SAIC Motor Corporation Limited, one of China’s leading car manufacturers, recently announced revenue and net profit attributable to the shareholders of 138.8 billion yuan (approximately $20.4 billion) and 6.59 billion yuan (approximately $969 million) for the 2009 financial year, up 31.7 percent and 904.61 percent respectively from a year ago.
The carmaker sold 2.72 million complete vehicles last year, a year on year growth of 57.2 percent, increasing its market share in the domestic automotive market to 19.9 percent. Sales of passenger and commercial vehicles rose 56.7 percent and 57.9 percent to 1.6 million and 1.12 million units respectively. Noticeably, combined sales of Roewe and MG-branded cars advanced 153 percent to over 90,000 units last year.
With the continuous launch of new models, including the new Buick Sail and Roewe 350, SAIC Motor saw sales of complete vehicles jump over 60 percent year on year to 890,000 units in the first quarter and aims to sell over 3 million vehicles this year, with revenue and operating costs expected to be 245 billion yuan (approximately $36 billion) and 205 billion yuan (approximately $30 billion) respectively.
The car manufacturer, which is prudently optimistic about the prospect for the Chinese automotive industry given the current macro-economic conditions, industry policies, market demand and fluctuations in oil prices, forecast market demand to surge over 10 percent to more than 15 million units in 2010. Competition is anticipated to become fiercer as many Chinese carmakers have significantly raised their sales targets for 2010.
