Volkswagen Hopes to Triple Sales in South China by 2018

German carmaker Volkswagen plans to triple sales of its vehicles in South China by 2018, the year when, coincidental or not, it plans on overtaking Toyota. This would mean the German group will sell some 2 million vehicle in the entire China by that time, double the size recorded today.

"The extraordinary growth in our sales volume in China will continue to accelerate our pace of development and may well achieve far ahead of our schedule of 2018 of 2m units," Winfried Vahland, Volkswagen China operations CEO said in an interview with Reuters.

Volkswagen's main target, south China, is Toyota's playground. Whereas Volkswagen is the dominant carmaker in the north and east, where it has a 30 percent market share thanks to its partnership with SAIC and FAW, in the south VW only holds 12 percent.

"South China is today one of the wealthiest and most developed markets within Asia," Vahland added.

The German group has already expressed its desire to build a new facility to the south of the country, together with Chinese partners FAW VW and Shanghai VW, as part of its "South Strategy" campaign.

"China is currently a spotlight in the international automotive market," Vahland concluded. "The increase of our deliveries to customers has been in line with the market growth in China, which benefited from the effectiveness and the success of the Chinese government's incentive automotive policy."

According to the latest rumors, Volkswagen plans to launch no less than 20 new models on the Chinese market in between 2010 and 2012. Together with its partners, of course.