Cao Weida almost lost his voice in early May.

Cao, a sales assistant for Sunfonda Group Holdings, the second-largest dealer in luxury and ultra-luxury cars in northwestern China, says he was constantly talking to prospective car buyers and visitors at the seven-day auto show in Xi'an. He was manning the Mercedes-Benz stand.

"People have a growing enthusiasm for luxury brands such as Mercedes-Benz and BMW," he says.

The high level of purchasing power of some consumers in China's western provinces is giving hope to makers of luxury cars who have been experiencing low sales growth and obstacles to their "go-west" strategy.

Cao says many luxury brands have launched more models with lower prices, ranging from 250,000 to 350,000 yuan ($38,000 to $53,000; 34,000 to 48,000 euros). A growing number of young people are considering buying a Mercedes-Benz, a BMW or an Audi as their first car.

"Thanks to the special discounts during the auto show, you could have bought an Audi A1 for around 150,000 yuan, which is far from luxury as per our definition, but it is happening," Cao says.

According to the expo organizers, the seven-day Xi'an auto show attracted 418,000 visitors and helped sell 14,219 cars for more than 4 billion yuan, 1 billion yuan more than the sales revenue from a similar exhibition in July.

The location of Xi'an also helped attract visitors from neighboring provinces and autonomous regions such as Sichuan, Shanxi and the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Record sales at Xi'an came in spite of another auto show being held at the same time in the northwestern city of Yinchuan in the Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

According to the organizers of the four-day Yinchuan show, there were 220,000 visitors, and 2,309 vehicles were sold for 345 million yuan.

Liu Jiazhen, marketing director at Ningxia Jinrunbao Auto Sales Service Co, a major local BMW dealer, says the auto industry still sees good potential in western China. The company will likely invest in more sales centers in the region.

She says a new BMW sales store will open in Yinchuan this year.

In addition to popular Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi models, Lincoln Motor Co, a traditional luxury brand from the United States, is doing well. It re-entered China in 2014, seeing the country's booming demand for luxury cars.

After setting up stores in first-tier cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, Lincoln opened a new store in Xi'an, the first one in western China, in January.

Tian Jing, executive deputy general manager of Xi'an Haolin Lincoln Store, says the company has confidence that car buyers in the western region will bring in more revenue for Lincoln.

"In the past, people had an impression that luxury car owners in western China are rich but have no taste. It's not true. As long as we provide high-end services for them, they can be influenced," she says.

Cao, the sales assistant, says he thinks only brands such as Aston Martin can be called luxury brands now. Stated differently, he does not regard BMW and Audi as luxury car brands anymore.

For some, many luxury car brands are less and less of a luxury because they are launching models targeted at young and middle-class consumers. The ultra-luxury car segment in western China has gone cold, savaged by the commodities' price drop, which has severely affected incomes of the rich in the region.

Prospective buyers of luxury cars in the region are those who have built their fortunes on soaring demand for mining resources like coal, oil and natural gas. But their wealth has shrunk in recent years because of coal mine bankruptcies due to falling prices and weak demand.

Guo Shaoyu in Yinchuan contributed to this story.

dujuan@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily European Weekly 05/27/2016 page27)