Geely sales in Dec more than double to 43,446 cars

Shanghai, January 14 (Gasgoo.com) Geely Auto said yesterday that its car sales in December more than doubled to 43,446 units from a year earlier, Dow Jones reported.

For the whole year of 2009, the Hong Kong-listed company of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group sold 325,413 cars, increasing 59% from the previous year and exceeding its '09 sales target of 250,000 units, with sales in December soaring 108% year on year and up 23% from November.

Geely Group, China's largest privately owned automaker by sales, injected nearly all its stake in the company's core car-making operations into the listed subsidiary last year.

Last month, Geely Auto said it was seeking ways to cooperate with Volvo Cars after its parent company completes the acquisition of the Swedish unit of Ford Motor, but added that Volvo will likely remain a separate brand in the shirt run.

Ford Motor agreed with Geely Group in late December on most terms for selling the U.S. automaker's Volvo unit to the Chinese company. A definitive agreement probably will be signed by the end of March.

The company is ready to revise up its sales target of 400,000 vehicles for 2010. Geely also expects to get more benefits from the government's auto subsidies, which will continue this year.