Ford Mustang sales skyrocketed in China last year. The U.S. car maker has reported that the Mustang is now the best-selling sports coupe in the country for the second straight year.
The key demographic behind Mustang’s popularity is China’s millennials.
Worldwide, Mustang remains the top-selling sports car for the third year in a row. In China, sales jumped 35% last year. Ford confirmed that the generation that loves the Mustang the most is the Millennial generation, or people born after 1990 but before 2000.
Ford’s regional VP for marketing Dean Stoneley noted that the sports model is especially popular among “young first-time buyers” in China. These people do a lot of research before buying the legendary pony car.
Stoneley unveiled that, under a recent pilot program in the province Guangzhou, all Mustang cars were rented in just two days. The program was a “huge hit,” according to Ford.
In 2017, the U.S. company sold around 126,000 convertibles and coupes in more than 140 countries. Of those Mustangs, 81,866 were sold in the U.S.
Ford Plans to Further Expand in China
Last spring, Ford improved Mustang’s language skills as it added support for Chinese Handwriting in the car’s navigation and media systems. The company’s engineers improved the technology to help Chinese drivers reach their destination quicker.
Before the update, Chinese drivers could only communicate with their cars’ media and navigation systems through phonetic spellings of the Chinese alphabet. Other models that now support the Chinese handwriting are the Kuga, Taurus, Focus, Edge, and Explorer.
Ford is currently more and more popular with Chinese buyers. Early last year, the Dearborn, Michigan-based company brought the F-150 Raptor truck to China for the first time. The ST and Focus models along with the Fiesta ST are also very popular in China.
Ford plans to further expand its presence in the country with its SUV and electric vehicle lines.
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