Changing of the guard at luxury car companies in China

There has been a flurry of changes at the top of some of the leading global luxury car companies in China in recent weeks, which are being attributed by analysts to quickly slowing growth and falling sales across the domestic market.

In the first half of the year, many marques in the luxury segment have seen sales declines for the first time since they entered the world's biggest market, within an overall 1.7 percent year-on-year industry-wide sales drop.

Although all the automakers contacted by China Daily denied the relationship between high-level personnel changes and sales declines, they seem unlikely to be unconnected.