Great Wall Motor plans push into new export markets

Chinese OEM Great Wall Motor is planning to extend is market reach into Taiwan, Western Europe and Australia.

Great Wall has recently received approval to sell its Florid and Cool Bear models in Taiwan. The company is expecting to do particularly well in Taiwan with its Florid small car where, according to Gasgoo, there is no likely competitor in the sub-Yuan 80,000 (US$11,700).

Great Wall already has a small presence in Europe, where it sells the Hover SUV in Italy. According to Reuters, the company is planning to double its Italian sales by the end of this year. It is also in talks with distributors in France, Germany, Spain and the UK, and hopes to establish itself in these markets by 2015.

In Australia, Great Wall began sales of the Hover X240 SUV in mid-2009. It plans to raise sales in that market to 8,000 units by the end of this year. Unlike other Chinese OEMs whose performance outside China has been affected by poor crash test results, the Hover X240 - which outsold the Honda CR-V in China in each of the four months to April 2010 - scored four stars in Australia’s ANCAP test.