China’s largest SUV maker sales down in 2018

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SHIJIAZHUANG, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) — Great Wall Motor Co. Ltd., China’s largest sport utility vehicles (SUV) and pickup maker, sold more than 1.05 million vehicles in 2018, down 1.6 percent year on year.

The automaker saw its annual SUV sales drop 3.49 percent from a year ago to 905,500 units, accounting for around 86 percent of total sales, the company said in a notice to the Shanghai Stock Exchange Wednesday.

China’s auto market experienced a bumpy year in 2018.

Auto sales in the first 11 months of last year dropped 1.7 percent year-on-year to 25.42 million, making 2018 likely the first in 28 years to see decreasing auto sales, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Headquartered in the city of Baoding, north China’s Hebei Province, Great Wall Motor said it would further explore global markets in 2019. Its factory in Russia’s Tula region is expected to launch production this year.

The company plans to invest 30 billion yuan (around 4.4 billion U.S. dollars) on science and technology in fields such as active and passive safety systems and automatic driving.

Source: Xinhua| 2019-01-10 14:34:24|Editor: mmm