奢侈中国: 中国市场豪车销量增长放缓

For the past few years, Europe’s luxury carmakers could count on one thing: however fast China’s car market was growing overall, luxury car sales would grow even faster, writes Patti Waldmeir.

过去几年里，在欧洲豪车生产商看来，有一件事几乎是板上钉钉的：无论中国汽车市场的整体增长有多快，豪车销量的增长都只会更快。

But in the first quarter of this year, that pattern was reversed, with premium car sales up only 4 per cent compared with 17 per cent growth in the light vehicle market as a whole.

但在今年第一季度，这个模式发生了逆转：中国市场的豪车销量仅增长了4%，而轻型车市场的整体增长却达17%。

If this slowdown persists, it could send a chill through the hearts of premium carmakers worldwide, since they depend heavily on the luxury-loving mainland market for profitability, say auto analysts in China.

驻华汽车分析师表示，如果这股增长放缓趋势持续下去，将令全球豪车厂商心生寒意，因为这些厂商的盈利水平严重依赖于喜欢奢华的中国市场。

Premium carmaker executives visiting the ongoing Shanghai Auto Show said it was unclear whether there would be a sustained sector-wide slowdown, let alone what were the reasons.

此刻正出席上海国际汽车工业展览会(Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition)的豪车生产企业高管表示，目前还不清楚整个豪车市场是否会持续放缓，个中原因就更难判断了。

Is the Beijing government’s austerity programme having a broader impact on China’s willingness to consume conspicuously? Or perhaps even worse, are Chinese entrepreneurs (the richest of whom often own 10 or 20 top-end luxury cars) losing faith in the strength of their own economy?

北京方面推行的厉行节约政策是否正对中国的炫富性消费意愿产生更广泛影响？抑或更严重的是，中国企业家（其中最富有的人士常拥有10辆至20辆顶级豪车）是否开始对自身的经济状况丧失信心？

Car market analysts point out that the slowdown has not affected all luxury car sales, only the most expensive ones.

汽车市场分析师指出，并非所有豪车的销量增长都在放缓，受到影响的只是那些最贵的豪车。

“After three years of incredible growth, things have definitely slowed down  . . . but the mainstream [luxury] cars are still doing fine – it’s the expensive imported cars that seem to be struggling,” says Max Warburton of Sanford Bernstein in Singapore.

伯恩斯坦研究公司(Bernstein Research)驻新加坡的马克斯•沃伯顿(Max Warburton)表示：“经过三年不可思议的增长之后，增速明显已经放慢下来……但主流（豪）车的销售形势仍然喜人，日子不好过的似乎是那些昂贵的进口（豪）车。

“Selling Ferrari, Lamborghini, Bentley, right now is getting pretty tricky – though whether that’s an anti-corruption thing or economics, that’s not quite clear.”

“法拉利(Ferrari)、兰博基尼(Lamborghini)和宾利(Bentley)，现在都非常难卖——但这到底是由反腐还是由经济状况所致，目前还不太清楚。”