GWM’s sales progress and brand-building in Australia is gearing the manufacturer up to introduce higher-priced models, as the overall market acceptance of Chinese-made cars has never been as strong.
With 36,397 cars sold in 2023 (up 45.3 per cent on 2022), GWM has become a well-known and mainstream brand in Australia and has been part of a wider push from Chinese manufacturers to capture market share.
Rewind 10 years to 2014 and only 4154 Chinese-made cars were sold in Australia. Last year, 193,433 reached Australian buyers.
As part of that growth, the average sale price of a GWM vehicle has increased substantially as the brand continues to introduce new products to the market.
Tank 800 concept
GWM Australia’s head of marketing and communications Steve Maciver told CarExpert the brand has been pushing its quality and features with each iteration, as it seeks to take market share on a broader spectrum of the market.
“With every new generation of GWM products we’ve brought out in Australia, we have continually been pushing the quality of that product, the feature set available in that product and the powertrain technology to back it up,” Mr Maciver said.
“Now, we’ve gone from an average selling price of around about $25,000 four years ago to sitting around north of $40,000 today.”
This increase has been largely driven by cars such as the Tank 300 and higher-spec variants of its existing vehicles, which the Australian market has embraced. That trend upwards is only set to continue as even more expensive models (such as the Tank 500 and potentially the $150,000 Tank 700) head to our shores.
GWM Cannon Alpha
“Now, that’s been a fairly big turnaround and that’s been driven by the quality of the product,” said Mr Maciver.
“With the introduction of products like Cannon Alpha and Tank 500, that average selling price within the next 12 months is going to creep up there again and that’s an indication that Australian new car buyers are ready to buy more expensive GWMs as long as the quality and the value and the technology stacks up.”
As for whether the brand is ready to start selling a car north of a $100,000, such as the Tank 700 and potentially introduce its more upmarket Wey brand of luxury cars, Mr Maciver is optimistic about the prospect.
“Whether we’re ready to take that next step and go into a car which cost in excess of $100,000 remains to be seen,” he said.
GWM sold 3619 vehicles in March 2024, up 8.4 per cent on the previous year.
