Dongfeng looking abroad in bid to boost own-brand sales

Dongfeng Motor Corp, the second-biggest Chinese auto group, is planning an aggressive strategy to increase the overseas sales of its own brand, according to the company.

The partner of Nissan, Honda, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Kia announced on Friday that it aims to boost overseas sales of vehicles under its own brand from last year's figure of 63,800 units to 300,000 units a year by 2016.

The overseas market is expected to account for 10 percent of the overall sales of vehicles under its own nameplate in 2016, according to the group.

Zhu Fushou, general manager of the Wuhan-based company, said its business abroad will shift from the trade of vehicles and spare parts to the export of capital and technologies to achieve the ambitious target.

Dongfeng plans "strategic investment" abroad for brand promotion, assembly plants, joint ventures and regional operation centers, he said.

The company set up an international business unit in the second half of last year to coordinate the overseas activities of its different branches, which operated separately in the past.

Dongfeng's brand lineup includes passenger cars, minibuses and trucks. The group said Fengsheng, its brand of passenger cars, plans to kick off overseas sales next year and aims to ship a total of 90,000 units abroad by 2016.

A range of other Chinese automakers, such as Geely, Great Wall and Chery, are also speeding up exports and planning to build plants abroad.

Miao Wei, minister of Industry and Information Technology, said last month that China's vehicle exports are expected to exceed 1 million units within the next one or two years due to automakers' growing efforts to go abroad and the maturity of their products.

Vehicle exports from China surged by 50 percent to 824,000 units last year, according to data from the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers. In the first two months of this year, vehicle exports grew 23.5 percent year on year to 117,500 units.

At the 12th Beijing Auto Show, which opened to the media today, Dongfeng and its joint ventures with foreign partners are displaying a total of 111 vehicles, more than half of which are models under the company's own brand. It is Dongfeng's strongest exhibition to date, according to the company.

Dongfeng's three joint ventures with Honda, PSA Peugeot Citroen and Kia make passenger cars under these foreign brands.

In its partnership with Nissan, Dongfeng builds passenger cars under the Nissan brand and its own.

The group announced earlier this year that it expects to sell a total of 3.3 million vehicles in 2012, up from 3.06 million units last year.

It aims to grow sales revenue from 400 billion yuan in 2011 to 420 billion yuan this year.

In the first quarter of this year, the group's sales rose by 5.05 percent year-on-year to 832,600 vehicles.

gongzhengzheng@chinadaily.com.cn