Geely to expand production capacity to 1.5 million vehicles

Geely Automobile | Ash | March 4, 2010 at 11:18 pm

Geely are betting heavily on their brand expansion, which will see them expand production capacity to an impressive 1.5 million vehicles by 2015 according to Asia Pulse.

Geely is more famous in China for its low priced vehicles, but they have plans to go further upmarket with mid level and premium cars for the Chinese market and as a result in early 2009 they launched the Emgrand, Gleagle and Englon brands for their new range of cars.

Since the Volvo buyout Geely has been setting up plans for a new Volvo China factory located in Beijing, and also an R&D center that will be paired with its Geely R&D center in Hangzhou, China. The recent purchase of Zhongyu Auto’s in China appears to have been to gain access to a specialist production line where Volvo vehicles will be temporarily built until the Beijing factory comes online, however the Chang’an Volvo joint venture which was set up by Ford will continue to assemble the S40 and S80 in China until the JV eventually expires and will probably not be renewed by Volvo’s new masters at Geely.

Geely is also expanding its strategically located factory in Lanzhou which serves a massive growing market in Western and Central China, this factory will have its capacity increased from 50,000 units per year to 120,000 units.

Geely sold over 325,000 vehicles in 2009 and is expected to sell over 412,000 vehicles in 2010

Ash

Ash came to China at 18 on a whim and never left. Some 10 years later he collected a degree and a family along the way and now focuses his time on watching the Chinese car industry develop. He has witnessed the market change from being minor backyard market in to the world's biggest and most important market for all car manufacturers. You can contact or connect with him via Linkedin by clicking the 'Website' link.