GM China Sales Top US For First Time

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Jul 2, 5:46AM EDT

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China is now the largest car market in the world, having moved ahead of the US last year. Most analysts believe that 16 million cars and light trucks will be sold in the People’s Republic in 2010 while the US market will about 12 million.

GM, the No.1 car company in the US and one of the top firms in China, says that it sold more vehicles in China than in America for the first time during the first half of this year. Car sales in China have been up by 50% most months

GM sold 1.21 million vehicles sold in China in January to June — a near 50 percent gain over a year earlier — compared with 1.07 million sold in the U.S. market, according to several sources.GM released car sales numbers for the US and they were up a very modest 13%, less than many analysts expected.

GM has several advantages in China. The first is that it has been in the market for decades and has powerful manufacturing relationship with several local car companies. The only global auto company in the world that can match GM’s sales in the world’s most populous nations is VW. China’s Buick brand is particularly popular among China’s middle class buyers.

GM’s future may lie more outside its home country. It has begun to retool its Opel operations in Europe. Sales in South America have remained relatively strong. It is well ahead of rivals Toyota Motor (NYSE: TM) and Ford Motor (NYSE: F) on the mainland.

GM may have its IPO this year, and its position in China will be one of the most critical aspects of its success.

Douglas A. McIntyre

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.