
Clouds may be on the horizon, too. Two weeks ago, the central bank said growth in the economy had stopped. This is reminiscent of May 1998, when the then government said roughly the same thing – and Colombia went into a five year recession.
Juan Vargas
