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For many domestic luxury brands, such as Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Lexus and so on, we are all familiar with this brand, while Acura may be a relative stranger.

In North America, Acura is known as "Japanese BMW". It has a good reputation and is favored by young people. In China, Acura brand recognition is general, sales are even more bleak!

Acura was founded in 1986 as a luxury brand launched by Honda for the North American market. After successful promotion in the North American market, Acura then introduced the brand to the global market, including the Chinese market.

In 2006, Acura officially entered the Chinese market as an imported car, while Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi and other brands have been in China for many years. In January 2016, Guangzhou Auto Honda was officially established, and the localization of Acura also officially began.

Data show that domestic Acura has brought a certain increase in sales in 2016, with sales of 9062 vehicles in China in 2016 and 16348 in 2017, an increase of 100.8 per cent over the same period last year. By 2018, however, Acura's sales were just 7337, down 55 per cent from a year earlier. By February 2019, Acura's sales were only 749, down 62% from the previous month.

Judging from the sales volume in the past three months, Acura's sales in China generally did not fluctuate much, with sales from March to May being 1140, 1006 and 1024 respectively, while June sales were 2221, up 61% from the previous month. However, July will enter the implementation stage of the sixth national standard, so it will stimulate sales in June to a certain extent.

Acura, on the other hand, has a very different performance in the US market, with sales of 159000 vehicles in 2018, second only to Mercedes-Benz, Audi, BMW and Lexus, and far higher than in China.

As for the diametrically opposite performance of Acura's sales in the domestic market and the US market, industry insiders said that Acura's short time of formal domestic production, few sales channels and uneven regional distribution have always been the problems of Acura. It is also one of the main factors affecting its sales.

Learned from the official website, Beijing currently has three Acura stores, other provinces have only 1-3 GAC Acura stores, sales channels and regional distribution problems are obvious.

It was also exposed a few days ago that Acura's self-declining value was put into GAC-Toyota grid-connected sales. Guangzhou Auto Honda's 4S store displays Acura RDX and CDX models. The sales staff of the 4S store said that the GAC Honda 4S store is also Acura's authorized 4S store. This means that Acura and Guangzhou Auto Honda have also opened the road of online sales.

Ren Wanfu said that at present, BMW and Mercedes-Benz are sold online, Acura and Honda are not the same brand, but from the same, coupled with the disadvantage of Acura sales in China, online sales may be a good choice. Although sales are not optimistic, it is also a luxury brand, self-lowering value to ordinary brand sales is bound to reduce the recognition of Acura.

In addition, although Acura originated from the same company as Honda, Acura as a luxury brand has many similarities with Honda. For example, Acura TLX-L, which has the same chassis suspension and powertrain as Toyota Spiegel, even tends to have a driving style, which means changing its shell, but the price is much more expensive than that. What is even more unacceptable is that some of the Acura models are powered by Honda's previous generation engines.

Acura has entered the Chinese market for more than a decade, but it has not found an accurate market positioning and a suitable customer base for more than a decade. If it is not changed, it is very difficult for Acura to have room for development in the market.

On the other hand, as the main competitors, Infiniti and Lexus, the products laid out in China generally give people the flavor of a luxury brand, and the price and products are in good agreement with the brand.

In addition, Acura has been repeatedly complained about high fuel consumption, exhaust failure, transmission damage, insufficient engine power and other problems, which greatly affected the user's sense of driving experience.

Acura has been unable to find accurate market positioning in China, and it is still difficult to form a reputation for luxury brands in promoting localization for many years. For Acura, it is urgent to determine its own market positioning and promote more intelligent and high-end technology. Improve product competitiveness, has maintained and enhanced the status of luxury brands.

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