VW China Jan-May sales up 48% to 778,000 vehicles

Shanghai, June 9 (Gasgoo.com) Volkswagen AG said today that its sales in China in the first five months of the year rose 48% from a year earlier to 778,000 vehicles, media reported.

In May, the German auto giant and its local joint ventures FAW-Volkswagen and Shanghai Volkswagen sold 157,500 vehicles in China, up 31% year on year. The Chinese ventures already produces about 20 Volkswagen, Skoda and Audi models at nine plants for the local market.

Volkswagen expects its sales in the Chinese market, now the world's largest, to exceed two million cars this year, up from last year's 1.4 million cars. The company is starting to build four new plants in China for expansion, two of them in southern province of Guangdong.

"With our unprecedented investment program, we intend to double our capacities in China to 3 million vehicles a year by 2013/2014," Chief Executive Martin Winterkorn said in a recent press release.

General Motors, the largest global automaker in China, sold over one million vehicles in the country in the first five months, half of its two million sales target for this year, with May sales at 196,004 units.