SHANGHAI, Dec 29 (Reuters) - FAW-Volkswagen, one of German auto giant Volkswagen AG's Chinese ventures, said its sedan sales grew 70 percent year-on-year by mid-December in China, the world's fastest growing car market.
FAW-Volkswagen, a venture between Volkswagen and China's leading First Auto Works (FAW) in Changchun in the northeastern province of Jilin, sold 200,000 cars in the country by December 13, it said in a statement seen by Reuters on Sunday.
With that sales volume, the FAW-Volkswagen venture has captured 18.2 percent of China's car market share, up 1.2 percentage points, the statement said.
The annual production at the FAW-Volkswagen plant, which makes the Audi, Bora and Jetta models, would be raised to 300,000 by the end of 2003, senior executives said earlier in December.
FAW-Volkswagen sold 50,000 Boras so far this year, the statement said. It gave estimated figures for the other models, putting annual sales for the Audi A6 model at 35,000 units, while the Jetta exceeded 120,000 units per year.
Volkswagen also has another Chinese plant with China's third-largest auto maker Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp Group, that manufactures the Santana and Polo series.
Volkswagen has said the Jetta and Santana models helped it capture roughly 40 percent share of China's potentially huge passenger car market.
Senior Volkswagen executives said in early December that sales in China -- its biggest market outside Germany -- would rise nearly 40 percent to half a million vehicles this year and double to one million in 2007.
China's car sales topped one million units in the first 11 months of this year, posting a stunning 55.4 percent jump in sales compared with the same period in 2001.