(Yicai) Dec. 9 -- SAIC Motor has appointed Zhou Xing, formerly head of marketing at one of its joint ventures, as the new boss of the Chinese company’s MG brand, as it seeks to revive sales of the sports marque in China.

Zhou has worked in various positions at SAIC-GM-Wuling, including director of the JV’s marketing center. He briefly joined Xiaomi Auto from August 2022 to February 2023 as head of marketing, but returned to SAIC-GM-Wuling after only half a year.

During his tenure at SAIC-GM-Wuling, Zhou was involved in the creation of popular products including the Hongguang Mini EV, a battery electric city car.

Zhou is the second top executive from SAIC-GM-Wuling to be moved to another part of the company recently. In August, Xue Haitao, former deputy general manager of SAIC-GM-Wuling, was made deputy GM of joint venture SAIC-GM, mainly responsible for marketing.

MG’s global sales have grown steadily over the past few years, reaching 840,000 last year, up from 300,000 in 2019. But it has fared less well in China, where annual sales have been stuck between 80,000 and 180,000 since 2019.

They reached 100,000 last year, but only 65,000 were sold in the first 10 months of this year, suggesting a decline this year from 2023.

MG’s sales in the European Union have also been hit by the EU’s tariffs on Chinese EVs, so China sales growth has become even more important.

The target is to double MG sales in the domestic market to about 200,000 next year, Yu Jingmin, executive deputy general manager of SAIC Passenger Vehicle, said at the Guangzhou Auto Show last month.

Editors: Tang Shihua, Tom Litting