General Motors’ Shanghai GM car manufacturing joint venture – one of the first established in the country by a western automaker after the country’s economy was opened up to foreign investment in the 1990s – has sold its two millionth Buick, a red Regal sedan delivered to a customer in the southern city of Guangzhou.
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“It took eight years for Shanghai GM to sell its first 1m Buicks, but only three years to sell its second 1m,” GM China group president and managing director Kevin Wale said.
“This demonstrates the ongoing popularity of Shanghai GM’s leading mainstream brand in what is now Buick’s largest market.”
GM’s flagship joint venture in China with SAIC began manufacturing and selling Buick products in 1998 and now offers over 40 Buick models and variants, one of the widest ranges sold there today.
Other popular Buick models sold in China include the Excelle hatchback and wagon line and the GL8 minivans (which Shanghai GM calls ‘executive wagons’) based on a US model line and first launched in 1999. These now lead their market segment.
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By GlobalDataNext-generation models such as the milestone ‘New Regal’ are based on global GM platforms.
From introduction last December to the end of May 2009, over 34,000 units have been sold, giving it leadership in the upper-medium sedan segment with a price range of RMB180,000 to RMB250,000 (US$26,000 to US$37,000). Shanghai GM has also around 2,800 imported Buick Enclave SUVs, with demand continuing to exceed supply.
The company plans to launch a Regal 2.0 Turbo model and the LaCrosse with three-litrr V6 engine.
The brand’s history in China dates back to the early days of GM itself.
The automaker’s first Shanghai sales office opened in 1929 and Buick customers have included Pu Yi, the last emperor, revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen and late premier Zhou Enlai.
GM chief executive Fritz Henderson has said his firm’s car sales in China are set to surpass those in the United States this year in a landmark shift.
GM China is still aiming to double sales to more than two million units annually and will “probably need to build another plant in the next five years”, Wale told the AFP news agency.
Its sales in China soared 75% in May from a year earlier to a record monthly high of 156,000. In the first five months, sales grew 33.8% year on year to over 670,000.
