US carmakers General Motors (GM) and Ford Motor, which suffered a sales slump in their home market last year, yesterday reported buoyant growth in 2006 sales in China.

GM and its joint ventures sold a total of 878,747 vehicles in China last year, surging 31.8 percent from 2005, the company said in a statement.

The strong sales, consolidating GM's position as the biggest foreign carmaker in China, accounted for 11.8 percent of the nation's entire vehicle market, up from 11.2 percent in 2005, it said.

Ford said that combined sales of its wholly owned brands including Ford, Lincoln, Jaguar, Land Rover and Volvo, rocketed by 86.6 percent to 166,722 units in 2006.

Its growth rate more than tripled that of China's entire vehicle market. Vehicle sales in China are estimated to have risen by a quarter to 7.1 million units last year, helping the country unseat Japan as the world's second-biggest vehicle market after the United States.

The two Detroit-based carmakers' surging China sales represented a sharp contrast to their weak performance in the US, which analysts said indicates the growing significance of the Chinese market for them.

GM's US sales tumbled by 8.7 percent to 4.07 million units last year as a result of increased competition from their Asian rivals. Meanwhile, Ford sold 2.9 million units in the US, down 8 percent.

Ford's China sales still lag behind many global automakers' such as Germany's Volkswagen, Toyota, Honda and Nissan from Japan and South Korea's Hyundai, due largely to its late entry to the market.

In the passenger car area in China, Volkswagen maintained its position as the biggest player. A spokeswoman from Volkswagen China Group told China Daily yesterday that its sales in the nation exceeded 700,000 units last year.

GM said its China sales included 420,140 Chinese-branded micro buses made at its joint venture in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in the south.

Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Hyundai have not revealed their China sales for last year, but they are predicted to be much bigger than Ford's.

1

2

(For more biz stories, please visit Industry Updates)