GM is aiming for big growth of Chevrolet sales in Europe according to Chevrolet’s global head.
Go deeper with GlobalData
Discover B2B Marketing That Performs
Combine business intelligence and editorial excellence to reach engaged professionals across 36 leading media platforms.
Brent Dewar told the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit that Chevrolet is planning to almost double its European sales to 1m units, up from just over half a million sales in 2008.
The Chevrolet growth numbers in Europe are part of GM’s latest business plan that was presented to GM’s board earlier this week.
Dewar highlighted new Chevrolet products such as the Cruze and Spark as a key part of the volume push over the next five years.
“We haven’t set a target when we’ll get to it, but in our planning horizon we look over the 2014 time frame,” he said.
Chevrolet now accounts for half of GM’s sales and that share is expected to grow to 70%, Dewar said.
Dewar also told delegates that about 60 percent of Chevrolet’s sales are outside the US, mainly because of the downturn in the US auto industry. The percentage of sales is likely to be roughly 50-50 in the future, he said.
GM is also planning a big increase in marketing spend for Chevrolet and recently said it was looking for a new advertising agency as part of a plan to revamp the marketing approach for Chevrolet.
Chevrolet sales in Eastern Europe, especially Russia, are a big component of its expansion plans. Under the Magna bid for Opel/Vauxhall, Magna’s Russian partners wanted access to Chevrolet vehicles to build and sell in Russia, and that emerged as an early sticking point in the negotiations with Magna.
