(Yicai) Oct. 20 -- Chery Automobile’s Chairman Yin Tongyue said he expects the Chinese carmaker’s growth to be driven by an increase in overseas revenue, with international markets already accounting for nearly half of its total sales.

“The proportion of the company’s overseas revenue, as well as the number of its employees abroad, will be much higher than that from China” in the future, Yin predicted at the 2025 Chery Global Innovation Conference held on Oct. 18.

Yin said that to become a truly global enterprise, Wuhu-based Chery must develop operational capabilities that match that ambition, meaning greater organizational agility, more precise decision-making, forward-looking risk management, and deeper cross-cultural integration.

“When our products are sold in Germany, they must have a German flavor. When they are sold in Japan, they must have a Japanese flavor,” he said.

Chery will encourage more century-old brands and global partners to use its technologies and platforms to achieve the goal of ‘In somewhere, For somewhere, Be somewhere’ in technological innovation, Yin pointed out.

He stressed that Chery’s globalization should not focus solely on scale and speed, but must be sustainable, building a new global image of Chinese autos as safe, reliable, and premium through affordable prices, trusted quality, and sustainable growth in overseas markets.

Chery has always placed safety at the core and most prominent position in product development, Yin noted. “Technology that is not safe will never be applied in our vehicles.”

As of Sept. 30, Chery had 17.7 million global clients, 5.4 million of which were overseas, according to the company’s latest data. The firm exported 936,000 vehicles in the first three quarters of this year, including 145,000 to Europe, a more than three-fold increase on a year earlier.

Chery went public on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange on Sept. 25. Its shares [HKG: 9973] finished 0.8 percent higher at HKD30.80 (USD4.32) each today, bringing their decline to 6.1 percent since being listed.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Futura Costaglione