福布斯 中国的中间市场

通用汽车（GM）在美国输给日本汽车制造商，但该公司在中国市场仍然是领袖，而这个市场最终可能被证明是一个更重要的市场。GM利用2002年收购韩国大宇汽车公司而获得的廉价技术，制造了强烈吸引中国新兴中产阶级的“够好（good enough）”汽车。

　　汽车制造商举动的背后，是日益意识到中国中间市场空间（跨国公司和中国公司几乎一同扑上去）是世界领先公司现身的市场部分。在几个方面，中国是明日全球竞争者的严峻考验。

　　中国市场在传统上分两层。顶层是质优价高的小部分，全球品牌实现可靠利润和快速增长。底部是广大的、低端的部分，当地公司提供低品质、无差别的产品，常常赔钱。新增的是快速扩大的“够好”部分，中国惊人的经济增长刺激了这个新部分。

　　收入增加的消费者趋优消费，这并不奇怪。结果就是：中国的尖端和地点部分加起来都没有中间市场增长得那么快，而且中间市场占一些产品类别（例如电视机和洗衣机）收入的近一半。

　　加入这场战斗的公司以一些有趣的形式出现。跨国公司往往从上面攻击，中国公司从下面拱上来，两者都找到进入“够好”空间的办法。

　　从上面，跨国公司瞄准降低制造成本，导入简单产品或服务，扩大分销网络同时维持合理的质量。

　　在下面，低端部分的中国挑战者往往向上拱。这些公司的目标是通过提供质量改善而成本低的新品削弱已经巩固地位的玩家。华为技术建立和获得从低端市场崛起所需要的技术和管理能力。同时，它打造技术同盟，进一步扩大产品组合。

　　显然，鉴于一些低端中国公司在质量管控方面的失败，对进军“够好”部分的中国公司来说，提高质量是关键一步。

　　事实上，国内公司以及国外公司越来越意识到放弃中国的中间空间将会滋养竞争者，而竞争者最终在全球范围挑战它们。讽刺的是，已经走向海外的中国公司发现自己回到国内处于守势。例如，当海尔进军国际市场并赢得海外份额，本国公司例如小天鹅集团和跨国公司（包括惠而浦和西门子）在蚕食它在中国的中间市场。

　　中国常常被翻译成“中间王国”。实际上，它意味着“中心国家”，全球公司正发现当中缘由。（作者 Orit Gadiesh，Philip Leung）

China's Middle Market

Orit Gadiesh and Philip Leung

SHANGHAI - General Motors may be losing ground to Japanese automakers in the U.S., but the company is still a leader in a market that may ultimately prove even more important: China. There, using inexpensive technology acquired in its 2002 purchase of Korea's ailing Daewoo Motor, GM has created a "good enough" set of autos that strongly appeal to China's burgeoning middle class--and now account for more than 50% of GM's Chinese sales.

Behind the automaker's moves is a growing realization that China's middle-market space--where multinationals and Chinese firms are going at it head-to-head--is the market segment from which the world's leading companies will emerge. Indeed, GM is already selling its China-developed cars in more than 150 other countries around the world, including the U.S.

In several respects, China is the crucible for tomorrow's global competitors. To cite one: Goldman Sachs (nyse: GS - news - people ) estimates that China will account for 36% of the growth in the world's gross domestic product between 2000 and 2030. Forward-thinking companies (multinational and Chinese firms alike) are thus scrambling to develop reliable-enough products at low-enough prices to attract the country's new mid-level consumers. The same firms have also started building the scale, expertise, quality and business capabilities to serve other emerging markets and, eventually, circle around to developed ones, as well. How will it play out?

China's markets historically have had two tiers. At the top, a small premium segment served by global brands realizing solid margins and rapid growth. At the bottom, a vast, low-end segment served by local companies offering low-quality, undifferentiated products (typically 40% to 90% cheaper than premium ones) that often lose money--when there's rigorous accounting. What's new is the rapidly expanding good-enough segment, fueled by China's stunning economic growth.

Not surprisingly, consumers with rising incomes are trading up from low-end products. The result: China's middle market is growing faster than the premium and low-end segments combined and accounts for nearly half of all revenues in some product categories, such as televisions and washing machines.

Some interesting patterns have emerged among the ways companies are choosing to enter this battle. Multinationals tend to attack from above, Chinese firms are burrowing up from below, and both are acquiring their way into the good-enough space.

From above, discerning multinationals aim to lower manufacturing costs, introduce simplified products or services and broaden their distribution networks while maintaining reasonable quality. To expand sales of its MRI equipment in China, for example, GE Healthcare used a line of reliable but less expensive machines targeted at hospitals in China's remote and financially constrained second- and third-tier cities. By 2004, GE Healthcare had 52% market share of this fast-growing marketplace.

From below, Chinese challengers in the low-end segment tend to burrow up. The goal for these companies is undercutting established players by providing new offerings that ratchet up quality but cost consumers much less. Huawei Technologies, a Chinese maker of fixed- and mobile-telecommunications networks, both built and acquired the technical and managerial capabilities needed to rise up from the low end of the market. At the same time, it forged technical alliances to further broaden its product mix.

Notably, given the failures in quality control by some Chinese companies at the low end, improving product quality is a critical step for Chinese firms moving up to good-enough segments. Appliance giant Haier and Galanz, a leader in microwave ovens, began quality marches that initially helped them offer good-enough products and subsequently enabled them to achieve global quality standards.

In the middle is the acquisition route. Multinationals that can't reduce their costs fast enough, and domestic players looking for more skills, technology and talent, frequently use this tactic. Buying into the good-enough segment worked for consumer-goods giants Gillette, L'Oreal and Anheuser-Busch (nyse: BUD - news - people )--and it worked equally well for Haier, which rolled up a series of low-end Chinese competitors to gain scale, and then used its position in China as a launching pad to enter markets abroad.

Indeed, domestic firms, as well as multinationals, are coming to recognize that ceding China's middle space will breed competitors that eventually challenge them on a global scale. Ironically, Chinese companies that have already gone global are finding themselves on the defensive back at home. As Haier has attacked international markets and won share abroad, for instance, local companies such as The Little Swan Group and multinationals, including Whirlpool (nyse: WHR - news - people ) and Siemens (nyse: SI - news - people ) have been nibbling away at its middle market in China, trimming Haier's domestic refrigerator market share from 29% in 2004 to 25% last year, according to Forbes magazine.

In Mandarin, China is called "Zhongguó," which is often translated as "Middle Kingdom." Actually, it means "central country," and companies all over the globe are discovering why.

Orit Gadiesh is chairwoman of Bain & Company. Philip Leung is a Bain partner in Shanghai.