General Motors' biggest market: China

Autos

Joseph Szczesny The Detroit Bureau

3 hours ago

PETER PARKS / AFP - Getty Images

A mechanic works on a Buick at a General Motors dealership in Shanghai in 2011. China is now General Motors' biggest market, selling more vehicles than in the U.S.

Despite signs of a slowdown in the Chinese economy, General Motors posted record sales in China -- where GM sales now have surpassed the total number of vehicles the company is selling in its home market, the United States.

GM and its Chinese joint venture partners saw sales surge by 10.6 percent during the first half of 2013, to nearly 1.6 million, an all-time record that positions it as the booming Asian nation?s second-largest automotive manufacturer. By comparison, it sold more than 1.4 million vehicles in the U.S. during the same time period.

GM isn?t the only American maker outpacing the growth of the overall Chinese market. Rival Ford Motor Co. set its own record for the first half of the year, sales in China surging 47 percent, with demand up 44 percent in June.

Read more: Hertz, Penske Racing Team Up on Unique Mustang Special Edition

While several makers have yet to report their final numbers, it appears the two American makers significantly outperformed the overall Chinese market, passenger car sales for the first half expected to be up 14 percent, with June growth a more modest 10 percent year-over-year, according to domestic industry sources.

?We have seen strong vehicle demand across China, particularly in the midsize, upper-medium, luxury and SUV segments,? said Bob Socia, President of GM China, who said that demand in June was also up 10.6 percent from last year?s previous high of 236,207 units.

Read more: With Cars, Buying American Isn't Always as Easy as it Seems

Socia forecasts Chinese demand for GM?s passenger cars and commercial vehicles will ?remain robust through the end of the year.? That suggests the market will remain the maker?s largest for some time, despite the ongoing revival of the American automotive market.

That emphasizes the dramatic transition that was already underway even before GM?s transformational bankruptcy in 2009. Today, nearly three of every four vehicles the maker produces are being sold outside the United States, according to GM data.

Read more: Ford Mustang Topples Chevy Camaro as America's #1 Muscle Car

Ford has also been rapidly growing its foreign sales, but it lags well behind GM in the key Chinese market. The second-largest U.S. maker got off to a significantly later start in China and is playing an admitted game of catch-up, Ford CEO Alan Mulally only last month sweeping through China to announce several critical new projects, including a new $500 million engine plant in Chongqing and a major expansion of its Xiaolan assembly plant.

For the first half of the year, Ford sold 407,721 vehicles in China, with demand reaching 75,254 during June alone ? both records.

Read more: Adding a Teen Driver Can Double Family Car Insurance Premiums

GM, on the other hand, posted a 10.6 percent gain from last year?s previous record for the period to 1.57 million vehicles. That was 10 percent better than the 1.42 vehicles GM sold in the U.S. during the first half of 2013.

The gap is likely to grow. GM has set a target of delivering more than 5 million vehicles annually in China before decade?s end. Even if the U.S. were to reach prior peaks of just over 17 million, GM would have to achieve a massive increase in its current market share to even approach 3.5 million sales in the home market, several analysts noted.

GM China President Socia said the big Shanghai GM and SAIC-GM-Wuling joint ventures, as well as five of the GM brands offered in China, all had record domestic sales in the first six months of 2013.

Buick sales in the domestic market increased 16.9 percent from the first half of 2012 to 401,327 units, led by record demand for several models, including the original Excelle family, Excelle XT and GT, Regal and Encore. Buick sales in China surpassed those in the U.S. by a margin of 4 to 1 ? even though Buick sales in the U.S. increased by 11.8 percent 100,837 units, according to GM figures.

GM has 12 joint ventures, two wholly owned foreign enterprises and more than 55,000 employees in China. Passenger cars and commercial vehicles are sold under the Baojun, Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet, Jiefang, Opel and Wuling brands. In 2012, GM sold more than 2.8 million vehicles in China.

Toyota Prius Sales Top 3 Mil - But Flood of Hybrid Competitors Aim to Topple it

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Tesla to join the Nasdaq 100 as Oracle departs for the NYSE

As of Monday, July 15th, Tesla Motors will be included in the Nasdaq 100, a list of the largest non-financial stocks on Nasdaq's index. A spot in that elite group opened up when Oracle announced that it would be moving to the New York Stock Exchange, making it inelegible for inclusion on Nasdaq. The news seemed to please shareholders, and at the time of this writing, Tesla's stock had surged ahead nearly 2 percent. The company's entry into the Nasdaq 100 is a sure sign that its forward trajectory is nigh unstoppable -- at least for now. With an overall stock gain of nearly 260 percent in 2013, Tesla Motors just keeps on truckin'.

