China Pickup truck market grows steadily in 2007

165,000 pickup trucks were sold in China last year, up 14.5 percent y-o-y. Great Wall Motor Co Ltd, one of China's leading pickup truck producers, sold over 50,000 pickup trucks in 2007, making up 35 percent of the domestic market. SG Automotive Group, another influential Chinese pickup truck maker, sold 14,005 pickup trucks under the Huanghai brand, up 279 percent from 2006.

Shang Yugui, a Great Wall Motor principal in charge of press media, said it is still affordable for small business owners to buy pickup trucks, although fuel prices are surged around the world during the year. Therefore, the pickup trucks sales kept to a steady increase.

However, compared with 27.1 percent sales growth in 2006, the 14.5 percent growth in 2007 embarrassed the limit on pickup trucks set by a number of provincial capital cities.

Luo Li, market director for SG Automotive Group's passenger car business department, revealed that pickup trucks are 18 percent of the United States auto market in terms of sales, 65 percent in Thailand, 34 percent in the Philippines, and 14 percent in Malaysia, but only five percent in China.

Therefore, SG Automotive's president Li Jindian submitted a proposal, targeting the ban on pickup trucks for removal, to the National People's Congress, the highest legislator in China.

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