Ambitious Chinese car brand Omoda is set to launch within weeks and its management team is already setting sales expectations that would overtake established brands Citroen, Mazda, Dacia and Seat by just its second year.

Its first franchise partners are Endeavour Automotive, Listers and Peter Vardy, and more are expected to be announced soon ahead of the March brand launch. An initial 50 sites have been confirmed, with 100 expected by the end of 2024 and 180 by 2026.

Chris Clayton, a member of its management team, said Omoda’s dealer franchise model was one of the reasons he joined this company from Hyundai, stating that dealers are “integral to OEMs”.

Building brand awareness will be a top priority for Omoda when it officially launches in March. It means getting people to see the cars and getting bums on seats, as it wants to sell 16,000 cars this year and another 40,000 in 2025.

Such ambitions could rapidly take it past established brand names such as Citroen, Mazda, Honda, Dacia and Seat which all recorded less than 35,000 sales each in the last full year.

That means Omoda will use all sales channels, including fleet, rental and Motability, to reach customers - the aim is a 50/50 split between retail and fleet.

Clayton, who's responsible for building its fleet sales, said: “Overall, the strategy is brand awareness. It's getting the cars out there, getting them in as with as many customers and funding partners as possible, so as many people around the UK can learn about them.”

Clearly Omoda may not have a completely easy ride. Rival newcomer BYD, also from China, has had a nine month head start and has opened dealerships with many large and medium dealer groups which are already selling its new EVs.

And some of the established brands that have been under pressure in recent years, such as Vauxhall, Nissan and Skoda, are battling to recover some of their lost market share.

Ahead of its March launch, Omoda has just signed up to The Motor Ombudsman’s Chartered Trading Standards Institute (CTSI)-approved Motor Industry Code of Practice for New Cars. Chen Chunqing, CEO of Omoda, said accreditation to The Motor Ombudsman "demonstrates an underlying promise to consumers from the get-go that we are fully committed to delivering the very highest levels of service that they should rightly expect of our brand when buying a new car".

Resorting to aggressive sales tactics to hit these targets is not part of the plan, according to Clayton.

He told AM's sister title Fleet News: “The temptation is always there to just go and do massive deals. But with any kind of brand awareness you want as many people around the UK to be involved in the sales. So, doing one big deal is not going to help us there.”

Omoda is a subsidiary of China’s largest car maker Chery. It’s debut model, the Omoda 5, will go on sale in the spring offering petrol and electric powertrain options.

“We've seen a lot of new entrants join with sole EV products and they found it harder, I'm hoping, then we will in terms of brand awareness, because there's only certain customers and certain channels that are going to take those cars,” Clayton said.

The Omoda 5, which has gained a EURO NCAP five star safety rating, is a compact SUV, that will compete alongside the Hyundai Kona, MG ZS and Skoda Karoq. Prices will start at £24,000 for the petrol version, while the electric is expected to cost from £27,000.

All Omoda 5 models will come with a seven-year/100,000-mile warranty and seven-year service price cap. This is complemented by seven years of roadside assistance, automatically renewed with each service at Omoda's retail and aftersales partners, to encourage service retention.

A second model, the Omoda 9 will also launch this year in the larger SUV segment. By 2026, Omoda plans to have a line-up of 18 different model and fuel types. These will include models from the Jaecoo brand, which target the premium market.

Omoda's launch will be rapidly followed by the arrival of a sister brand from Chery. Branded Jaecoo, and positioned as a more premium sister brand to Omoda, it will begin with sales of the Jaecoo J7 mid-size SUV during summer 2024.

"With both brands, the offering caters to a broad spectrum of consumers, offering more premium and luxurious options as well as more mainstream vehicles, always with design and technology at their heart," said Chery's statement.

The Jaecoo name is a portmanteau, derived from the German word ‘Jäger’ (meaning ‘hunter’) as well as the English word ‘cool.’ Jaecoo is a brand designed to tread the line between luxury and off-roading.

The Jaecoo J7 SUV is expected to be offered with a plug-in hybrid powertrain and an intelligent all-wheel drive system, although specific technical details are yet to be confirmed. It's already sold in China, where it is badged as the Chery Tansuo 06 or Explore 06.