Great Wall expects to drive up sales 20pc
Great Wall Motor said it expects sales to rise 20 per cent this year, building on a 27.3 per cent gain last year to 462,679 vehicles and outstripping the 5.5 per cent growth in mainland passenger car sales for 2011.
Its latest sales projection is lower than the Hong Kong-listed carmaker's earlier target to sell 600,000 cars this year.
But group chairman Wei Jianjun said it could still exceed expectations if a government proposal to procure all public vehicles from domestic carmakers materialised.
'If the proposal becomes a policy it should contribute to our sales,' the company said. 'The market expects such [a] plan could boost domestic car sales by some five per cent.'
The company also planned to produce an electric vehicle in 2014.
'We made the right decision about [when to join] the new energy car market, although support facilities, government policies and consumers' recognition of these new auto types were not quite there yet,' Wei said.
The carmaker, which leads the mainland market in sales of sports utility vehicles (SUV) and pick-up trucks, is expected to increase export volume by some 20 per cent year on year to 100,000 next year, despite weakening demand in Europe.
Demand from developed nations might be 'slack', but sales in Russia and other emerging markets such as South Africa, Chile and Brazil were going well, Wei said, adding Great Wall has no further plan to acquire any facilities outside China. It acquired stakes in a manufacturing plant in Bulgaria last month.
The company is set to produce seven to eight new truck and SUV models in the next four years, although it would keep research and development spending at around three per cent of its revenue.
Wei said new models' prices will be about 10 per cent higher.
Great Wall, which reported a net profit increase of 26.8 per cent year on year to 3.43 billion yuan (HK$4.2 billion) in the past 12 months, saw gross profit margin edge up 0.2 percentage points to 24.9 per cent last year due to higher sales prices and lower average costs caused by larger production volume. Wei said Great Wall will raise prices of existing sedan models by one per cent this year.
Its share prices in Hong Kong and Shanghai fell yesterday. It closed 3.3 per cent lower at HK$15.26 in Hong Kong and issued a final dividend of 30 HK cents per share.
