BEIJING -- General Motors’ sales in China have dropped as demand for its flagship Buick, Cadillac and Chevrolet brands has slumped by a third over the past five years to 1.3 million cars a year as consumers snap up smart EVs made by domestic companies such as Xpeng, Nio and BYD.
To generate some buzz around its American brands, GM is planning to target well-heeled consumers in China's megacities with niche, luxury imports, executives at the U.S. automaker told Reuters.
Using a new direct sales platform called Durant Guild, the company will host invitation-only events to showcase possible products, open "experience centers" in urban hubs and potentially stage pop-ups at selected sites, they said.
"Durant Guild is not a volume play, but if we do a good job and the products sell well, it will create a lot of buzz around Cadillac and Chevy and will help how people perceive our products and technology," the head of GM in China, Julian Blissett, told Reuters.
While he declined to name which cars would be sold through Durant Guild, he said think of U.S. premium models currently unavailable in China such as the all-electric GMC Hummer, the gasoline-fueled Chevrolet Tahoe SUV or the sleek Chevrolet Corvette sports car.
Blissett, a 16-year veteran of the Chinese market, said such "halo cars" would fit nicely into communities of consumers in cities who have started to harbor an interest in performance cars for racing, or SUVs to venture off the beaten track.
"There is a lot more appetite to take more off-road types of vehicles to explore nature, and that was not a trend five, 10 years ago," Blissett said in an interview.
Durant Guild, which is named after GM's founder William Durant, will be wholly owned and operated by GM and will launch officially as soon as this month.
To mark the launch, GM is hosting a series of invitation-only events, with the first expected in Shanghai on Friday.