Great Wall Motors aims to triple sales, deems supply no issue

Great Wall Motors is gearing up to hit 18,000 local sales in 2021 after declaring it wants to more than triple the volume its stables achieved in Australia last year.

GWM executive general manager, Steve Maciver, outlined the ambitious plans at a media event this week in Melbourne, appearing confident sales will exponentially grow in the second half of the year.

The growth will hinge on new products it believes won't suffer from the supply issues most of the industry is battling. These arrivals include new GWM Cannon Ute variants and a hybrid version of the new Haval H6 to follow the recently introduced Haval Jolion.

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Steve Maciver, GWM executive general manager in front of the Haval Big Dog

Maciver said a growing dealer network will help – the firm wants 90 dealerships in Australia before 2022, building on the 80 it has already established, which is double than what it had this time last year.

GWM's volume seller, the Cannon Ute, will also welcome a manual and two-wheel-drive version in this year's third quarter. Pricing is yet to be announced, but it expects the new variants will add 150 extra sales a month.

With Cannon Ute and Haval H2 (which the Jolion replaces) leading its own internal charts at 2386 and 1694 sales respectively, GWM has sold 5489 vehicles year-to-date until May. That already represents a 4.85 per cent lead on the 5244 vehicles sold during 2020.

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Supply issues are not clouding GWM's optimism for now, either.

"We're very lucky [our] year-to-date sales number we showed you earlier on has been fairly unimpeded by stock issues, [we've] been able to get what we want [with model allocation]," the boss added.

"We've got good supply for a couple months," Maciver continued. "There are still a couple of potential question marks around semi-conductors, but at this stage, it's not a problem for us."

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Haval production line

GWM also remains hopeful about incoming reports from ANCAP which will grade the Cannon Ute with a safety rating – the first model to have one amongst its line-up.

"We're working with ANCAP at the moment on getting a score for Ute," Maciver said. "We supplied data last week, I think it was, for final stages of testing on [airbags].

"So that should give us [our] result in the next two to three months. It's ongoing. Once we finish working with ANCAP on Ute, and we have a score for that car, we can turn our attention to Jolion and H6 and so on."

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The Haval Big Dog and Tank 300

The product offensive lays the groundwork for future vehicles coming to Australia – which Maciver said GWM is seriously considering, such as the mid-size Big Dog SUV and Cannon Ute-based Tank 300 five-seater large SUV.

He also said the brand has its hands up for a Ford Ranger Raptor-style Ute to come Down Under, and has even discussed working with local outfits on a similar variant, but it's not at the top of its priority list right now.