SHIJIAZHUANG (Xinhua) -- Great Wall Motors, a private Chinese automaker, Monday said it outperformed the average growth of the whole industry last year with a 22.5 percent increase in sales in terms of units.

The carmaker sold 487,000 vehicles last year. Of the total, it sold 83,000 vehicles overseas, an annual increase of 50 percent, it said in a statement.

Last year, China's auto industry reported a 2.45 percent increase in sales in terms of units, the slowest growth pace in 13 years, after the government scrapped small-car tax incentives and imposed purchase restrictions in Beijing.

In 2011, Great Wall Motors' sales revenue jumped 31.1 percent year-on-year to 30.1 billion yuan (4.8 billion U.S. dollars). Net earnings rose 25.8 percent to 3.6 billion yuan.

Wei Jianjun, chairman of Great Wall Motors, headquartered in the city of Baoding in northern Hebei Province, said the company has a sales target of 600,000 vehicles in 2012, including 100,000 units for the overseas markets.