US auto giant General Motors (GM), battling to bolster sales at home after emerging from bankruptcy, on Wednesday predicted its sales in China this year would rise by more than 40 percent year-on-year.
The prediction came as GM and its Chinese partners said sales last month soared 112.7 percent year-on-year to 152,365 units — the latest in a series of single-month records stretching back to January.
“We are now looking at [an overall China] market of 11.5 [million] to 12 million vehicles, up from 9.1 million units last year,” GM China Group president and managing director Kevin Wale said in a statement. “We expect GM sales for the year as a whole to rise by more than 40 percent from 2008.”
Sales in China for the first eight months of this year hit 1,111,401 units, a 49.6 percent increase over the same period last year, GM said.
At the same time in the US, GM’s biggest market, sales last month dropped 20 percent and year-to-date sales fell 35 percent to 1.4 million vehicles.
Demand for its Buick and Chevrolet models helped Shanghai GM, a joint venture with the Shanghai Automotive Industry Corporation, post an all-time monthly sales record of more than 63,300 units last month, the company said.
Buick, a struggling brand elsewhere that is popular among China’s middle class, saw sales rise 102.8 percent year-on-year last month with more than 38,900 units sold, the company said.
Meanwhile, Chevrolet sales in China hit an all-time monthly high of more than 23,770 vehicles sold, up 99.4 percent year-on-year, GM said.
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