Back in July 2009, Daihatsu ceased its automotive marketing activities in China, due to very poor sales. It handed over all automotive marketing and retail responsibilities to its local partner Tianjin FAW, which also has a separate joint venture with Daihatsu's parent company Toyota. Since the withdrawal of the Daihatsu brand in China, FAW has proceeded to rebadged the Daihatsu Xenia (aka Toyota Avanza) as the FAW M80.
Even after the withdrawal of Daihatsu brand in China, Daihatsu's JV with FAW in a body parts manufacturing plant, FAW Daihatsu (Jilin) Body Parts Co continued to remain active, until now that is. Today DMC announced that it will dissolve the JV by selling the company's 50% share in FAW Daihatsu (Jilin) Body Parts Co. back to FAW Jilin Auto. This effectively meant that Daihatsu have completely ceased any involvement in the China car market.
Actually Daihatsu weren't always performing this bad. Daihatsu was one of the early pioneers in China, even earlier than parent company Toyota. In the 80s, a rebadged version of the Daihatsu Charade sedan and hatchback, known locally as the Tianjin Xiali was a very popular model in the fleet taxi market. But oddly for a Japanese car company, Daihatsu couldn't keep up with the competition. Newer more sophisticated models like VW's Santana (early generation Passat), Jetta and Hyundai Elantra (previous generation Avante model) models now dominate the fleet taxi market and by 2007, the Xiali was pushed out of the fleet taxi market, losing a very large chunk of sales volume.
A Tianjin Xiali taxi, a rebadged version of the Daihatsu Charade
The fact that Daihatsu continued to offer outdated models in China did not help matters. The Chinese customers were certainly more sophisticated than Daihatsu expected and the Chinese certainly did not react well to Daihatsu selling cheap third world country models to them. Did you know the first generation Terios (known to us as the Perodua Kembara) was until very recently still sold in China as the Daihatsu Dario Terios?
But to be fair, the entry level MPV segment in China is not an easy nut to crack. A large bulk of the top selling MPVs in China are of the larger more expensive variant, lead by Buick's GL8, Jianghui Refine and Honda Odyssey. For the price of a Xenia in China, most would not bother with a cheap MPV and go for a far more sophisticated VW Jetta instead. Those that need a cheap people mover will simply go for one of those offerings from Changan, which if you ignore the brand, the interior is really not that much more spartan compared to the Xenia.
Chang'an MPV
Between January to November 2009, only 2198 units of the Xenia were registered in China, a 40% reduction from the same corresponding period last year.
In 2007, Daihatsu also had to withdraw from Vietnam, again due to very poor sales. Which odd considering that both Hyundai and Toyota are raking in huge sales volume from Vietnam. While everyone from Ford to Hyundai-Kia and VW is trying to get into developing markets, Daihatsu's history suggest that the minicar specialist doesn't really have much luck outside Japan, let alone in developing markets. Daihatsu's current largest overseas market is in Indonesia, where it has a local JV with P.T. Astra International, supported largely by the Xenia which is still very popular there.
Related link :
Top selling cars in China
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