Car sales by Volkswagen’s two main Chinese joint ventures rose around 40% in 2003, as booming demand helped the firm exceed its full-year sales target by nearly 100,000 cars, Reuters reported.
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Sales by the two plants totalled more than 694,000 vehicles and Shanghai Volkswagen reportedly said on Monday it sold 396,006 vehicles in 2003, a rise of 32%, Reuters added, noting that the company’s other car manufacturing venture, FAW-Volkswagen in the northeastern city of Changchun, said last week that sales in 2003 soared 55% to 298,000.
The news agency said details of Volkswagen’s total imports into China in 2003 were not available but, in 2002, sales including imports and from local ventures reached 513,000 units.
“Shanghai Volkswagen pro-actively dealt with market competition and sales hit new highs,” the company reportedly said in a statement on its website, adding that more than 50 new models hit the mainland saloon market in 2003.
According to Reuters, Shanghai VW did not give an outlook for 2004 but parent Volkswagen expects to build 1.6 million vehicles in China annually in four years’ time after a €6 billion ($US7.6 billion) investment in a market threatened by a margin-sapping glut.
Volkswagen’s market share was not available, but it remained at about 33% throughout 2003 in China, Reuters added.
The news agency noted that the country’s second largest foreign car maker, General Motors, said on Monday that its China sales rose 46.4% to 386,710 units and had previously predicted sales reaching three million units a year by 2012.
Reuters also noted that both Volkswagen and General Motors were among the first car companies in China to apply to offer loans to Chinese consumers, in a move they hope will keep sales strong well into the decade.
Car sales in China, which hit the million mark for the first time in 2002, are expected to almost double to just under two million units in 2003 when final figures are announced later this month, Reuters said.
