GM China sales rise 11% in November

General Motors Co., the biggest overseas automaker in China, said sales increased 11 percent in the country last month as it sold more Buick and Chevrolet cars.

The company and its Chinese joint ventures sold 196,990 vehicles last month, Detroit-based GM said in an e-mailed statement today. The pace of sales growth slowed from the 19.6 percent increase reported in October.

GM, which raised $23.1 billion in an initial public offering last month, has said sales in the world’s largest auto market may reach 2.3 million units this year and rise as much as 15 percent in 2011 as demand grows in the fastest-growing major economy. China is already the automaker’s largest market by unit sales and its alliance with SAIC Motor Corp. has a leading 13 percent share.

GM’s passenger-car venture with SAIC Motor, which makes Buick Excelle and Chevrolet Cruze cars, increased sales by 33 percent to 105,097 units last month on strong demand for Cruze sedans and New Sail small cars, according to the statement. SAIC-GM-Wuling Automotive Co., a mini-vehicle maker in which GM plans to increase its stake to 44 percent from 34 percent, sold 84,879 mini vehicles in China in November, GM said, without providing a comparison.

In the first 11 months of 2010, GM’s China sales jumped 33 percent to 2.17 million units, with the company becoming the first overseas automaker to sell more than 2 million vehicles in the country in a year, according to the statement.