Great Wall to lift sedan sales 800% in '09

Shanghai, February 12 (Gasgoo.com) Chinese automaker Great Wall Motor Co., Ltd. sold 15,000 vehicles in January 2009, hitting a record high in its monthly sales. Building on this beginning success, the company aims to boost its vehicle sales 60% to 200,000 units this year, including 80,000 sedans, up 800% from last year, said China Youth Daily today.

As China's largest maker and exporter of pickups and SUVs, Great Wall Motor saw its vehicle sales rise up 10% to 125,000 vehicles in 2008, including 55,000 pickups, 60,000 SUVs and 10,000 sedans. And in January 2009, the company achieved its record-high monthly sales of 15,000 units, which included 3,600 units of the newly launched Florid sedan model and 5,600 units of its flagship Hover SUV model.

Great Wall Motor is a new comer to the sedan market. Its first sedan model Great Wall Peri (GWPeri) didn't sell well after its launch in March 2008 and caused a lawsuit as it looked like a copycat of Fiat's Panda minicar. Then in November, Great Wall released another sedan model Florid, which achieved huge sales unexpectedly and thus brought great hope to the company's expansion into the sedan market.

The company has planned to launch 13 new vehicle models (including 4 sedan models and 5 SUV models) in 2009 to boost its sales growth. The 1.5L Coolbear, Great Wall's third sedan model, will hit the market in March, and its 1.3L and 1.5L Cross sedans will come to the market in May and August. It will launch another new sedan model codenamed CH031 in October.

The automaker will also vie for the 1.3L, 1.5L, and 2.0L small-sized SUV segments, with a batch of new SUV models designed to hit the market in succession this year. In addition, it plans to debut the 2.0L, 2.4L, and 2.5L Hover H3 in April and June.

While continuing to maintain its growth in the pickup and SUV markets, Great Wall Motor aims to sell 200,000 sedans annually by 2011. The company hopes to become of the top three sellers in China's A0-class sedan market in three years.