Peugeot's China Joint Venture To Produce 100,000 Cars In 2003

Autoparts Report, Oct 3, 2002

Dongfeng Citroen Automobile Co., a Sino-French joint venture, has set a sales target of 100,000 units for next year. Bosses at the company set up by Dongfeng Motor Corp and French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen said it marks the first step towards realizing its goal of increasing sales to 150,000 units by 2004.

They have decided to raise the sales forecast from this year to 80,000 units from an earlier level of 75,000 units. The decision was made based on robust sales growth so far this year, said officials at Dongfeng Citroen, which is based in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

The company sold 48,000 vehicles during the first seven months of this year, an increase of 34 per cent over the same period last year. The sales growth primarily came from the company's new product launches starting from the end of last year, said Lei Xin, a company official.

Dongfeng Citroen launched a new 1.4-liter Fukang car in November 2002 its first vehicle at a price of less than 100,000 yuan ($12,050). The company began selling 2.0-liter Picasso multi-purpose vehicles in May.

Sales of the Picasso had exceeded 1,000 units by the end of July. The joint venture said it had also sold more than 8,000 units of the 1.6-liter Elysee sedan since the launch of the model at the beginning of June.

Lei said private buyers remained the main growth engine of Dongfeng Citroen's sales. Four-fifths of the company's vehicles sold between January and July this year were to private consumers, he said.

The company has started to equip all of its vehicles with anti-lock braking systems in order to attract more customers.