Toyota Motor said on Wednesday it sold 21% more cars year on year in China in 2009, well behind General Motors’ 67% gain and Changan Ford Mazda’s 54.5%.
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Toyota sold 709,000 cars in China in 2009, up from 585,000 units a year earlier, it said in a statement.
That compared with 1.83m vehicles GM sold in China last year, which also includes 1.06m mostly mini vans and pick-up trucks made at SAIC-GM-Wuling, its three-way venture with SAIC Motor Corp and Liuzhou Wuling Automobile, Reuters noted.
Volkswagen has yet to release its annual sales for China, but Winfried Vahland, president and CEO for its China operations said in November he expected the automaker to have sold about 1.4m vehicles in mainland China and Hong Kong last year, up more than 35% from 2008.
Analysts attributed Toyota’s slower growth to its lack of small cars whose sales have soared this year thanks to government tax incentives.
“GM and Volkswagen are a major beneficiary of the policy incentives favouring small cars, while Toyota’s portfolio in China is not as broad,” Zhang Xin, an analyst with Guotai Junan Securities, told Reuters.
