Nissan says 2014 China sales up 0.5%

[SHANGHAI] Nissan Motor Co and its Chinese joint venture partner sold 1.22 million vehicles in China in 2014, up 0.5 per cent from the previous year, the Japanese carmaker said on Wednesday.

In the month of December, Nissan sold 121,900 vehicles, down 9.1 per cent from a year earlier, the sixth straight month the carmaker has seen sales decline in China.

Japanese carmakers in China have faced the twin challenges of a slowing economy and political tension between Beijing and Tokyo over the past year. The growth rate of China's auto market, the world's biggest, halved to around 7 per cent in 2014.

Nissan, which operates a car venture in China with Dongfeng Motor Group Co Ltd, revised its 2014 China forecast in November to reflect slowing sales.

Rival Toyota Motor Corp forecast on Tuesday that its pace of growth in China would halve to 6.8 per cent in 2015 after it failed to meet last year's target.

REUTERS