Hyundai motor's China output tops 3 mln units

Hyundai Motor Co., South Korea's largest carmaker, said Wednesday its cumulative auto production in China has exceeded 3 million vehicles. The milestone was reached about eight years after Hyundai Motor's joint venture in China was set up in October 2002, the company said in a statement. Hyundai Motor was the fifth car manufacturer in China to achieve the milestone after Yiqi Volkswagen, Shanghai Volkswagen, Shanghai GM and Chery Automobile Co. It took 29 years for Yiqi Volkswagen to produce 3 million units, 22 years for Shanghai Volkswagen, 13 years for Shanghai GM and 14 years for Chery Automobile. Hyundai Motor, which now has an annual output capacity of 600,000 units, expects to increase the capacity to 1 million units a year when it opens its third plant in the world's No. 2 auto market next year. The South Korean automaker earlier said 363,473 units of its vehicles were sold in the January-June period, compared with 328,692 units a year earlier. The figure marks 50.5 percent of its full-year goal of 720,000 units. Hyundai officials estimated that the maker grabbed a 6.3 percent share of the Chinese market in the first half, making it the fourth-largest automobile seller in China. China overtook the United States as the world's largest automobile market in 2009 and 2010. Last year, the world's No. 2 economy saw its auto sales surge more than 32 percent on-year to hit 18.06 million vehicles.