Opel wants to grow in Russia and Turkey

The German brand has made it clear that its losses and the drop in sales in Western Europe will take a long time to recover. That is why its executives are looking for new regions where they can offset those figures. For General Motors CEO Dan Akerson, the most promising new targets for Opel would be the Russian and Turkish markets. The Chinese market, where other firms in the group have had better luck, is not one of them.

According to Akerson, speaking to the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag, Russia is of great importance to Opel. Moreover, “in a few years, the Russian market will surpass the German one in volume.” In 2012, Opel did not do badly there. The company’s CEO, Karl-Thomas Neumann, told the same interview that its sales reached 80,000 vehicles, a growth rate of almost double that of the Russian car market itself.

Neumann added that Russian customers see Opel as a “prototypical German brand,” even reaching the image of premium. That is precisely the difficult transformation it intends to achieve in Western Europe. Turkish consumers share that view of Opel. In that country its sales reached 50,000 units last year, Neumann said. Therefore, at GM they are determined that Opel commit more strongly to these two markets.

Last year it debuted in Australia, Chile and Singapore, and in 2013 it will enter the United Arab Emirates. However, as Akerson had already pointed out, they do not consider it advisable for Opel to enter China, since it would entail additional costs of “hundreds of millions of euros.” It should also be remembered that several of its models are already sold by Buick’s Chinese division Buick, so such a move would make no sense.

Via | Automotive News