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Microsoft's hit or miss strategic partnership history

Are Microsoft's lame investments and partnership strategies an indication that its business is a mess? Not necessarily. Microsoft appears to merely be a hit or miss strategic investor.?

A Wall Street Journal column noted that Microsoft's partnerships with the likes of Barnes & Noble, Best Buy, Yahoo, Nokia and Dell are all lacking in some way. The implication is that Microsoft is limping and it prefers to partner with companies that have similar issues.

Another way to look at Microsoft's partnership issues is that it is a so-so strategic investor that has as many hits as misses. Microsoft also repeatedly gets sucked into distribution as a primary reason to do a partnership. Why? Microsoft has been playing from behind in multiple categories such as smartphones and tablets.

Here's a look at Microsoft's deal-making, the rationale and whether or not the partnerships make sense:

Barnes & Noble. Microsoft bought into the Nook tablet franchise and the e-reader movement. Barnes & Noble is retreating from the tablet market and perhaps Microsoft garnered some intellectual property know-how. The "Wook" never happened. Rationale behind the deal: Who knows? What the Barnes & Noble partnership means: Microsoft can make some spectacularly bad investments.

Nokia. The gimpy smartphone maker made a big bet on the Windows Phone platform. Microsoft and Nokia are now connected at the hip, but neither company is lighting up the market share standings. Rationale behind the deal: Microsoft really didn't have a lot of hardware partner options. Samsung and HTC were with Android. And Apple and BlackBerry had their own mobile platforms. What the Nokia partnership means: Microsoft still has the potential to garner market share globally with the handset maker and the two companies have to stick together. Overall, the Nokia partnership isn't a bad deal for Microsoft but will take time and patience. Without Nokia, there's no way Microsoft would be in the running to be a No. 3 smartphone platform.?

Best Buy. Microsoft is creating Windows zones inside Best Buy. Sound familiar? That's because Apple and Samsung already have turf inside Best Buy. Rationale behind the deal: Microsoft needs to sell Surface devices and needs distribution. What the Microsoft partnership means: Microsoft is late to the game, but Best Buy is an important partner.

Yahoo. The Yahoo partnership with Microsoft is critical for the software giant. Without Yahoo, Microsoft would never be a search player. Yahoo provided distribution for Bing, and Microsoft merely has to keep revenue guarantees going forever until it can measure up to Google's click-through metrics. Rationale behind the deal: Microsoft wanted to be a search player. What the Yahoo partnership means: There wouldn't be a Bing without Yahoo's distribution. Microsoft is now using Bing as a platform across its products.

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Dell. Microsoft floated some capital in Dell's going-private plan with Michael Dell. Rationale behind the deal: Microsoft sees some basic return on its investment and keeps a partner in the fold. What the Dell partnership means: Not much, but the two companies are partners beyond the consumer front.

The overall theme here is that Microsoft's partnerships may have some reflection on the software giant's consumer efforts, but also keep in mind where the company isn't cutting deals: on the enterprise side. Microsoft's enterprise business is humming along.

Source: http://www.zdnet.com/microsofts-hit-or-miss-strategic-partnership-history-7000017764/

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Asiana crash: Chinese victims were student leaders

BEIJING (AP) - The two Chinese teenagers who died in an Asiana Airlines plane crash in San Francisco were student leaders who excelled in their studies and in the arts - one was a calligrapher and the other a pianist.

Wang Linjia, 16, and Ye Mengyuan, 17, were students at Jiangshan Middle School in eastern China who were travelling on a summer camp programme organised by the school to visit universities in California, state media reported on Monday.

The group included 29 students and four teachers from four schools in the city of Jiangshan. They were to visit Silicon Valley, Stanford University and University of California's campuses in Los Angeles and Berkeley as part of an English-language programme, according to the Youth Times, an official newspaper in Zhejiang province.

Wang was class representative for three years and teachers and schoolmates described her as excelling in physics and being good at calligraphy and drawing, according to the paper.

The newspaper said a reporter visited the girl's family at a hotel and that Wang's mother was sitting on a bed, crying silently while her father was sitting in a chair with a blank expression.

Wang's next-door neighbour, a woman surnamed Xia, described Wang as being quiet, courteous and diligent.

"She was very keen to learn, every time she came home she would be studying, very rarely did she go out and play," Ms Xia was quoted as saying. She said Wang's father proudly displayed her calligraphy and art pieces on the walls of his office.

The other victim, Ye, also was a top student who excelled in literature and was talented with the piano, singing, and gymnastics. The Youth Times said Ye had recently won a national gymnastics competition and routinely received honours at the school's annual speech contests.

The two girls were classmates from four years ago and became close friends, the paper said.

The girls posted their last messages on their microblog accounts on Thursday and Friday. "Perhaps time can dilute the coffee in the cup, and can polish the outlines of memory," Wang said on Friday.

