BYD cuts vehicle prices to boost sales
BYD Co. has cut vehicle prices as much as 19 percent in a bid to give stagnant sales a much-needed boost.
The private Chinese carmaker this month reduced the prices of all its gasoline-powered vehicles -- the F0, F3, F3R, G3 and F6 cars -- by 4,000 ($600) to 15,000 yuan. Those price cuts range from 10 percent to 19 percent.
BYD's entry-level car, the F0 small sedan, now sells for 46,900 yuan.
The company is cutting prices to "seize more market share and lay a solid foundation for strong enterprise growth in 2011," BYD said in a statement.
After surging in 2009, BYD's sales ran out of steam last year. It sold 519,800 cars in 2010, up 17 percent from a year earlier. But that was well below the average industry sales gain of 32 percent.
Last month, BYD's sales dropped 15 percent year-on-year to 52,100 units, making the company the first automaker to report a sales slump in China since the beginning of 2011.
