French auto industry analysts believe that Volkswagens plan to open a VW Group store on the world-famous Champs-Elysees in France would send a strong signal to local French car makers who are facing heavy losses. Carlos Da Silva, an analyst at IHS Automotive, said that having a showroom on Champs-Elysees “will symbolically show VW’s intentions in the French market. The analyst added that VW is becoming a bit more aggressive and gaining market share, at the expense of local car makers like PSA/Peugeot-Citroen who are quickly losing market share and taking heavy daily losses.
VW will open its Champs-Elysees showroom, as early as 2013. It will be located across the street from Renault’s store and not far from the PSA dealership. For VW, meanwhile, the Champs-Elysees is part of its largest plans in France, which entailed nearly doubling its annual sales in the country to 400,000 vehicles by 2018, Maire-Christine Caubet, head of VW Group in France, told IHS Automotive.
VW Group which includes the VW brand, Skoda, Seat, Audi, Bentley and Porsche managed to increase its market share in France the first nine months of 2012 to 12.11 percent from 11.05 percent during the same period in 2011, according to French auto group CCFA.
