Offensive of Chinese companies on the Russian car market – winning the wallets not souls of Russian customers

The period of about the last 30 years – from the early 1990s 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 turned the tables – 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, the results of the analysis show that Chinese automobile manufacturers follow a general, nation-level coordinated internationalisation strategy, which is substantially different from that of the Western companies in both engineering and business aspects. For now, Chinese automakers enjoy dominant positions in the Russian car market, although they are facing two issues which still require a wise strategic approach:they need to win the hearts of Russian customers, who are still demonstrating considerable mistrust towards Chinese cars, and they need to reconcile the general orientation ofthe automobile industry towards NEVs with the very special conditions of car usage in an extremely cold climate and a sparse network of recharging and gas stations.