Quick, name the five top markets for General Motors’ Chevrolet brand. The first four are easy, or at least obvious once they’re listed — the United States, Brazil, China and Canada. But the fifth? You won’t guess it in a million years.
That’s because it’s Uzbekistan. Yes, that Uzbekistan, that little peanut of a land-locked country that used to be a part of the Soviet Union and which butts up against such thriving nations as Afghanistan to the south and Kyrgyzstan to the east.
Its economy is rooted in the past, with cotton production its greatest export. Its gross domestic product (GDP) per capita is less than $1,000 per person and unemployment — or under-employment — is said to be more than 20%. It is, by any measure, a poor nation.
Yet, according to Johan Willems, vice-president of communications for GM International Operations (GMIO), Uzbekis will buy almost 80,000 Chevrolets this year, making it an even more important market to GM than rising industrial giant India. Casually ask a GM spokesperson the secret of the amazing success and, of course, he or she will talk about Chevrolet’s product revolution, new business practices and all the other rigidly mandated talking points that are so a part of American culture these days. (Take in any of the current GOP debates for proof — if you have the stomach.) Press a little farther and out comes the real reason. The General, thanks to a generous association with government- affiliated UzAvtoSanoat and with a reputed 93% of the passenger car market, is essentially the only game in town.
OK, so Uzbekistan is hardly a business model that can be transposed elsewhere (though, no doubt, GM would love to try).
What it does show, however, is that the new General Motors is very much a worldwide automobile manufacturer. Of the 4.26 million — yes, 4.26 million — Chevrolets sold last year, more than 60% were sold outside of the United States, and emerging markets are a huge part of Chevy’s success. (The company’s spokespeople claim it was the only Top Five global auto brand to grow its market share.)
Indeed, GM is becoming quite expert at exporting the American way of motoring. Susan Docherty, GMIO’s vice-president of sales and marketing, notes that the General’s relative lack of exposure in the Middle and Far East are actually a benefit. “There’s just so much potential for growth,” says GM Canada’s former marketing and advertising manager for Saturn/Saab/Isuzu, noting that while GMIO made up 28% of Chevrolet’s sales in 2011, it is up from a minuscule 1% in 2000. “And,” she says, “there’s lots of room for growth,” her region accounting for 49% of
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