SHANGHAI—Some of BMW AG ’s dealers in China are pushing back against the auto maker’s sales goals and asking for better terms, in the latest sign of stress for the world’s No. 1 auto market as growth slows.
Dealers have complained to the German luxury car maker in recent weeks that its sales targets are too high given China’s slowing economic growth and an anticorruption crackdown on government officials, said executives at two BMW dealer operators. They are also seeking greater cash rebates.
A spokeswoman for BMW said the company is “paying high attention” to the dealers’ concerns.
Tension between dealers and auto makers, in China or elsewhere, isn’t new. But China’s passenger-car sales rose only 9.8% in the first 10 months of the year compared with a 15% increase in the year-earlier period, for reasons ranging from China’s slowing growth to local efforts to stem traffic to a crackdown on official corruption. Dealers say the sales environment may be even softer because the figure represents auto makers’ shipments to dealers, not dealer sales to consumers.
“Many dealers are buying many more cars than consumers want,” said Li Jinyong, president of Pangda Automobile Trade Group Co., China’s third-largest auto dealer by revenue, which sells more than 80 brands. Its gross profit margin from sales of new cars fell to 4.9% in the first half of this year from 6.8% for all of 2013.
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