A study of Chinese consumers’ attitudes toward Volvo cars

Abstract: Zhejiang Geely holding Co. succeeded in purchasing Ford Motor Co’s Volvo unit, which was the hottest news in the world in 2010. Volvo needs the Chinese potential car market; Geely needs Volvo cars’ advanced technology. Such purchase arouses our interesting to conduct a research study on Chinese consumers’ attitude and intentions toward Volvo cars.   Our aim with this study was to identify the most important attributes of Volvo for Chinese consumers; to analyse how Chinese consumers were influenced by other people’s opinions and to explore how Chinese culture factors such as face concern and group conformity influence consumers’ attitudes  towards Volvo.   In order to find the result, we used online self-completion questionnaires and choose customers from a life insurance company in Shanghai as our sample group. From the survey result we found that Volvo is the second most favourable brand that Chinese consumers want to own in the near future. The top three car attributes for the Chinese consumers when they were going to choose a car were quality, safety and fuel economy. But they had less knowledge or beliefs that Volvo car has an advantage with those attributes. Besides that, we find that Chinese consumers’ behavioural intention of buying Volvo is influenced by family, friends, perceived behaviour control and group conformity, but there is no relationship between face concern and buying behaviour.