Brilliance '08 sales grow slowest to 285,000 units

Shanghai, December 30 (Gasgoo.com) This year Brilliance Auto has met with its all-time slow in car sales. The company has sold only 285,000 vehicles in 2008, with its sales growth down 5% from last year.

Qi Yumin, CEO and Chairman of Brilliance Auto, said that the company had sold 285,119 vehicles this year by Dec. 27, with sales revenue at 41 billion yuan ($6 billion). "The sales growth has declined by 5% from last year, the first drop in Brilliance Auto's history (since 1992)," Qi said.

The company initially set this year's sales target at 330,000 vehicles, and then reduced it down to 300,000 units, but now the young automaker has fallen short of this "low target" by the end of 2008.

Amid the global financial crisis and auto market slump, many carmakers in China, including FAW Toyota, Shanghai GM and Geely Auto, have scaled down their sales targets for this year. In the first eleven months, there were 8,629,800 vehicles sold in China, with the sales growth rate down to 8.52% from last year's 20%, hitting a four-year low.

"Many potential consumers have turned to the stock market and got entrapped there, and meanwhile some joint ventures have pushed the prices of the vehicle products below 100,000 yuan," said Qi, who added that China's auto market in 2009 will hold out little hope for upturn and its growth rate will stay at 7% or so.