Foreign Carmakers Challenged By Local Brand Loyalty

Regional pockets of resistance in Germany are battling successfully against the influx of foreign car manufacturers, according to a study by researchers RL Polk Marketing Systems released on Monday. The study showed that many German consumers not only prefer to buy German, they prefer to buy from just round the corner in a patriotic stand against imported vehicles. Germany is Europe's biggest car market and the report shows that while foreign companies continue to make an impression in it, they are unlikely to conquer it. Europe's biggest car maker, Volkswagen, enjoys a 93 percent market share in its home town of Wolfsburg, compared with 18 percent in Germany as a whole, while the market share of BMW in its southern home state of Bavaria is twice as high as across the rest of the country. Audi accounts for 80 percent of car sales in its home town of Ingolstadt, the report added.