Shanghai (ZXZC)- Geely Auto announced that its vehicle sales volume (including the Lynk & Co brand) reached 73,201 units in March, tumbling roughly 41% over a year ago, but skyrocketing 245% from February.

The sales for domestic market slid around 40% year on year to 69,869 units last month. Export business also took a hit with the volume plunging about 60% to 3,152 units.

With 48,414 units sold in March, the SUV arm outsold both the sedan and the MPV sectors, whose sales volumes amounted to 23,593 units and 1,014 units respectively.

Besides, Geely Auto sold 2,503 new energy and electrified vehicles (NEEVs) in March.

During the same month, Lynk & Co sold 7,369 vehicles in total.

Due to the continual impact of COVID-19 spread, the automaker saw its first-quarter sales plummet 44% from the year-ago period, only achieving 15% of its annual sales target of 1.41 million units in 2020.

Geely Auto hasn't adjusted the sales goal even though it is in all likelihood to encounter many setbacks this year caused by the prolonged downward market pressure, which has been worsened by the coronavirus pandemic. Some mainstream automakers like Great Wall Motor and GAC Group have lowered their targets to alleviate stress for dealers and save more time to recover production.

Geely sticks to its original target for some reasons. At the 2019 annual result announcement conference, Li Donghui, executive vice president and the CFO of Zhejiang Geely Holding Group, revealed Geely's cash level in 2019 increased by 23% year on year to RMB19.3 billion, mainly thanks to its great efforts to increase revenue, decrease receivables, cut operational cost and rationalize investment deployment. The strong cash flow is expected to endow it with outstanding anti-risk capability.

Moreover, the company has planned out an intensive new product launching schedule for 2020. An Conghui, president and CEO of Geely Auto Group, disclosed Geely Auto plans to roll out six all-new models this year, three of which will be under the Geely brand—a compact SUV, namely, the Geely ICON, a large-sized SUV and a compact sedan models. Moreover, Lynk & Co will release the Lynk & Co 05 crossover SUV, and Geometry will launch a brand new all-electric SUV model (photo source: Geely Auto's official website or WeChat account).