Her final message was simply the word "go".

Of the 291 passengers onboard, 141 were Chinese. At least 70 Chinese students and teachers were on the plane heading to summer camps, according to education authorities in China.

The flight slammed into the runway while landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday and caught fire, forcing many to escape by sliding down the emergency inflatable slides as flames tore through the plane. Officials said 182 people were taken to area hospitals.

Source: http://straitstimes.com.feedsportal.com/c/32792/f/640960/s/2e565242/l/0L0Sstraitstimes0N0Cbreaking0Enews0Casia0Cstory0Casiana0Ecrash0Echinese0Evictims0Ewere0Estudent0Eleaders0E20A130A70A8/story01.htm

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Pakistan seeks more energy investments

(MENAFN - Muscat Daily) The new energy policy will raise the generation of electricity to 26,800 megawatts to reduce the massive outages that along with natural gas and oil shortages have brought down Pakistan's GDP by more than two per cent.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will launch the new policy within the next few days, in order to partly fulfil his election pledges, which gave him a big majority in the May 11 elections. Officials after the cabinet's finalisation of the policy over the weekend said: "The new power generation will help the government cut down to at least half, the present daily outages from 12-18 hours to 6-8 hours by October this year.

The policy also envisages to reduce the electricity rates by "more than 30 per cent." It targets a "zero load-shedding," or outages.

The average generation cost will be brought down from the present Rs14.67 to around Rs10 per unit, by improving efficiency.

The key features of the policy are to concentrate on building hydro power plants for low-cost electricity and coal-based power. Pakistan has a vast river system and a major potential to generate hydel power, which it did in the first 25 years of independence, but various political and business lobbies and mafias prevented such plans for their own benefits, that led to the present acute energy crisis.

The policy will "encourage huge public and private investment." Sharif is expected to unveil the details of investment, foreign aid and FDI requirements in his planned announcement in a week or so. Energy situation has to be improved quickly. In the event of his failure to do so, Prime Minister Sharif may face the threat of loosing power.

Top energy expert Mirza Hamid Hasan, former secretary in Federal Ministry of Water and Power, says: "A well planed policy shift should be made to correct the energy-mix by shifting the focus from oil-based thermal power to hydel power. Serious efforts should also be made for early development and utilisation of the huge Thar coal deposits (the world's second largest, located at Thar in Sindh) for power generation. Greater efforts should also be made for exploration and development of new gas reserves in the country, which should be dedicated to power generation. The (completion) of the proposed gas pipeline from Iran to Pakistan should be accelerated. It is also imperative to improve governance of the energy sector in order to formulate power policies based on merit rather than vested interests, check power theft, ensure full revenue recovery, check corruption and reduce over staffing."

One of the problems adding to the present crisis for over the years has been non-payment of the dues to the chain of private companies involved in providing oil and gas to the power generators. The dues, so for, have piled up at Rs503 billion. The new government paid Rs322 billion of these dues over the weekend with the promise to pay off the rest of the amount shortly.

The government has also finalised plans to import 2,000 megawatts of electricity from India and more from Iran and Tajikistan.

In order to fully implement the new energy policy, Pakistan will need a wide and large range of power generating plants and machinery. It will also need a sizable amount of forex from the World Bank, Asian Development Bank and FDI inflows from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, China and US. One of the top sources of help came China, where Sharif discussed energy plans with the Chinese Prime Minister Li Keqiang, as well as state and private companies, during his official visit to Beijing, started on July 4.

Of particular interest to investors and oil exploring and producing companies in the UAE, GCC countries and Saudi Arabia, is the provision of the new policy to encourage present and new oil and gas exploration companies to explore new fields and produce larger quantities of these vital sources of energy. A range of incentives for these investments and operations is provided in the policy.

"The private sector will be offered fresh incentives of a wide range in the oil and gas exploration and investment fields," an official said.

"On advice of the prime minister, the energy committee of the cabinet has come up with an investment-friendly plan to increase generation, exploration and investment," he said.

"The new energy policy will prove to be a panacea for Pakistan's energy ills," Sharif said after it was finalised at the week-end cabinet meeting. It will phase out the use of compressed natural gas (CNG) by transport. Pakistan has more than 3.5 million cars and vehicles using CNG, which eat up gas to a huge extent. It makes Pakistan as one of the largest providers of scares gas to cars. Incentives will be provided to companies planning to establish hydro or coal"based power generation plants, Sharif says.

