CHEVY SELLS 2.35M VEHICLES IN FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR, BEST IN 100 YEARS

By Zach Bowman, autoblog.com - General Motors has announced that Chevrolet managed to sell a total of 2.35 million vehicles across 120 countries in the first half of 2011, marking the best half-year in the company's history. That figure marks an increase of 286,499 vehicles over the same period last year thanks to record sales in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, Denmark, Ecuador, France, South Africa and Turkey. The automaker also says that the swell is due in part to sales increases across its top five markets. Those include the U.S., Brazil, China, Russia and Canada. In other words, sales are up ... pretty much everywhere.

Russia saw the greatest increase with its Chevrolet sales up 54 percent compared to the same time period in 2010. General Motors attributes the increase to a wave of new models that include the Cruze, Spark, Sonic/Aveo and the Orlando. All told, the company managed to move a staggering 330,000 Cruze models in the first months of 2011, globally, which is a 132-percent increase over last year. Since the company has sold nearly 800,000 Cruze units since the model's debut in 2009, Chevrolet expects to break the 1 million unit barrier by the end of this year.