Chery ranks 4th on October sales list as only privately-owned

Chery Auto ranked in the fourth position on China's vehicle sales volume list in October, becoming the only self-owned automaker in China among the top five, according to the Beijing Morning Post Tuesday.

Shanghai GM, a joint venture between SAIC and General Motors in China, reached top sales of 93,300 units in October. Chery ranked after Shanghai Volkswagen and FAW-Volkswagen. And Beijing Hyundai sold 47,500 vehicles.

Chery Auto announced that it had sold 64,088 vehicles in October, up 46 percent from a year earlier. During the first 10 months, Chery reached sales of 539,376 units, indicating the accomplishment of 77 percent of its full-year sales target for 2010.

The Chery Qiyun had the best performance, with 18,434 units sold in the domestic market in October.

According to the Anhui-based automaker, it exported 8,601 units last month, up 86.2 percent year-on-year.

Chery's spokesperson Jin Yibo, said the company will continue to accelerate its overseas expansion with specific sales plans to be determined in December. Meanwhile, it will launch new models and constantly improve its multi-brand strategy.

He also showed concerns on the development of self-owned brands and said the battlefield for self-owned brands was in the low-end vehicle market.

"China's automakers must strengthen their investments and research on the development of self-owned brands to master core technologies."