HONG KONG - Xiaomi Corp has won the approval of China's state planner to manufacture electric vehicles , said two people with knowledge of the matter, marking a major step towards the smartphone maker's goal of producing cars by early next year.
And it would be entering China's car manufacturing sector at a time when the world's largest auto market is wrestling with a series of issues, including a capacity glut and slowing demand that have stoked a bruising price war and hit supplier margins. Reuters was not immediately able to determine why NDRC granted approval to Xiaomi. Its EV plant has been marked by the Beijing municipal government as an important industrial upgrade project.Xiaomi, which owns the world's third largest smartphone brand by shipments, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The NDRC and MIIT also did not immediately respond to faxed requests for comment. The sources declined to be named as the matter is private.
Chinese factories, including those making combustion engine cars, were capable of producing 43 million units annually at the end of 2022, but their utilisation rate was just 54.5%, down from 66.6% in 2017, China Passenger Car Association data showed.