Why do French car makers struggle so badly in South East Asia?

French car makers like Peugeot, Citroen and Renault have been around for more than 60 years and collective have decent market share in European countries and South America but they struggle badly in South East Asia. Peugeot is the only car maker that performs better than the other 2 brands in Malaysia but is practically non-existent in Indonesia, Philippines and thailand. Renault struggles badly in Malaysia despite heavily promoting the Captur and Koleos models. The cars are priced competitively against German rivals VW and Japanese rivals Honda and Toyota. Combined the monthly sales volume seldom exceeds 100 cars which is not enough for a mass market brand to survive.

The struggle of the these French brands are mainly due to the lack of after sales support and poor reliability in the past. The earlier distributors did not offer good after sales service and parts support leaving many owners in a lurch when the cars had problem. It also compounded the problem when the cars were not reliable and was not topicalised to suit the humid climate. Having a bad reputation for poor reliability and bad after sales service the brand image took a big punishment making it very difficult to sell present models.

Used car dealers are reluctant to accept cars from these brands as it is slow to sell and very few customers would look to buy a French car.  All these factors make it an uphill battle to promote the brand. Renault may be actively in F1 but it does nothing for the brand in Asia. Renault tried to promote the sporty models like the Megane R.S. hot hatch but it was too niche and only enthusiasts would buy it. For the average buyer who had such a budget for a hot hatch they would either buy a VW Golf GTI or a used Mercedes A45 AMG. These two cars had much better residual values and could easily be sold in the second hand market.

Citroen recently tried to make a come back with the DS models. The cars look good but again the brand image has been damaged. The brand only appealed to the enthusiasts or the buyers who previously owned a Citroen. It was difficult to convert buyers from Honda, Toyota or Mazda to switch. Even if the buyers from the main stream Japanese brands would buy a European model it would most likely be a BMW, Mercedes or Audi.

The problem is the brand image of the French cars are stuck in limbo. It is neither low end or luxury. It is stuck in the middle to compete with the Japanese and Koreans which are often the preferred choice due to reliability and after sales support and also residual values. I believe it will take many more years before the French brands can make any head way in South East Asia unless they are willing to invest heavily in setting up production bases and reduce the prices significantly to capture market share. Renault did this in India and succeeded so this same formula is needed if it were to succeed in South East Asia.