(Yicai Global) Nov. 15 -- The Volkswagen Passenger Cars brand will gradually turn its focus to sport utility vehicles, with 50 percent of the cars it produces to be SUVs by 2025, Stephen Wallenstein, chief executive officer at Volkswagen Passenger Cars China, said in an interview with Yicai Global yesterday.

For Volkswagen, a German carmaker which relies heavily on the Chinese market, it would be more accurate to interpret its focus on SUVs as a key move targeting the Chinese market than to understand it as a global product strategy, insiders told Yicai Global.     

The auto producer will introduce corresponding SUV models in single markets such as China and the US. More than 30 such models will be introduced by 2025, based on Volkswagen's development plan. By then, half of VW's passenger vehicles sold worldwide will be SUVs, compared with the current 20 percent.

SUVs are a continuously developing segment of the auto sector, with strong growth in various markets. This strategy is thus crucial for the company to obtain tens of billions to invest in electric vehicles and autonomous driving, said Juergen Stackmann, member of the board of management of the passenger car brand and in charge of sales, marketing and after sales.

Volkswagen pledged in March that the number of its SUV models will double to six. Now, it has fulfilled its promise, Stephen Wallenstein, chief executive of Volkswagen Passenger Cars China, told Yicai Global yesterday in the lead-in to the 2018 Guangzhou International Automobile Exhibition that runs from Nov. 17 to 26.

The number of sport utility vehicles under the Volkswagen marque will rise from the current six to at least 12 models by 2020. Another three new ones will be introduced into the Chinese market this year and the T-Cross from the SAIC Volkswagen Automotive joint venture will be the first one added, Wallenstein stated.

Volkswagen's first domestically manufactured new energy vehicle, the already in production Tiguan L (plug-in hybrid EV), is also an SUV. The company plans to debut more electric ones in future, Wallenstein added.

Volkswagen is a multinational carmaker headquartered in Wolfsburg, Germany, but the Chinese market means more to it than to its peers. The company sold 6.23 million cars worldwide last year -- up 4.2 percent -- 3.18 million in China, over half of its global turnover.

Recent continuous adjustment in the Chinese car market has already directly adversely influenced Volkswagen's performance. The number of vehicles it moved in the world's largest car market, dropped 10 percent in September, while its sales in the global market declined 20 percent during the same period, per the automaker's latest report.

This decline is attributable in part a slowing economy, deleveraging and an anti-pollution campaign, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

Chinese consumers have a clearer preference for SUVs than customers in the firm's other main markets. SUVs have grown swiftly in China in the past few years and the proportion they make up in the firm's vehicle model structure is over 40 percent, thus singling the country out as the regional market with the highest ratio worldwide.

Editor: Ben Armour