SAIC Motor says Jan-Sept earnings up over 70%

Shanghai, October 13 (Gasgoo.com) Chinese auto giant SAIC Motor said today that its net profit in the first nine months surged more than 70% from a year earlier, propelled by strong sales, Reuters reported.

SAIC said its car sales grew 47% year-on-year to 1.94 million units in the first nine months of this year. September sales soared 90.7% from a year earlier to over 260,000 units.

The company will release detailed earnings results for the third quarter later this month. It reported a net profit of 2.23 billion yuan ($327 million) for the January-September period of last year.

China's auto market, which overtook the United States as the world's largest in January, has been a leading bright spot in the struggling global auto industry as government policy support spurs a pick-up in demand.

SAIC and its foreign partners, General Motors and Volkswagen AG, have benefited significantly from the incentives, including an aggressive cut in the sales tax on small cars and subsidies for buyers in rural areas.

Analysts are upbeat about SAIC's full-year outlook due to robust auto demand and a low comparative base in 2008 when the automaker was bogged down by its loss-making S. Korean subsidiary Ssangyong Motor.