China’s biggest automaker hopes to triple overseas sales by 2025

As China’s overall market for automobiles continues to decline, SAIC Motor hopes to boost revenue with overseas sales.

SAIC Motor Corp''s logos are pictured at its booth during the Auto China 2016 auto show in Beijing, China April 26, 2016
State-owned SAIC Motor Corporation is China's largest auto company and exports cars to the Netherlands and Australia [File: Kim Kyung-Hoon/Reuters]

China‘s largest carmaker, SAIC Motor Corp Ltd, wants to triple its overseas auto sales to one million units by 2025, a senior company official said on Wednesday, as more Chinese auto manufacturers seek sales growth globally.

The Shanghai-based company, which sold around seven million vehicles last year with its brands and through joint ventures with Volkswagen and General Motors, makes up just under a quarter of China’s auto market, the world’s largest.

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“SAIC’s overseas sales would hit 350,000 units this year and we will strive to sell more than half a million next year,” Yu De, deputy president of SAIC, told reporters in Shanghai. “By 2025, we aim to have a market size of one million units a year.”

“We will systematically plan our overseas operations, from supply chain to logistics,” said Yu.

SAIC builds MG brand cars in India and Wuling commercial vehicles in Indonesia with GM. It also exports cars to the Netherlands and Australia.

As China’s overall market continues to decline after its first annual contraction last year since the 1990s, the company’s sales also dropped 13.7 percent in the first ten months of this year.

Source: Reuters