China’s appetite for luxury cars is still going strong, and it has boosted Porsche into posting record sales for the first half of the year.
The German luxury sports car maker reported that its deliveries to China from January to June rose 18 percent compared to the year before. About 28 percent of the cars they’ve sold this year have been marked for Chinese consumers, making China Porsche’s largest market. Deliveries worldwide rose 7 percent, reaching a total of 126,497 vehicles.
Casting a shadow on the announcement is the ongoing investigation of Porsche’s parent company Volkswagen over suspected fraud and false advertising related to emissions testing. Reuters announced on Monday that German prosecutors were probing into Porsche employees, just weeks after authorities arrested an Audi manager. This is the first arrest in the nearly in the ongoing Volkswagen scandal since it began nearly two years ago.
Aside from Audi’s tie-up in the emissions investigations, the brand has seen its China sales dip 12 percent in the first half of the year, following a tough period of disputes between Audi and its China dealerships.
Porsche seems to have had better luck. Behind its China strategy is an effort to pivot marketing efforts to target millennial consumers as many of the buyers tend to be younger than their U.S. or European counterparts. For their Panamera model, the average Chinese owner tends to be about 15 years younger than owners in the United States and the U.K., according to Shanghai Daily. The carmaker offers 13 different models to cater to Chinese millennials' varied demands.
This year, Porsche’s Macan model continued to be the main driver of its global performance. In China, the Macan has made headlines in the past year for being the target of a copycat carmaker, the Zoyte SR8, but it would appear that the clone didn't dampen demand for the Macan or Porsche's China performance.