Title: Defining mega-platform strategies: the potential impacts of dynamic competition in China

Authors: Zejian Li

Addresses: Faculty of Economics, Osaka Sangyo University, Nakagaito 3-1-1, Daito-shi, Osaka 574-8530, Japan

Abstract: At the beginning of the 21st century, automotive markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) continued to expand. Compared with declines in the Indian, Russian and Brazilian markets, the Chinese market's steady expansion showed the impact of the country's internal growth and rapid structural market changes. By focusing on the strategic changes of local Chinese automakers, we analyse the potential impacts of mega-platform strategies by shedding light on the challenges faced by local Chinese automakers. We find that ongoing competition for growing diversity of new models is the real reason many Chinese local automakers have strategically shifted to a mega-platform strategy, particularly after Volkswagen launched Modularer Querbaukasten (MQB) production in China. Furthermore, such strategic motives of local Chinese automakers might impact incipient product architecture-defining competition taking place among global leading automakers, such as Nissan's Common Module Family (CMF), Mazda's common architecture (CA) and Toyota's Toyota New Global Architecture (TNGA), which globally expands Volkswagen's MQB.

Keywords: product design; product architecture defining; mega-platform strategies; emerging markets; Chinese automakers; Chery; Geely; Chang'an; Modularer Querbaukasten; MQB; Toyota New Global Architecture; TNGA; China.

DOI: 10.1504/IJATM.2018.092192

International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 2018 Vol.18 No.2, pp.142 - 159

Received: 26 Sep 2017
Accepted: 09 Jan 2018
Published online: 08 Jun 2018 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article