Gasgoo.com (Shanghai January 9) - In a year in which Chinese automobile manufacturers saw very uneven levels of growth, Dongfeng managed to see its sales increase steadily in 2011. The manufacturer sold 132,000 vehicles in December, bringing its yearly sales total to over 1.47 million vehicles, nearly 100,000 vehicles higher than its 2011 sales target, Gasgoo.com (Chinese) reported today.

The manufacturer is seeing most of its growth in passenger vehicle sales, which accounted for 132,000 and 961,000 of its sales in December and the whole of 2011, respectively. Passenger vehicle sales in 2011 grew 27 percent from the previous year, while commercial vehicle sales, by comparison, fell slightly. Only 93,000 commercial vehicles were sold in December and 517,000 were sold during the entire year. Among its commercial vehicles, the Tianlong and Tianjin trucks were among Dongfeng's strongest sellers, accumulating 97,000 and 48,000 sales this year, respectively.

As for its joint venture passenger vehicle models, Dongfeng Nissan's Teana (16,000 units sold this December, pictured above), Sunny (16,000 units), Tiida Qida (12,000), Livina (11,000) and Qashqai (11,000, pictured below) all performed strongly. Among those, the Qashqai SUV's performance was especially noteworthy, as it saw year-on-year growth of 321.5 percent in December, taking its place as one of the best-selling SUVs that month. In total, the Dongfeng Nissan joint venture sold 77,000 vehicles in December and 809,000 vehicles in 2011.