Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) plans to submit a development plan for an abandoned factory to the New Taipei City (新北市) government for regulatory review by as early as the fourth quarter this year.
To increase the company’s sources of revenue, Yulon Motor has long planned to transform the abandoned factory in Xindian District (新店) into a residential and commercial complex.
“We have assembled all necessary personnel for the development project and we aim to start the project as early as 2015,” Yulon Motor president Chen Kuo-rong (陳國榮) said at the company’s annual general meeting yesterday.
The Xindian site covers about 100,000m2. Chen did not specify the project’s potential revenue and profit outlook.
He said the company’s revenue in the first five months of this year was better than expected, attributing the performance to its investment in Yulon Nissan Co (裕隆日產), which distributes Nissan and Infiniti cars in Taiwan, and those generated from China-based Dong-Feng Nissan Ltd (東風日產), which distributes Nissan cars in China.
Yulon obtains about NT$2 billion (US$66.92 million) in asset gains a year from the two companies, accounting for between 60 percent and 70 percent of the company’s profits, Chen said.
This year, the company aims to sell 50,000 Luxgen cars in China, up from 31,000 last year, and it plans to increase the number to 240,000 by 2016.
To achieve that goal, the firm will add smaller Luxgen cars into the current product lineup, which includes mostly large and luxury SUVs, Chen said.
Yulon also plans to launch one or two Luxgen models in both Taiwan and China every year.
However, the company yesterday offered a bearish outlook for the domestic market this year, forecasting total sales would decline to between 350,000 and 360,000 units, lower than the 360,000 to 370,000 units it previously forecast.
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), the nation’s leading car distributor, yesterday also lowered its forecast for total sales by 2.7 percent to 360,000 units this year from the 370,000 units it previously forecast.
From Jan. 1 to May 31, domestic car sales fell 3.8 percent year-on-year to 149,748 units, according to the latest industry statistics.
Hotai president Justin Su (蘇純興) said at the launch of a new model that he expects domestic car sales to recover in the second half of this year on the back of sales perks and new model launches.
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