Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that it has increased its production capacity by 30 percent to meet surging demand, a measure it plans to keep in place through the Lunar New Year holiday.
The company, which sells Luxgen cars and manufactures vehicles for Yulon Nissan Motor Co (裕隆日產), raised its monthly production target from between 4,000 and 4,500 units to 6,000, Yulon president Yao Chen-hsiang (姚振祥) told a press conference.
“To meet the ramp-up in production, our factory workers will have to work two hours more every day on weekdays and come in on Saturdays as well,” Yao said, adding that the automaker is considering hiring more employees to accommodate the increased workload.
As of yesterday, Yulon Nissan has sold 5,000 units of its Super Sentra sedan, which was launched on Oct. 23, but has only delivered 4,000, Yao said.
Yao added that orders for Yulon’s Luxgen U6 Turbo sport utility vehicle (SUV) had reached 2,000 as of yesterday, exceeding the company’s expectations.
When the U6 Turbo SUV was launched on Nov. 11, the company had estimated that the model would sell 500 units a month. The carmaker will start distributing the SUV at the beginning of next month, he said.
According to the company president, Yulon will be able to provide enough Luxgen vehicles to meet customer demand by the end of the Lunar New Year, as well as deliver all the Super Sentras that Yulon Nissan needs by the end of the first quarter next year.
Since most carmakers will promote their new models at an upcoming Taipei car show — to be held between Dec. 28 and Jan. 5 — the anticipated uptick in demand may last until the Lunar New Year.
Yao said the business will decide whether to maintain its high production level based on market sentiment after the holiday.
Yulon now expects its profit for this quarter to be higher than the NT$651.61 million (US$21.86 million), or NT$0.45 per share, that it recorded last quarter.
In addition to selling Luxgen cars, Yulon owns a 41.21 percent stake in China Motors Corp (中華汽車) and 50.58 percent of Yulon Nissan’s shares.
Statistics from January through Dec. 10 put Yulon Nissan as the nation’s second-largest car distributor, with a market share of 11.8 percent, while China Motors is No. 3 with an 11.4 percent stake in the market.
Yulon expects the car market to perform better next year than it did this year, when 370,000 units were sold, as the global economy shows signs of improvement.
“The better economic conditions in Europe and the US will benefit Taiwanese exports, increasing consumption and car sales,” Yulon senior vice president Charles Shiau (蕭明輝) said.
Shiau also said that the company will delay submitting a plan to redevelop its abandoned factory in New Taipei City (新北市) to the local government for review until the first quarter of next year, — instead of in the fourth quarter of this year — because the project is very complicated.
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