The biggest automaker in the world’s biggest car market looks to be on a tear. Yesterday, SAIC Motor, which holds a fifth of the Chinese auto market, said that net income for 2011 will have jumped more than 40 per cent to almost Rmb20bn. Unit sales picked up by almost a sixth last year, against a 5 per cent rise in the wider Chinese market. Not bad in a country where car sales were 14m in 2011. Yet investors were not impressed. Its stock price fell 3 per cent, admittedly after a 9 per cent gain in January.

One big problem may be that investors are nervous about SAIC’s inability to transfer successful tie-ups with Volkswagen and General Motors to its own brands. Sales within these co-branded car segments, which make up about two-thirds of total unit sales, accelerated almost a fifth last year. Sales of its own vehicles, such as the Roewe, however, were flat.

Another reason may be China’s slowing car market. Although sales are forecast to pick up by about a 10th this year, according to Citic Securities estimates, this is sharply down from growth of nearly half in 2009 and a third again in 2010. This was helped by temporary tax breaks on small cars. Growth is set to be strongest in less-congested smaller cities inland but Chinese brands are unlikely to be the biggest beneficiaries. Sales of other homegrown brands have also been flagging. Sales of BYD, the marque in which Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway took a high-profile stake, fell by almost a fifth last year; sales of unlisted Chery fell by 6 per cent.