GM, Ford report strong China sales

SHANGHAI (AP):

General Motors Co. says it is set to sell more than 2 million vehicles in China this year after posting record sales for October.

GM and its ventures in China sold 199,641 vehicles last month, up nearly 20 per cent from the year before. That took its sales for the first 10 months of the year to 1,976,913 vehicles - a gain of 36 per cent, it said in a statement Thursday.

"This is another important milestone for General Motors in China," said Kevin Wale, president and managing director of the GM China Group. "It was only three years ago that GM became the first global automaker to reach the one-million annual sales mark in China."

Rival Ford Motor Co, which got a later start in China and has smaller operations here, reported it sold 49,681 vehicles in October., up 33 per cent. Ford's China sales in January-October surged 39 per cent to 468,754.

Global automakers are relying increasingly on sales in China and other developing countries to offset weakness in the US and other traditional markets.

Thanks partly to its strong performance in China, the company forecast Wednesday that it earned up to US$2.1 billion from July to September, a boost ahead of the company's Nov 18 initial stock offering.

Despite the monthly record for GM's October sales in China, growth overall in the market has slowed in recent months, particularly with a weakening in demand for minivehicles that helped buoy the company's China sales to 1.8 million last year.