The 174,306 vehicles sold by General Motors Co. and its joint ventures in China in February was a company record for the month, it said Wednesday, though well below the 219,192 vehicles sold in January.

That could reflect slower sales due to the Lunar New Year holiday, but also a softening in demand for small cars that have powered the company’s growth in China, the world’s biggest auto market, over the past year.

The bulk of GM’s were still by SAIC-GM-Wuling, GM’s minivehicle joint venture, which sold 110,315 units, up 37.7 percent from the year before, the company reported.

Sales by GM’s flagship in China, Shanghai GM, climbed 65.7 percent to 58,182 units, with demand for Chevrolet models accounting for more than 40,000 of that total. Sales of Cadillacs more than tripled to over 900 units.

GM’s sales in China climbed nearly 74 percent from a year earlier in the first two months of the year, to 393,498 units.

Analysts expect sales growth to slow this year, though so far the market has kept relatively strong momentum.

Source : Konaxis

The Detroit-based GM, which is working on a restructuring plan that should be finished by the U.S. government-imposed June 1 deadline, said that April China sales including domestic joint ventures totalled 151,084 vehicles.

March was also a record-breaking month when sales reached a total of 137,004 vehicles, a rise of 24.6 percent.

China’s auto market has overtaken the United States as the world’s largest in January, and has been a leading bright spot for the struggling global auto industry which benefits from the rise in demand resulting from government incentives.

The overall market in March posted sales growth of more than 10 percent.

“Coming off a record month in March, GM is very satisfied with the ongoing strength in domestic sales of both of our joint ventures,” GM China Group President Kevin Wale said in a statement on Tuesday.

GM’s Asia-Pacific chief, Nick Reilly, said at the Shanghai Auto Show last month that the future success of the company depended on the Asia-Pacific region, and said of China: “We’ve placed it right on the top of the priority list.”

The company’s SAIC-GM-Wuling mini-commercial vehicle joint venture posted a particularly robust 60.6 percent surge in sales to 95,544 units in April, led by the Wuling Sunshine minivan

GM officials said last month at the Shanghai Auto Show that the company intends to keep growing in China regardless of how its current financial situation is resolved.

GM plans to double its sales in China to about 2 million vehicles a year within the next five years.

Source : Konaxis