German automaker Volkswagen AG's China unit launched its comeback model, the Sagitar, on Sunday, saying it is confident it can arrest a decline in its market share by focusing on specific types of car buyers.

The Sagitar, pronounced "saw-gee-tar," is aimed at highly educated, fashionable buyers in their mid-thirties who want speed and excitement.

The Sagitar, pronounced "saw-gee-tar," is aimed at highly educated, fashionable buyers in their mid-thirties who want speed and excitement, said Weiming Soh, VW Group China's executive president for sales and marketing.

Soh said pricing for the Sagitar, known as the Jetta in Europe, would be announced later. The new flagship vehicle for VW in China, the mid-sized sedan is "the best example of Germany engineering and quality brought to China," he said.

VW units in China reported a 40 percent rise in sales in the first quarter of this year over the same period of 2005, with a market share of 17.6 percent.

The company entered China 21 years ago, before its biggest competitors, and long dominated the market with its Santana and Audi models. In the 1990s, it claimed a market share of over 50 percent.

However, recent years have seen a slew of new competitors begin production in China and the German company has appeared slow to respond with more choices and better prices, quality and service.

VW saw sales at its 20-year-old joint venture with Shanghai Automobile Industrial Corp. plunge 60 percent early in 2005 as demand shifted toward individual car buyers and away from corporate and government fleets.

The company is now shifting to a more "customer focused" strategy, Soh said.

"We think that if we continue to do what we're doing we will be able to defend what we have now," he said.

VW announced earlier that it plans to introduce up to 12 new models in China by 2009 while cutting costs and improving service in hopes of regaining its eroding market share.

The company's new "Olympic plan" ¡ª so named because it emphasizes teamwork and finishes in 2008, the year of the Beijing Summer Games ¡ª is aimed at increasing product differentiation even as it boosts cooperation to reduce costs between its two Chinese joint venture partners.

The plan includes boosting use of locally produced components and centralizing parts purchasing and power train development to lower local material costs.