Monday, April 30, 2012

Go figure: Uber Rich Chinese Rev Up Demand for Used Cars




According to The Financial Times, the Chinese rich change cars the way some people change handbags. Beijing’s biggest used car dealership displays more than 500 of the world’s most expensive cars — and staff say some of them have only been driven for days.


Three 2011 Porsche Panameras — a model so new that many people have never heard of it — are lined up side by side, just down from a near-new Bentley, among a sea of previously owned Ferraris, Mercedes, Audis, BMWs and Lamborghinis, all of them priced at more than $100,000 each.  Why did their owners trade them in while still so new? “They just got tired of them,” says one salesperson. “Chinese people are very rich”, says another, adding “if business goes well, they want to upgrade, and if it goes badly, they sell.” That makes for an increasingly active mainland used car market.

Last year second-hand vehicle sales grew faster than new car sales in China, the world’s largest car market. China Automobile Dealers Association figures show that used vehicle sales rose 12.5 percent in volume terms last year, much faster than the 2.5 percent growth in new vehicle sales....


Read all about it at http://www.cnbc.com/id/47226262

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