China Auto Sales Prove Impossible to Know for Shareholders: Cars
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Forget spreadsheets. Yankun Hou, an award-winning auto industry analyst at UBS AG, counts Toyotas and BMWs in the parking lots of car factories in China using satellite images from Google Maps to gauge inventory buildups.
Scott Laprise at CLSA Asia Pacific Markets said he pretends to be a customer and takes snapshots of showrooms with his BlackBerry to gauge retail demand. At Mizuho Financial Group Inc., Jeremy Yeo checks order flows at auto parts manufacturers and Erwin Sanft at BNP Paribas SA oversees a monthly survey of 70 dealerships across China.