Holden undeterred by sales fall

General Motors and its Holden subsidiary insist the Lion brand is on track with its transition to a full-line importer model in Australia, despite falling away in the sales race recently.

Holden dipped out of the top three selling marques in Australia in 2016 for the first time in its history. Sales were down 8.4 per cent during the calendar year, the car-maker commanding a relatively meagre eight per cent market share overall, with 94,308 vehicles sold.

More than that, Holden is undergoing seismic cultural change as it winds down manufacturing in Australia.

With the locally-built Commodore still comprising one in every four Holden sales at present, the termination of local manufacturing by year’s end spells more short-term pain.

However, Holden says it can see a light at the end of the tunnel.

Speaking with Australian media at the Detroit motor show this week, a senior executive for General Motors said that Holden’s transformation was on track.

“We’re in the middle of a transition,” General Motors International president Stefan Jacoby said.

“We used 2016 to really set the fundamentals.

“We’re working on the brand. The brand needs to be refreshed, it needs to be actualised. We understand Holden was and is an iconic Australian, but it has over the years lost relevance to the Australian customers.

“The biggest evidence of being back on the shopping list of Australian and New Zealand customers are products which are truly competitive, and we have shown with the new Colorado that we are very competitive in this segment.”

Holden has promised 24 new models between 2015 and 2020. The car-maker is also actively ramping up its after-sales care in a bid to improve customer perception and retention.

In the context of this, Jacoby stressed that market share wasn’t overtly important.

“The strategy of Holden is based on the customer experience. This is very important and we are going to do more in respect of that kind of experience which is growing beyond products,” Jacoby said.

“We want to be back on the shopping list of customers … and we have to move and shift the brand in the right direction.”

Holden managing director Mark Bernhard is the man assigned with the turnaround in Holden’s fortunes. He is adamant that the systems are in place for Holden to once again thrive in its new full import capacity.

Bernhard has already made clear that he isn’t afraid to make the hard decisions – the car-maker this week cut Astra hatch pricing barely one month after going on sale – in order to find positive results.

“We’re really well-placed from a product perspective,” he said.

“Commodore is a big part of our market share today and we know that. If you go back historically, we were known as the Commodore car company and that’s not what we’re going to be known as in the future. That’s part of the 24 new products that we’ve got coming out.

“We end up with this fantastic, diversified portfolio that’s coming out.”

Chief among Holden’s new post-manufacturing arsenal is the fully-imported Commodore, updated Colorado, Equinox SUV and Acadia SUV, and Astra small car.

SUVs, in particular, are set to play a significant part in filling the void of the locally-built Commodore.

Would you buy a Holden? Let us know in the comments section below.