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Offensive of Chinese companies to the Russian car market – winning the wallets not souls of Russian customers
The period of about 30 years – from the early 90s of the 20th century and notably the time since
the outbreak and escalation of the Russia-Ukraine war has seen two waves of dramatic
restructuring of the Russian automobile market. First, it was conquered by Western automakers.
The second wave of changes has overturned the table. Western auto-giants have left Russia and
the third-largest car market in Europe has been taken over by the Chinese. This paper undertakes
the comparative analysis of the two waves of intrusion into the same market. Overall results of the
analysis show that Chinese automobile manufacturers follow general, nation-level coordinated
internationalization strategy, which is substantially different from that of the Western companies
in both engineering and business aspects of it. However, there are signs of misfit between the
strategic aspirations of the Chinese automakers and deep commitment in the Russian car market.