Chinese new-vehicle shoppers have long shown a strong interest in luxury vehicles, and yet, Lincoln sales in that country have always lagged a bit behind the luxury brand’s results in the U.S. However, that changed in a big way in 2021, as Lincoln sales in China managed to outpace the brand’s U.S. sales for the very first time.
Lincoln’s sales in China increased 13.1 percent to 25,000 units during the fourth quarter of 2021, compared to a decrease of 32.4 percent to 20,967 units in the U.S. That success in China is driven by the fact that the Lincoln Corsair is among the top five selling vehicles in its segment, while the crossover has also been the best-selling Lincoln model in China for 21 consecutive months. Additionally, the brand new Lincoln Zephyr has also had already received more than 2,300 pre-orders as of the end of December. Meanwhile, in the U.S., sales of every Lincoln model were down, capping off a disappointing month and year.
As Ford Authority recently reported, Lincoln ranked above the segment average in J.D. Power’s 2021 China Vehicle Dependability Study (VDS), tying with its chief cross-town rival – Cadillac – for fifth place. Additionally, the 2023 Lincoln Zephyr was just revealed in November to much fanfare and is also the very first Lincoln model built in China for the Chinese market.
Meanwhile, the Lincoln Nautilus has been discontinued in North America following the 2023 model year, as Ford Authority reported earlier this month. However, as Ford Authority reported back in June of 2020, production of that crossover will reportedly shift to China at the Ford Changan Hangzhou Assembly Plant in 2023, perhaps living on in that country in spite of its departure from the Ford Oakville Assembly Plant.
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Comments
Should these results be surprising? Sedans offered by competition at least one. Lincoln none. Lincoln abandoned the sedan market completely. The Zephyr as a replacement for the MKZ would sell as would an upgraded Continental and a modernized version of the Town Car based on a stretched Mustang platform. It is very dangerous when companies, in this case Ford, underestimate their customer base. As stated many times before, not all customers want to drive an SUV. Lincoln may never recover and in the future could be known as a car brand that was once sold in the United States that is now a full line luxury brand only sold in China. Or Lincoln a luxury brand once built in the United States now designed, engineered and built in China for the Chinese market and exported to the United States in limited numbers for select markets.
Lincoln following in the footsteps of Buick. Bow to chairman Xi.
Keep over investing in China and under investing in the rest of the world, and when China nationalizes everything ( which they are already starting to do, starting with the real estate industry by artificially decimating it by starving it of loans, causing them to default, especially on foreign bonds, screwing those international investors for their own profit ) and we will all end up being sorry and feeling the affect of it.