2010 SAIC-GM-Wuling sales target 1.23m

　　According to Economic Observer, Last year the largest domestic automobile enterprise SAIC-GM-Wuling slowed down its pace. This year, its sales target is only a growth of 16%.

　　Last year, with the sales of 1.06 million, SAIC-GM-Wuling became the first pure vehicle enterprise who sold out more than 1 million.

　　In addition, with cumulative sales of 2.16 million, the most important model of SAIC-GM-Wuling, Wuling sunshine, sold best among the Single Vehicle models.

　　Taking the advantage of this momentum, SAIC-GM-Wuling introduced new Wuling sunshine, a middle-class mini passenger car model in its largest regional market Jinan province in January 18. However, confronted the prospects of this year , Yang Jie, general manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling sales corporation, the company who gained best sales performance last year, often questioned himself ‘what will be the prospect of SAIC-GM-Wuling this year ?’

　　Last year, the sales of SAIC-GM-Wuling grew more than 65% from a year earlier. Among them, Wuling sunshine and the light and Wuling Rong Guang gained a growth of more than 40% from a year earlier. The growth of mini-sedan Spark was 47.1%, even higher. What is more, this is not the highest growth in the mini car market last year.

　　SAIC-GM-Wuling has got its fourth sales champion in four consecutive years. However, currently its pace slows down while competitors such as Changan are speeding up. The sales target of SAIC-GM-Wuling is 1.23 million, only a growth of 16% compared to last year.

　　Even so, Yang Jie still consider this goal will be much higher than the average level within the industry this year. According to his estimation, the mini-car market will achieve a growth of 10%-15%this year. Obviously, he does not think the market deeply stimulated by policies last year will continue to be booming this year.

　　　Micro-car market the biggest winner of the incentive policies such as ‘car to the countryside’ and ‘purchase tax cut down’. In rural areas the effects were even more evident. A piece of news from 30-minutes News program of CCTV in December last year released that Ba Peijun, one customer of Wuling sunshine in Zhengzhou speaking about the benefits of farmers purchasing vehicles. The 5,000 Yuan payment from government equals to the value of one cattle.

　　A year later, Yang Jie found that Ba Peijun successfully brought in more than 40 costumers, more than the local sales manager. Then the corporation invited this man to join in their new TV advertisement together with the film star Zhang Fengyi .

　　Yang Jie also discovered that farmer has been account for more than 80%of their costumers. The market space is still broad. However, the weakening effect of supportive policies w is also a factor should be taken into account.

　　‘In 2009 the market is so depressing that a considerable part of demands is moved to the 2009 due to the incentive policies.’ Yang Jie said, ‘compared with 2009, and in 2010 the policies are not changed. Beside, the purchase tax concession is also cut down by 2.5%. Yang takes all these major factors causing the growth of automobile industry to slow down this year.

　　In the fierce competition, to slow down the pace initiatively is a test to the judgments of Yang Jie and SAIC-GM-Wuling judgments. However, to Yang, the measure is inevitable. He expressed that the demands of mini-cars are changing due to the increasing number in the market. Therefore, the corporation should speed up to launch the new models to meet growing requirements.(Translator: yalong/Jessie)

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