Chery Australia says it isn’t participating in the rolling discount cycle among other Chinese brands, arguing that constant sticker changes erode trust and harm resale values.
Lucas Harris, Chery Australia’s chief operating officer, told CarExpert the brand’s approach is “get it right at launch, then hold” rather than chasing frequent price moves from rivals.
“For us, there is not really, in our mind, a price war… we don’t feel like we’re participating in that,” Mr Harris said.
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He points to the brand’s entry SUV as an example.
“Look at Tiggo 4… It’s been the exact same price since we launched it 18 months ago, and frankly, we have no intention of changing it,” he said, adding the caveat that if a launch price is wrong, the company will need to adjust and that it has learnt from this in the past.
“We saw that in the early days of Tiggo 7. Frankly, I think we launched it at the wrong price point, so we moved it — Omoda 5 to a lesser extent, but we moved it,” he said.
The process, he says, relies on dealer consultation and consumer research, not reactive benchmarking.
“We’ve tried to put a lot of effort into making sure that when we launch the product, we get it right the first time… We can look at the market and who’s pricing where, but it might not mean much, because tomorrow could be totally different.”
The long‑term aim of holding the line is to stabilise residual values and, by extension, customer confidence.
“If we are chopping and changing pricing dramatically all of the time, that has a really bad impact on residual values for customers,” Mr Harris said. “It’s about consistency and earning the right to sell them another car.”
There’s an operational angle behind that stance, too. Mr Harris says pricing decisions are made in collaboration with retailers, rather than being handed to them, as part of a broader effort to establish durable dealer economics.
“Before we price a car, we actually have very in‑depth conversations with the network… We’re trying to be very sincere, and when we say partnership, try to act like it, not just say it,” he said.
The approach carries trade‑offs. In a market where some competitors adjust recommended retail prices or run frequent promotions, a launch‑and‑hold discipline can cost short‑term share if rivals suddenly blink on price.
Mr Harris’ counter is that predictability is worth more than a spiky sales chart, particularly for customers financing a car and for dealers planning margin and stock‑turn.
Ultimately, Chery’s pricing posture is a bet that trust and resale matter more than winning each week’s price headline. Whether that holds as competition intensifies will be measured not just in monthly car sales, but in how often Chery has to correct course and how consistently those corrections are explained to customers and dealers alike.