- We know that in China U.S. European, Japanese and Korean carmakers produce locally and sell all their production through partnerships with Chinese carmakers (such as SAIC, FAW, Dongfeng, Changan, Guangzhou and Beijing). It is therefore interesting to calculate the portion that China represents in the global sales of the world's leading carmakers such as Volkswagen, GM or Toyota.

- In the graph below, we can see that the Volkswagen Group and GM sell in the first automobile market in the world more than 25% of their total worldwide sales (respectively 29% and 28%). Both groups largely benefit from the dynamics and volume of the Chinese market. This is one of the reasons why they are now among the world's leading carmakers.

- On the other hand, It is noted that the Toyota group is far behind. This position is explained by the late arrival of the group in the Chinese market (in 2003) compared to VW arrival (1990) and GM's (1999) and the recent diplomatic conflict between China and Japan that affected the Japanese group.

- For Hyundai-Kia, China accounts for nearly 20% of its global sales. For Honda, PSA and Mazda Groups, China accounts for nearly 15% of global sales. Finally, the Renault-Nissan, Suzuki, BMW, Daimler, Toyota and Ford groups only make 10% of their global sales in China.

- In 1989, the Toyota group launched in the U.S. the Lexus brand to compete with the premium brands already on the U.S. market, such as Cadillac, Lincoln, BMW and Mercedes.

- Since the early 2000s, the sales level of the Lexus  in the USA is quite similar to BMW’s or Mercedes’s, two leaders of premium cars from Europe.

- Lexus has replaced  in the US the two American leaders of premium cars, Cadillac and Lincoln from the  beginning of 2000s onwards. In 2012, Lexus sold three times more vehicles than Lincoln and 1.7 times more vehicles than Cadillac.

- Into the four premium brands mentioned above, Lexus is the only brand  which does not produce vehicles on the U.S. soil. But this situation will end at the end of 2014. The Toyota management decided to produce Lexus vehicles on U.S. soil to support the high sales level of  the luxury brand in the U.S. (around 250 000 vehicles per year) .

- The first Lexus  model  produced in a US plant will be the ES, upscale and rebadged version of  the Toyota Camry. 50,000 Lexus ES should thus be produced annually from 2015 in the Toyota plant of Georgetown (Kentucky). Other models will be added to the production in the coming years.

- It is to be noted that in 2012, 70% of Lexus produced in Japan by Toyota are destined tor the USA market.