When the smart electric drive accounts for one in four sales of the fortwo in the USA and China becomes smart’s second largest market, you may have the right to call yourself successful. Or you can work even harder.
Ask any Daimler official anything about the new smart fortwo and smart forfour and the answer will be filled enthusiasm. Just as Annette Winkler, smart boss, puts it: “smart is the brand that pushes urban mobility and thereby sets the benchmarks. With extremely compact and agile models, the electric drive, the car2go car-sharing programme and many valuable features to make daily life easier, especially to facilitate parking. Thus, smart is far more than just a car.”
In order to support such a statement, one must undoubtedly come up with figures and statistics. This is how we find out that in Germany alone, over 50,000 customers visited dealers on the launch weekend and over 6,000 test drives were carried out, according to Daimler.
Moreover, smart officials listened to customers’ complaints and decidede to implement an automatic dual clutch transmission in March, when smart fortwo and forfour will make their debut in the USA and China.
Speaking of China and other countries, markets and numbers, here are some facts related to the smart brand global development:
1. China is now the second-largest market for smart after Germany.
The first smart fortwos made their way to China in 2009. The smart brand now has 143 showrooms in 77 cities and more than 60,000 units have been sold to date. Not to mention that the smart fortwo has been voted Chinese “Car of the Year” in its segment every year since its market launch.
2. Car2go is the largest car-sharing enterprise in the world.
On 10 December 2014, smart’s affiliated company welcomed its one millionth user overall in Florence, Italy. This makes the mobility service the largest car-sharing service worldwide. Since the company’s launch, the white and blue fleet managed to total some 12,500 smart fortwos while securing over 32 million hire transactions and being on the road in eight countries and 30 cities.
3. Smart is now on the market in 46 countries all over the world.
Over 1.7 million fortwos have been delivered worldwide since 1998, and with the new generation up and running, these numbers are bound to increase.
4. The smart sales and distribution network underwent substantial expansion in the final months prior to the launch of the new generation.
The number of sales outlets has risen by 300 in the last four years, to a total of 1270, for example. China has witnessed particularly rapid growth: there are now more than 143 sales outlets in the Middle Kingdom, compared to just 16 in 2010.
