SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s Geely Holding Group said on Sunday it aims to sell more than 5 million vehicles annually by 2027, a big jump from 2023, which it hopes to achieve by accelerating the consolidation of its growing brands and improving efficiency.
The target represents growth of about 79% compared to 2023, when Geely Holding sold 2.79 million units of passenger and commercial vehicles. The group sold 3 million vehicles in the first 11 months of 2024, up 20% from the same period in 2023.
To achieve a goal that could also place Geely among the 10 largest automakers in the world, the company will continue to consolidate its extensive passenger car brands into two divisions: Geely Auto (HK:) and Zeekr Technology are targeting the mass market and the premium segment respectively, they said in a statement on Sunday.
It will also deepen the coherence of research and development of key technologies across seven dimensions, including architecture, smart driving, cabins and batteries, within the group, which has over-invested in a separate research and development team under each brand.
The Chinese company, owned by billionaire Eric Lee, made a series of strategic moves in September to focus on its core business of automobiles after expanding into other sectors such as satellites, smartphones and banking in previous years.
In November, the company announced the merger of Zeekr with its sister brand Lynk & Co as the first major restructuring move as part of a planned revamp of the sprawling automotive group.
(This story has been corrected to record sales growth at 20%, not 31%, for the first 11 months of 2024, in paragraph 2)