Ford's China sales to stun Japanese rivals

GM and Volkswagen dominate

Ford and the Japanese carmakers are still no match for the likes of General Motors and Volkswagen.

GM Group expects to sell more than 3 million vehicles in China this year. Its volume in China is forecast to grow 8 percent to 10 percent over last year, when the US group sold a total of 2.84 million vehicles.

According to consulting firm LMC Automotive, the Volkswagen Group is forecast to sell about 3.2 million vehicles this year in China, up from 2.8 million vehicles it sold in 2012.

LMC says Hyundai Group's sales in China this year should reach 1.64 million vehicles, up from 1.4 million last year.

During the first nine months of this year, Toyota sold a total of about 636,700 vehicles, down 0.5 percent from a year earlier, Honda sold 497,261 vehicles, up 5.8 percent, and Nissan sold 885,700 vehicles, up 0.2 percent.

Since Ford began an aggressive push to overhaul and beef up its product lineup for China over the past two years, "sales have been growing in leaps and bounds", said Yale Zhang, head of Shanghai-based consulting firm Automotive Foresight.

That momentum should not only remain intact for the rest of this year but should become "even stronger" next year and beyond, Zhang said, adding Ford expected to start production at a major assembly plant in the eastern city of Hangzhou around 2015.