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发帖数: 5425 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: tomnjerry (tom jerry), 信区: Military
标 题: 小留上媒体报道了：Chinese Students Major in Luxury Cars
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Mon Dec 23 01:36:13 2013, 美东)
Bloomburg Business Week报道，能办绿卡不？
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-12-19/chinese-student
Chinese students at the University of Iowa began coming into Carousel Motors
in Iowa City about three years ago to get their Mercedes (DAI:GR) and Audi
(NSU:GR) luxury cars serviced. Finally, general manager Pat Lind started
asking if they’d ever considered his dealership when they made their
original purchase. No, the students told him. Back in China, they’d been
told to buy their wheels in Chicago before heading to college.
So Lind began sponsoring the university’s Chinese student association,
which sends information to incoming students in China before they arrive in
the U.S. Sales to Chinese students doubled and now make up about 5 percent
of the vehicles sold at the dealership, located about two miles from campus.
“We became an advertiser,” Lind says, “and got our face in front of them
.”
The number of students from China enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities
reached 235,597 during the past academic year, more than triple the 64,757
enrolled in 2002-03, according to the Institute of International Education.
These students often come from families that are better off than the typical
American college student’s, says Sid Krommenhoek, a founder of Zinch, a
consulting firm owned by textbook rental company Chegg that works with
prospective Chinese students. Shelling out $50,000 for a high-end car is
viewed as an affordable status symbol compared with back home, where such
cars can cost two to three times as much because of hefty import duties.
Zinch surveyed 25,000 Chinese students last year and found that 62 percent
said they could afford to spend at least $40,000 each year on a college
education. “Most schools are recruiting [Chinese] students for whom the
difference between a $20,000 and a $40,000 education is a rounding error,”
Krommenhoek says. “This is a very attractive demographic for foreign brands
.”
Chinese students in the U.S. purchased about $15.5 billion in new and used
vehicles in 2012 and 2013 through October, according to Art Spinella,
president of CNW Marketing Research. His figures, based on car sales,
student and family visa data, and other factors, include Chinese students
attending high school, undergraduate, and graduate institutions in the U.S.
A comparable group of American students purchased $4.7 billion in vehicles,
CNW estimates.
The interest in autos among Chinese students in the U.S. shouldn’t be
surprising. Teeming demand on the mainland has boosted global automakers’
profits in recent years. While China’s austerity measures slowed luxury
sales somewhat in 2013, deliveries there of Volkswagen’s (VOW:GR) Audi—for
many years China’s No. 1 luxury nameplate—increased this year through
September by 23 percent, to 366,038. Only 114,411 Audis were sold in the U.S
. during the same period.
STORY: Chinese Back to Buying Japanese Cars as Territorial Tensions Ease
A little more than half the vehicles bought by Chinese students in the U.S.
during the 22-month period CNW studied were new, with an average purchase
price of $52,796; and 32 percent of buyers paid cash. Those buying used
vehicles paid about $36,500, and 58 percent used cash. About 40 percent of
their U.S. counterparts purchased new vehicles, with an average price of $19
,472, CNW says. And fewer than 5 percent of those buyers paid cash.
Lind’s Chinese student customers almost always pay with cash. “Many times
they’ll come in here,” he says. “They’ll pick out the car and say, ‘OK,
I’ve got to call my parents and tell them how much to wire over. I’ve
only got $20,000 in my account and I need $50,000, so they’ll wire the
difference.’ ”
Some dealerships, such as Mercedes-Benz of Eugene, in Oregon, have hired
Mandarin-speaking sales staff to deal with the rush of Chinese students
craving luxe rides. Steve Shaheen, general manager of Okemos Auto Collection
, a BMW (BMW:GR) and Mercedes dealer near Michigan State University in East
Lansing, says he’s seen his sales to Chinese students rise to as much as 15
percent of his total business, from zero five years ago. Chris Perantoni,
sales manager at Royal on the Eastside, an Audi and Volkswagen dealership
near Indiana University at Bloomington, trumpeted in his advertising that
the store had a salesman who spoke Mandarin and Cantonese—until the staffer
’s visa expired and he had to leave. “Him being bilingual definitely
helped,” says Perantoni, who estimates that as much as 10 percent of his
annual sales are now to Chinese students. “We’d love to have him back.” |
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