SAIC Motor '09 vehicle sales up 57% to 2.72 mln units

SAIC Motor Corp, China's biggest automaker, said on Monday its vehicle sales in 2009 rose 57 percent to 2.72 million units as Beijing's policy incentives bolstered consumer confidence.

SAIC, which makes vehicles in tie-ups with General Motors and Volkswagen AG, sold 1.6 million passenger cars last year, up 57 percent from a year earlier. Sales of commercial vehicles went up 58 percent to 1.12 million units, it said in a statement.

SAIC and its foreign partners are among the major beneficiaries of Beijing's incentives, including aggressive cuts in sales tax for small cars, which has significantly spurred automobile demand.

Sales of Shanghai GM, SAIC's car venture with GM, came to 727,000 units, up 58.7 percent during the period, with sales of its venture with Volkswagen up 48.6 percent to 728,000 units, it said.

SAIC-GM-Wuling, a three-way tie-up between GM, SAIC and Liuzhou Wuling Automobile, sold 1.06 million vehicles last year, up 63.9 percent, it said.

In 2009, SAIC also sold 90,000 of its own-brand cars, including the hot-selling Roewe 550, up 153 percent from a year earlier.

The automaker, which recently rolled out MG 6, developed based on acquired technology, aims to double the sales of its own-brand cars in 2010, its president Chen Hong said in November.

Sales of its own-brand cars may rise to 500,000 units annually in the foreseeable future despite the challenge of locally made foreign brands, Chen had said.