General Motors Company (NYSE: GM) and its joint ventures witnessed a 12.7% year-over-year increase in sales in China to 249,734 units in Jul 2014. The sales were a record high for the month of July.
The healthy sales were attributable to domestic sales of 120,734 vehicles by Shanghai GM, marking a 6.6% year-over-year rise. SAIC-GM-Wuling achieved sales of 125,895 units in China, up 20.3% year over year. Meanwhile, the domestic sales of FAW-GM amounted to 3,105 vehicles, down 4.1% year over year.
Sales of General Motors' Buick brand improved 1% to 66,858 units in China, driven by high demand for the original Excelle family as well as Excelle XT and GT. Moreover, Chevrolet witnessed a 10.9% year-over-year increase in sales to 48,046 vehicles. The Cruze, Sail and Malibu models of the brand generated strong sales.
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Meanwhile, China sales for General Motors' Cadillac brand surged 58.1% to 5,830 units during the month. The XTS and SRX cars generated strong sales for the brand. Further, the Wuling, Hong Guang and Baojun brands had sales of 122,995 units, 55,008 units and 2,900 units, respectively, during July.
General Motors is aiming to expand its product portfolio in China in order to offer a wider variety of products to suit consumers' needs. The company will be launching 60 new or refreshed vehicles between 2014 and 2018 and 11 new utility vehicles in China in the next 5 years. Moreover, General Motors expects sales in the Chinese market to grow 8% to 24 million vehicles in 2014. It also projects the overall Chinese market sales to reach 33 million to 35 million new units annually by 2020.
At present, General Motors carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked automobile stocks worth considering include Tesla Motors, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSLA), STRATTEC Security Corporation (NASDAQ: STRT) and Visteon Corporation (NYSE: VC). All these stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).
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