Fast-Growing Pickup Segment Bolsters Off-Road Scene in China

SEMA News—September 2012

INTERNATIONAL
By Linda Spencer

Pickups Are the Latest Craze on the Chinese Off-Road Scene

	“Pickups have been becoming popular over the past two years, mainly because they are inexpensive,” Yunliang said. “The import tax on trucks is a lot cheaper than on passenger vehicles. For example, a Raptor is about half a million yuan. If it was imported as a passenger vehicle, the market price would be about 1 million yuan. This low import tax policy greatly boosted the sales of big and powerful pickups, such as the Raptor and the Tundra.” Courtesy of Yunliang
	“In our experience, the growth rate of pickups is a lot faster than that of Wranglers in 2011 and 2012,” said Zhu Yunliang, president of Yunliang.” Courtesy of Yunliang

SEMA News recently traveled to Beijing, China, the center of the Chinese off-road market, to talk to some key players about evolving trends. All of the sources we consulted widely credited the Jeep Wrangler as one of the most exciting and important developments in recent years in growing the off-road market, but they said that pickups are the fastest-growing segment.

Expecting a continued bright future for the Wrangler, the wholesalers and retailers we talked to cited, in particular, the heavy-duty Ford Raptor, Toyota Tundra and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Ram 1500 as examples of increasingly popular pickups. They said that the pickup is the latest status symbol of the wealthy. A representative from a Shenzhen-based business named Power Controller pointed out that wealthy people buy big pickups, such as the Tundra or Raptor, to impress others, and that notion was supported by Wang Bin, the deputy general manager of Tuner Tribe.

“We noticed a fast growth of pickups in the Chinese market since last year,” Bin said. “American auto culture is becoming more and more appealing to rich Chinese. Over the past 20 years, it’s been the Chinese people’s dream to own cars. For most of the car owners, their first cars are either Japanese or German cars. So at the very beginning, when Chinese upgraded their first cars, they also used Japanese or German upgrading accessories. After many years of owning cars, we are not satisfied with what we have. All those who grow up watching Hollywood movies fall in love with the American lifestyle—especially the off-road lifestyle. I believe that is why pickups are becoming popular among some rich Chinese.”

High-line pickups don’t come cheap. When duties and taxes are added into the price, the Raptor in China starts at about 670,000 yuan ($106,350 USD) compared to $42,975 in the United States. And the vehicle is available only through gray exports, with Ford so far not choosing to export directly to China.

The Chinese sources honed in on the average age of Raptor owners in addition to their wealth. High-end pickup owners, they said, are generally 40 years old and over, and they have both the money and the time for enjoying pickups.

Many cities, including Beijing, have limits on the times when, and the roads where, pickups can be driven, but most specialty-equipment distributors we talked with didn’t believe that this was a big issue for their customers.

“Those who buy a Toyota Tundra or the Raptor buy it as an alternative vehicle, which means that it is their second or even third vehicle,” said Liang Zhilong of Off-roader Accessories Beijing. “They do not drive it to work; they only take it out on weekends for fun.”

Read the complete story in the September issue of SEMA News.