The new Peugeot 408 marks a new offensive brand in the market for global automakers. Despite being present in the Chinese market in five years only, Peugeot has sold more than 410,000 vehicles in 2009. This represents a growth of 44% of sales compared to 2008.
After a good performance of the M1 segment of the successful 307 sedan and 307 of the notch-back, of which 3,522,800 were produced in the world, Peugeot is now just starting to legitimately offensive to the Chinese market with its new Peugeot 408
This new luxury sedan as for the Chinese market will strengthen the products marketed with Dong Feng Peugeot in the M1 segment, which represents over 45% of the total market.
Thus, the new Peugeot 408 which allow the brand to increase the lion's sales volume by over 30% in 2010 compared to 2009, and thus grow twice as fast market forecasts.
This semi-high architecture of the notch-back sedan was designed and developed in collaboration with Peugeot's design team from Europe and China, and meet three objectives: Marque expression of modernity, high security, and offers unparalleled interior.
408 The name follows the logic of the traditional lion brand name. Figure 4 refers to the size of the car (4.68 m) and its position in the living of the average family of luxury. 0 means the middle of the Peugeot brand, while 8 expresses the generation of vehicles.
This name, of course, drop the current Peugeot 408 Peugeot range, a pioneer and a series of eight new-generation vehicles will be launched on the Chinese market.
The Dong Feng Peugeot 408 is the result of work of the joint venture between PSA Peugeot Citro�n and the Chinese group DFM. The car is produced at the factory in Wuhan in Hubei Province in China. That is well positioned to become one of the reference vehicle market with annual sales target of 100,000 units.