Views expressed by the author are his own and do not reflect the newspaper's policy

Source: http://www.menafn.com/1093677101/Pakistan-seeks-more-energy-investments?src=RSS

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Raw: Train Carrying Crude Oil Derails in Quebec

A large swath of a town in eastern Quebec was destroyed Saturday after a train carrying crude oil derailed, sparking several explosions and forcing the evacuation of up to 1,000 people. (July 7)

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Source: http://www.wokv.com/videos/ap/transportation/raw-train-carrying-crude-oil-derails-in-quebec/v5z6F/

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Dodgers hammer Cain, beat up on Giants

BOX SCORE

SAN FRANCISCO ?- Your eyes did not deceive you.

That was indeed Matt Cain on the mound Friday night. It only seemed like an impostor snuck into the clubhouse, slipped on his orange jersey and found his way to the pitcher?s mound.

On a night the Giants badly needed their longtime ace to come through, Cain fell flat.

He was tagged for eight runs in a season-low 2 1/3 innings as the Los Angeles Dodgers clobbered the Giants 10-2 in the opener of a three-game series at AT&T Park.

It was supposed to be a night to turn the page. Instead, the Giants fell deeper into a hole they dug with their just-completed 1-8 road trip.

The Dodgers batted around in a six-run top of the third that broke the game open. Cain was on the mound for five of those runs, and he also got charged with the RBI single that George Kontos allowed to Los Angeles pitcher Hyun-Jin Ryu to cap the rally.

Former Giant Juan Uribe, still garnering boos at AT&T Park for signing with the Dodgers after the 2010 season, had a monster night with seven RBI.

The Giants sank to seven games under .500. They?ve dropped 10 of their last 11 and 15 of their last 19.

Searching for answers?

So is Giants manager Bruce Bochy.

Starting pitching report
No one could have seen this coming from Cain.

He entered the night with a 1.82 ERA since June 2, the third-lowest ERA in the majors among starting pitchers over that span. He also sported a 1.93 ERA in his previous 11 starts against the Dodgers, making it seem like the Giants were running the right man to the hill.

But Cain (5-5) simply lacked command. He walked four, which was bizarre considering he had issued just three walks over his previous four starts combined.

After an easy first inning, Cain walked two and allowed two runs in the second. Then the roof caved in the third.

Yasiel Puig, playing his first game at AT&T Park, led off with a double. He scored on Hanley Ramirez?s single. A.J. Ellis added another run-scoring single. Then with the bases loaded, Uribe hit a low liner to left that got past a diving Cole Gillespie, clearing the bases and ending Cain?s night.

Cain?s ERA jumped from 4.29 to 4.85, and most disturbing was how badly he missed with so many of his pitches. He used up 75 pitches in just 2 1/3 innings.

Bullpen report
It was thankless work for the relief corps to bring this one to the finish line. Kontos, Mike Kickham and Jake Dunning went the final 6 2/3 innings and allowed two runs. The Giants have nine games remaining without a day off leading into the All-Star break, and it?s not good that Bochy had to burn through his bullpen so early Friday night.

At the plate
The lack of hitting got overshadowed by Cain?s struggles, but this punchless offense remains a concern.

The Giants collected eight hits, giving them just 15 over the past four games.

There were some bad sequences Friday. Ryu (7-3) put the first two batters aboard in the bottom of the first and walked two in the inning, but the Giants scratched out just one run on Hunter Pence's RBI fielder?s choice.

In the third, they put runners on second and third with one out. Cleanup man Buster Posey popped up and Pence took a called third strike down the middle.

That?s disheartening, even when you already trail 8-1.

In the field
Gillespie, called up earlier in the day from Triple-A, said before the game he likes diving for balls in an all-out effort to help his pitchers. He hit the turf in the third on Uribe?s liner to left and came up empty on the bases-clearing triple.

The Giants epitomized their night with two errors on a single play in the seventh. First baseman Brandon Belt misplayed a grounder off the bat of Mark Ellis. The ball deflected to second baseman Tony Abreu, who threw wildly to first for the second error.

The adventures weren?t limited to the home team. Puig, playing AT&T Park?s tricky right field for the first time, showed his inexperience in the bottom of the third. Sandoval drove ball off the right field wall that bounded away from Puig, who wasn?t ready for the ricochet.

The Cuban sensation went 1-for-5 with a run, and he?ll find out Saturday whether Bochy picked him for the National League All-Star team.

[RELATED: Puig's All-Star status]

Attendance
The crowd of 41,911 surely expected a more competitive game than they got. But those wearing Blue and White didn?t walk away disappointed.

Up next
Madison Bumgarner rode to the rescue in his last start, delivering the Giants to their only victory on their last road trip. He?s needed again to stop the bleeding Saturday. Bumgarner (8-5, 3.08) has allowed just eight earned runs over his last 33 innings (five starts). He?ll oppose Stephen Fife (3-2, 2.83) in a 4:15 p.m. matchup on FOX.

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Source: http://www.csnbayarea.com/giants/instant-replay-dodgers-serve-10-2-loss-free-falling-giants

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