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Hofner lends the name to two types of cellos.  One is hand made in Germany,  is of excellent quality and the buyer will pay very well for.  I've seen a number of such instruments priced over $10,000 and worth every penny. 

The Alfred Stingl cellos are made in China.  At one time, many folk believed that all Chinese cellos were junk, and that probably close to the truth 25 or 30 years ago.  The horror stories about broken necks, bridges bending or breaking, warped finger boards, etc. were true.  No more.  Chinese cellos are for the most part well made today.  Their "cheap" cellos are excellent for a beginner.  They are generally made of ply wood, and the purvling is just painted on lines. But they will take you along way down the road for a very reasonable price.  If you buy one from a violin shop, do have them do a complete setup.  When you buy one, you will likely need to replace the bridge as typically the bridges are cheap and seldom fitted to the instruments.  You will also be well advised to replace the strings with some of high quality.  There are many high quality string brands and any brand of good quality strings will do.   Ask a technician for a recommendation.  During the setup process, the technician can replace the bridge, replace the stringes, put a little candle wax on the fine tuners, a little peg dope on the pegs so the cello will stay in tune, and adjust the tail piece which will probably been required. While the technician is doing al of this, she/he can  also check the position and fit of the sound post.  It will cost some money to get all this done, but in return, you will have a cello that will take the typical student about 4 to 5 years or more years to outgrow it, and if you keep the instrument in good repair, you can likely sell it for close to whatever you paid for it.  One other thing.  The bow that is packed with these instruments are not very good either, but you can wait a while to replace the bow.  The bow hair is also not top quality, but when the bow needs to re-haired, that issue can be addressed at that time, and the entire bow replaced if you have the funds.  On the other hand, if the student stays with the cello until they can play with a reasonable amount of vibrato, that might be the time to look for a better bow.  The student will have developed sufficient facility with the instrument to have an idea of how a good bow can help them  Good luck.