Cars

Volkswagen waxes, Honda wanes in June

(China Daily)
Updated: 2010-07-13 09:38

A model poses in front of a Volkswagen car at an auto expo in Shenzhen. Many foreign carmakers are betting on the Chinese market for growth. [Ding Ding / for China Daily]

BEIJING - German carmaker Volkswagen AG (VW) and Japanese automaker Honda Motor Co reported contrasting sales performances in June on Monday, even as vehicle demand continued to be robust in China.

Volkswagen, the biggest foreign carmaker in China, said new models helped lift sales in the first-half by 46 percent to 950,278 units. Deliveries of Audi luxury-brand sedans rose 64 percent to 109,887 units, it said in an e-mailed statement on Monday.

"We have exhausted the stocks of many of our models," said Winfried Vahland, president and chief executive officer of Volkswagen China.

The German carmaker plans to invest 4.4 billion euros ($5.5 billion) to expand production capacity and introduce more new models in the country, Chief Executive Officer Martin Winterkorn said in April.

The company sold 1.4 million vehicles in China last year and aims to boost annual sales to more than 2 million in the "medium-term", Winterkorn said.

Volkswagen, which counts China as its biggest market, added models including the Tiguan sports-utility vehicle, the Audi Q5 and an upgraded Jetta this year. The company will start sales of the CC four-door sports coupe on July 15 in Shanghai.

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Honda, Japan's second-largest automaker, however, said sales to dealers in China fell 2.7 percent in June as strikes at parts makers led the automaker to suspend production, creating a shortage of vehicles.

Sales fell to 50,113 units in the month, according to an e-mailed statement on Monday, while rising demand for cars pushed up sales by 22 percent to 309,575 units in the first half. Honda's China sales also fell 10.3 percent in May from a year earlier, the company said.

Honda's declines in sales come after it announced in May that it would raise production capacity in China by 28 percent to 839,000 vehicles a year by the second half of 2012 and introduce two new models to take advantage of rising demand.

Passenger car sales rose 19 percent in June to 1.04 million units, according to a July 9 report by the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

General Motors Co, Volkswagen's biggest overseas rival in China, increased deliveries by 49 percent to 1.21 million vehicles in the first six months.

Bloomberg News - China Daily