Changan Ford Oct sales up 80% to 20,027 units

Shanghai, November 3 (Gasgoo.com) Ford Motor said today that sales by its passenger car joint venture with China's Chongqing Changan Automobile rose 80% in October from a year earlier to 20,027 units, Dow Jones reported.

In the January-October period, Ford-brand passenger car sales of the joint venture, Changan Ford Mazda Automobile, rose 40% year on year to 188,244 units, the U.S. auto maker also said in a statement. Ford Mondeo and Ford S-MAX contributed to the robust growth.

Ford Motor sold 119,338 vehicles in China in the third quarter (ended Sept. 30), up 79% from a year earlier. Through the first three quarters of the year, its China sales rose 32% to 316,639 units.

In late September, Changan Ford Mazda broke ground at a $490 million new plant in Chongqing, which will increase the passenger car venture's annual capacity to 600,000 units by 2012.

"We are confident that the demand from Chinese consumers...will carry strong sales momentum through to the end of the year," said Nigel Harris, general manager of the venture.