GM China sales overtake US sales

[John S]

Americans may have fallen out of love with GM brands but the Chinese can't get enough of them it seems.

BEIJING - US AUTO giant General Motors, struggling to boost sales at home after emerging from bankruptcy, said on Friday that sales in China, the world's biggest car market, hit a record high in September.

GM and its Chinese partners saw sales rise to 181,148 units in September from 152,365 in August - a nearly 19 per cent jump, and the latest in a series of single-month records stretching back to January.

The company's China sales for the first nine months of the year soared 55.6 per cent to nearly 1.3 million units, another record, giving GM and its partners an estimated market share of 13.4 per cent, GM said in a statement.

'Sales continue to surpass forecasts as nearly all market segments experience growth,' GM China Group President and Managing Director Kevin Wale said in the statement.

'A major market driving force this year has been first-time car buyers in China's second, third and fourth-tier cities.' In the United States, GM's biggest market, sales fell 45 per cent to 156,673 vehicles and were down 36.4 per cent for the year to date at 1.55 million after the expiry of the popular government-funded 'Cash for Clunkers' programme.

GM said weak consumer confidence and extremely low inventory had also hit sales at home. -- AFP

[Willy]

This is due to a few factors.
First: more people in China are moving into the cities and getting jobs that allow them to be able to afford cars for the first time.

Second: GM advertise like crazy, and advertising works.

Third:  Government mandates that you can only put 80,000 km on an engine before you have to replace the car. So more cars are sold sooner.

Hence the reason more and more right hand vehicles with low milage are appearing on North American roads.