Market Developments
Shanghai Automotive Develops Own-brand Vehicles
Shanghai Automotive Industrial Corporation (SAIC) announced recently that it was planning to develop five new classes of cars over the next five years. This is the clearest sign to date that China’s largest carmaker plans to develop its own brand vehicles.
The five are expected to be: mid-to-high end, middle, sport utility vehicle, compact and mini. The move would give the carmaker a full range of product offerings. In March, SAIC began selling its first own-brand vehicle, the Roewe sedan based on the Rover 75 designs it acquired in 2005.
The action appears to indicate that the company intends to move quickly to establish a broad range of car brands for sale in the Chinese market. And during the recently concluded Shanghai Motor Show, it showed off a car using fuel-cells developed by the group and which will carry the “Shanghai” brand name.
At stake is a car market that is forecast to grow 40% to 7.3 million vehicles by 2010 from an expected 5.24m in 2007. The country is already VW’s biggest overseas market. Asia-Pacific is GM’s most profitable region.
Date posted: May 07 2007