Abstract
Honda is a Japanese conglomerate and produces automobiles (the automobile service represents more than 80% of its revenue), motorcycles, power products and power tools and offers financial services. Honda became famous abroad and expanded from Japan to the US in the 50s and to Europe in the 60s, thanks to its effort and investments in Formula-1.
In the 1990s the automobile market was saturated and highly competitive. Honda has chosen to enter the European market by building its first factory in the UK. But in 2001, Honda represented only 2.4% of this market and suffered from a weak brand image.
This situation can be explained by the marketing strategy chosen by Honda for the European market. Honda decided to sell many different models in the UK where the cars were first produced (the larger range of models including few diesel-powered cars), Germany, France and Italy. The company priced its products at a similar level to that of the competition but did not spend a lot of money on promotion, but relied on the word of mouth. Concerning the distribution, Honda has chosen to sell both its cars and motorcycles in the same places throughout Europe.
Since the late 90s, Honda's sales has been constantly decreasing, due to a lack of popularity, especially in Italy and France. A study of the difference between cultures in Europe and the cultural context could explain this problem. In Europe we can highlight two different kinds of nations: those with a high-context (France, Italy and moderately the UK) and those with a low-context culture (Germany).
