SAIC profits rise 140 percent in first nine months
SAIC Motor estimates that its profits in the first nine months of 2010 rose about 140 percent to 9.6 billion yuan ($1.4 billion), reflecting strong sales at its passenger car ventures and commercial truck partnerships.
SAIC Motor, the Shanghai-listed subsidiary of Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp., says profits for the same period a year earlier totaled 4 billion yuan.
The company has not yet released detailed financial results for the third quarter.
State-owned SAIC is China's largest domestic automaker. It runs 50:50 joint ventures with General Motors Co. and Volkwagen AG. It owns a 51 percent stake in SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., a commercial mini-vehicle
maker. And it builds its own passenger vehicles under the Roewe and MG brands.
In addition, SAIC Motor owns controlling stakes in three commercial vehicle makers: Shanghai Huizong Automotive Manufacturing Co., Shanghai Sunwin Bus Corp., SAIC-IVECO Hongyan Commercial Vehicle Co. and Nanjing IVECO Motor Co.
Year-to-date sales at the ventures reached 2.7 million vehicles through September, an increase of 37 percent from a year earlier.
