Nissan Motor plans to quadruple it’s Infiniti brand’s market share of the Chinese luxury auto market to eight percent by 2016 in order to try to make gains on leading brands Audi and Lexus, who currently control 34 percent and eight percent of the market, respectively.
Plans to boost sales include doubling the number of Infiniti dealerships by the end of 2011, adding five new product lines over the next five years and airing the company’s first TV commercials in the country. In addition, Nissan is considering setting up Infiniti plants in mainland China to overcome the national tariffs on car imports, which currently stand at the rate of 25 percent.
“We entered the China market even later than Taiwan and South Korea, and that’s very ridiculous to anybody who has a bit of knowledge about the industry,” said Allen Lu, managing director of Infiniti China.
The company hopes to increase annual sales of it’s Infiniti line to 500,000 a year by 2017, in order to seize 10 percent of the global luxury car market.
